Can learning drive organisational growth? We believe it can. And so does James Hampton, Head of Development and Engagement at SeaSalt Cornwall. In this podcast James shares his experience with and research on how learning can impact organisational growth, boosting financial, human capital and social capital success.
Can learning drive organisational growth? We believe it can. And so does James Hampton, Head of Development and Engagement at SeaSalt Cornwall. In this podcast James shares his experience with and research on how learning can impact organisational growth, boosting financial, human capital and social capital success.
Welcome to the Stella labs podcast, future learning today at Stella labs, our mission is to bust the technology skills crunch with effective, measurable, engaging training. We consult on design and deliver the technical and people skills and competencies you need in business. In these podcasts, you'll hear from industry experts and practitioners from the worlds of technology and training. They'll share their experience, insights and inspiration, and the visions for the future with you. Keep listening to start your future learning here.
Speaker 2:Hello,
Speaker 1:Welcome back to the Stella labs podcast. I'm Stella Collins, chief learning officer at Stella labs. And I'm delighted today to be talking to James Hampton, head of development and engagement at sea salt, Cornwall the clothing company, not the training company. Uh, James I've known James A. Long time. Now he's been a long time customer. And I really love talking to James because he's always got something interesting and new to say, so welcome James to our podcast. Thank you. You're welcome. Now we have been talking for quite a while now, James, about kind of, um, the requirement for upskilling in businesses, but also how important that is not just for the people to, you know, be able to do their jobs, but how important that is for business growth. And, um, I know your you've been doing some research on this recently, so do you want to just start off by telling us about some of the research you've been doing? Yeah,
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. So the research came about as part of my master's in management and leadership, uh, at Cranfield university that I'm doing as part of an apprenticeship. So there's a skills development being there straight away, but the research itself, uh, was driven by my interest in Peter saying gaze work in learning organizations. Um, and if you've read his book, the fifth discipline, he talks about, you know, learning organizations being able to be successful and, and the ones that seem to be, uh, have the longevity and keep moving things forward. And there's a lot about adaptability in there as well. Um, and what I wanted to know for my research was how, how much does learning, you know, as a, as a tool for a business really drive organizational success. Uh, and what I looked at was success in three frontiers. So as there's the financial success, that is generally the way that businesses look at their growth, um, but also looks at so, so financial capital is really when I looked at, um, human capital, uh, being more my world, looking at sort of how do we help people get better at what they do and how do we utilize that skill and knowledge to, to drive the business forwards. And then thirdly, the social capital because, um, the triple bottom line, the move towards sustainability and, uh, being connected to your customers more effectively, uh, is also seen as a bit of a driver for business growth. So I wanted to look at those three things and then look at how learning as an individual, a team, and an organizational level really impacted on, you know, driving that business forwards. Um, and I suppose what I've found from, uh, from the conversations I had, so that the research was, as you know, was talking to learning leaders and business leaders, um, about their perspectives on all of those things. But I've also looked back at sea salt and did some analysis on some of our surveys that we've been running to see whether those, the theories that were being presented, where we're falling through in our business, um, from the interviews that I did, absolutely, there were so many links to learning, driving, uh, uh, and in particular leaders being the, uh, important cog here of, of making sure that they create space for people to learn. Not that
Speaker 1:That's not them learning that, that them making space for learning
Speaker 3:Space. So they then being aware of how important learning can be to the growth of the individual, but then obviously the team and how that drives organizational success. Um, and then creating psychological safety, psychological safety, Amy Edmondson's research was hugely mentioned to almost every single person I spoke to talked about it. Um, and that's the ability to be able to fail fast, to be able to have open conversations, challenge each other for better decision making and better collaboration, um, that was coming through because what we're seeing is that that was helping people feel more motivated in their role. Um, and that was meaning that they're more likely to stay with the business because they're a bit more engaged with the business and to the employee engagement side of things. And that had a huge impact on your bottom line because turnover being one of the biggest costs. So business, um, biggest overheads, um, if you lose, if you've got high churn and high turnover, that's going to massively impact on your financial success. So I was able to at, so at least be able to sort of current have some correlation and some causation as well. So, so there was quite a clear line in my research that by leaders, when leaders were doing this, making that space, they were getting a better result. Uh, let's close the task doors from an 2019 point of view when everything was going well, when things was a little bit better before COVID. So, um, and we were seeing that there. And I think the trick now is to sort of see whether that happens. So I think that's in a nutshell, really,
Speaker 1:That was, that was beautifully described. You've obviously really understood your own research. Great. Um, so you talked about this kind of, you know, financial impact, human impact and human capital impact and social. So do you feel that in, in all those areas, there was, there was a benefit from actually supporting learning and people learning within the business?
Speaker 3:Yeah, without doubt. Um, and try to remove the bias that I have and my passion for learning and to try to keep that aside, but what was coming through, not just from the learning leaders. I spoke to, um, people that I spoke to someone who was a startup, a leader of a startup, uh, he'd been in business, um, 18 months, but he was already talking about getting some structure around development of his teams, very small team, so that he could step out the way. So what he was doing was creating that psychological safety, creating environment for his team to prosper and removing himself from the environment so that his team could get on. And it was an amazing conversation with him, but also, uh, talk to, um, public sector as well. And learning was seen as a slightly different thing because the, the conversation I had there was about learning, uh, the financial side of success. Wasn't so much of a thing because it was a government funded organization in the UK. Um, but that ability to learn from others around, uh, other, I suppose, other government organizations that had an interaction with them was also a huge part of the success that they had,
Speaker 1:Which you'd hope would lead to better kind of, you know, government collaboration and, you know, one, one department talking to another, which should be good for all of us. We hope
Speaker 3:Exactly. Yeah. Then the conversation was about public, the general public benefiting from the taking a more systems approach to certain things to think about. It's not just about us. There's are the things that interact with us. And we do think about those things wider.
Speaker 1:Now this, this is a question we perhaps hadn't really thought about, but I know you've talked a lot about systems thinking, so I'm actually, it's a fascinating area. So I'd love to know what, what you know about systems thinking with relation to, you know, that business impact and how, how thinking in a systems way can support business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's one of those subjects is really quite challenging to talk about because it can get really quite complex. Uh, it just in the nature of what we're talking about, but in the way that I see it and I am still quite new to it, is that the actions that we tend to take from a, a learning, or even from a business point of view is we tend to sort of look for a solution that's going to solve everything. But usually what happens is, is it's normally a bit of a plaster over things. It's normally a symptomatic approach that we look at, uh, and it's not dealing with the cause root cause or the root cause of the problem. And what you have to do is look at the bigger picture of things and try to ensure that what you're doing is actually dealing with the root cause, not the outcome and what we tend to have is we, uh, saying, Hey, talks about insistent dynamics. Uh, and there's a number of different systems archetypes. And, you know, this is where it gets complicated. Um, but what he's saying is that you, you can either shift burden to something else and you don't actually deal with things or you can, um, you can avoid the actual problem without thinking about the system that's at play. Uh, and in the other side of looking at is that there are flows of work that happens. So imagine a bath tub, uh, you pour the tap in, you say, open up the tap that fills the bath with water. That gives you a resource then of water, but then you can remove the plug and that removes the water. And what the systems think is that there's always a balancing act going on. If it's hot water, you're pouring in the environment around, it will always be trying to cool the water down. And you've always got to keep heating it up to create that balance. Um, and suppose when you look at it, human capital, what we tend to do is we pull in lots, we open up the tap of human capital into our business, and then we mine it. So we might at MIT and mine it, and sometimes we cause it so much mining that we burn out and then we lose the resource that we've got. So we're constantly pulling the plug on our resource of human capital. Um, and then we're always looking for new bits coming in instead of going, okay, how can we harmonize the balance of human capital that we've got in our business so that we don't lose it out to churn or turnover. And we don't have to end the, we can improve the skills that we've got within that backup if you like and keep it in.
Speaker 1:So you're keeping it warm rather than ending up with a lukewarm horrible bath.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Yeah. So there's that, I suppose that's the best metaphor I can come up with that hopefully explains it. But, um, for me, that's had a, quite a lot of the light bulb moment for me of thinking, okay, just putting people through courses is definitely not enough. I don't think it's ever been enough, but what we're doing there is just with all we're doing is opening up the tap all the time. All we're doing is just continually pushing people through things. Instead of looking at how we can find some balance, if someone's role is going, how instead of making them redundant, how can we up-skill them to something else? We know that person is engaged in the business. They, they they're part of the family. If you like, how can we utilize their previous skill and knowledge to bring them up into another part of the business rather than just exiting a big group of people out. And, you know, we're experiencing that right now. Aren't we, I think you've seen lots of businesses struggling and having to make the donuts is, I know it's not easy, but how can we, up-skill rather than remove and end up with people that are always in the same situation, I suppose that's kind of how I see it.
Speaker 1:Um, what do you think in that particular circumstance? Because I think as you say that is one that a lot of businesses are facing and it's, it's one that, you know, if we can avoid it, be great, what can sort of the senior team, the C-suite do in your view to support there, to prevent that kind of horrible loss?
Speaker 3:Um, I think it's about mindsets and, um, and how people see the world. So, um, if the mindset of an executive it's about sales only, and only about the figures, what you're not doing well, what you're doing is you're blind outside thing yourself to how your people can actually drive that financial, uh, ability. So, uh, for me, I suppose, going back to the research is about creating this mindset, that if people are self directed in their learning, they have the capability to learn for themselves and managers at school to be able to support and facilitate that development. What you get then is a group of people that are willing to move things forward that they're willing to develop themselves. They know where to find that development as well. So they're more self-directed in that. Um, and they are supported with space and time and, uh, guidance coaching, um, that helps them to get better. And they've got feedback and feedback for me. It's the, you know, the key thing here is that if I don't know how good I am at something, how can I get better? It's impossible. So part of upskilling, the team is helping them know where they are, where they probably need to get to within their role and helping them to get there and continually keeping that feedback loop going, but also finding something aspirational. That's going to keep that stretching them as well. The part of the research was S learning S-curves and that you have this increase of learning, and then it dips off after a couple of years. And we're seeing that in our business, we absolutely see that people's engagement towards the business drops off. So how can a manager continually stretched up person across that initial S uh, and then when it gets to the top of that S what's the next thing for them, and can they drive it for themselves or does the manager need to encourage them to it? There's a bit of a partnership there, I think for this giving up.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Um, sung to my hymn sheet, thinking about self-directed learning, because for me, that's one of the key skills. If we don't teach people how to learn for themselves, all the great training we might implement or look all the great work that you know, managers might put in with coaching is, is valuable, but we needed to drive it from the bottom up as well as the top down. And I think that's been really neglected. Um, and I think, you know, there's very few people who really know how they learn. There's a lot of myths out there. There's a lot of people thinking they know how to learn. And that's usually because we've come through an education system that also doesn't necessarily know how we learn.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, the education system for me is part of, one of the root causes for me in business, where, when people come out of the education environment and into business, their mindset of what learning is, is a classroom, someone in front of them. And I might be wrong here and it's unfair, but spoonfed in some ways, um, that someone's gonna tell them what to do. Therefore that's me learning instead of that, teach our children to be the South South learners. And I use my son as a reference for this because him learning to ride the bike, wasn't me, it wasn't me showing him in some respects in trying and him having the space and having the support and guide and, you know, and he picked it up really, really quickly. Um, and that, and for me, that's the same for anyone coming out of the education system. We've got to help them to find the thing and keep trying. And, and what's the thing that motivates them to get better.
Speaker 1:It's been reading Nick Shackleton Jones's book and the whole thing about, you know, what do people care about if we can tap into what they care about? They'll learn it. Yes, you can improve their learning skills. Of course you can, but they will go get started on it straight away. So how can we in business tap into what do people care about? And in my experience, and certainly the sort of companies I've worked with, most people have a real motivation for getting out of bed in the morning. You know, they want to go to work, whether that's to, you know, to feed their kids or because I've worked a lot with science companies and the number of scientists of metastatic, I just want to get a Nobel prize. Yeah. That's a real incentive to get out of bed in the morning. I'm not saying we've all got that incentive, but yeah. If we can tap into what do people want to do and harness that within the workplace. And I think that isn't done enough. I think there is that kind of old mentality. We've got these people let's make them do stuff rather than let's, let's find a way for them to do the stuff they're really good at and they want to do, and then they'll do it anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. We, we spent probably a little bit too long trying to force people to do things that they actually don't want to do as well, and then wonder why they don't want to learn. It's like, well, they don't want to do it. You know, it's not what, that's not what they're here for. So, um, yeah, it's, it's difficult. And especially when it starts talking about compliance and mandatory learning, because for me, that's a big struggle, you know, when you're upskilling there's, uh, there's that real call of, of what the business needs someone to do and what they really want to do. And that's always makes life quite challenging. I think from that side of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think Monday truly learning needs to be far focused, less on the, the knowledge that you need, but more on that. Why are we doing this Monday to training? Because most of it is to keep people safe, it's to prevent accidents it's to prevent the business, um, you know, business risk. And I think if we could explain to people, that's why we're doing this training. That's why we're asking you to learn this stuff. And first of all, test them where they already are, the amount of compliance training. That's just, you know, CA can you tick these boxes as opposed to, well, can you actually pick up a box safely thinking the boxes? You know, it's, it's not, we're not doing it right. Most of the time,
Speaker 3:No, no current sort of see a lot of time. We're pulling people through courses that, uh, they, they know enough about already, but haven't had the opportunity to demonstrate. And as long as they can demonstrate and be observed doing it, then, then why would we ask them to sit into an e-learning package, give it has a place for learning, but you know what, continue to repeat doing things. I had a conversation with my performance and development manager and she was, she sort of said, can we do some of this compliance work? And, uh, and she said, I know that you don't like mandatory training, but I think we need to do it. I said, it's not that I don't like it. This is where we are. We need to find a way to make sure that it's actually the behavior change. So afterwards, if we've got to do it compliant, we've got to do it, but let's look at afterwards, not putting them through it again next year, because change things, it's just the same
Speaker 1:Pinch their habits. If you can get them to change their habits, then, then they won't need it next year because they'll now be doing the new thing. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So how are you linking the training that you're kind of providing and the learning opportunities within the business? How are you linking that to sort of, to business goals and business?
Speaker 3:Well, we have dropped that learning word if you like. So, so we, we, so I mentioned, um, performance and development manager. My title is development engagement. Um, and so w w what we're trying to do is help people realize that we're performance supports and under, there's been a lot of conversations about that in our industry, but what that allows us to do is it allows us to get really close to the business strategy. Um, so we're working really closely to our system sustainability agenda. Um, we've just put out our, our sustainability report for last year, and there's a huge plan that that's working really closely with our product teams and some of the upskilling we're doing there is around circular design. So, you know, I'm not a circling design professional, but what I can do is help people to work out how they learn around the process and how they collaborate with each other to try and try stuff out and how we make space for people to do that. Um, and so that's what we will support them with. We won't necessarily put them through a direct course on circular design. We may partner with a few, um, universities that are specialists in these areas, but what we will then do is give them the space to practice. And then what we will measure back is are we achieving on that goal, that strategic goal, and how have we supported that? Um, and the same from a digital agenda, but we're sort of moving to more of an omni-channel approach. So, you know, more, uh, uh, more different channels for our customer that just bricks and mortar stores, um, and looking at how we do that. Wow. Uh, and digital has a huge part of that. So we're, up-skilling quite well there, but again, we will look at how, how long it's taking for people to move into that world. And, and, and then go right back to that financial success to go, is that making more money for the business? And if it is, then we can tie it all the way back. And with our stores closed at the moment that makes life a little bit difficult. Um, so then we were doing is looking at departmental goals, their actual targets for themselves, and looking at how we can support each one from a performance support point of view. That means that we don't have to talk about learning because it's happening. We know people are doing it, but what we are doing is creating the skills for people to do it for themselves. Um, which I don't know much to sort of start alarms it's about, you know, the, you CA building that learning capability within the team. So we're talking a lot about, you know, how do you, uh, learn for yourself and what structures to us, the performance and development team have to deliver to help those teams support themselves. And, and, and that's where we're spending most of our time now.
Speaker 1:And something that strikes me from what you've just said. There was, you know, you talked about sustainability goals, I guess the goals the business has in the first place actually help you then drive those, those measures you talked about in terms of, you know, financial or businesses have financial goals, but if you've got human and social goals too, as part of your business, then actually that is, that is then measured. So it is about what you measure. So actually what the C-suite can do is actually make those ideas part of what they're looking at in terms of their business.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, totally. I suppose back to what I was saying, if you've only got a financial goal, you've only got that goal, and you've only got that measure, which makes the job of a learning development team quite challenging, but also the business, the C-suites check job is quite difficult because you're not looking at all of the other people. You're not looking at the bigger system. So you're only looking at one part of the system. So, um, yeah, and we're incredibly lucky that we have that, you know, I do see, uh, you know, it seems that we are fortunate that asks the C-suite is setting strategy along the triple bottom line is looking at all of those things because our customer gets a fantastic experience because of it, you know, and that's, that's really what we're, we're about, isn't it we want, so we want people to buy our clothes, but also we want them to have a great experience doing so, um, and, and also wearing them. So we have to be really mindful of that, the customer, what they're looking for. And if we just focused on sales, we would see sales drop because we haven't thought about other things. And then therefore we're going on, why sales dropping and then do something else. So it's, it's, it's having that view. First of all, is, is a better place to be.
Speaker 1:So it's also thinking about the bigger picture for the customer to, you know, recognizing that customers, aren't just always looking for the cheapest option. They actually had their own goals, aspirations, hopes, and, you know, sustainability is clearly one for many people at the moment. So if you can tap into that as a business, then it becomes a kind of really lovely self-fulfilling prophecy or you hope it does
Speaker 3:Well. Yeah. And also there's a little bit of a splice. I personally feel there's a responsibility, um, for us to leave the consumer a little bit on some of the sustainability bit. So helping our, our employees, certainly from a store point of view, be really knowledgeable about what we're doing, helps the customer buy better. So you, then you get that really fulfilling cycle going on is that we're helping to educate the consumer, uh, having them purchase, but even if they don't purchase with us, they might purchase from another organization that's equally, uh, sustainably driven that against you. We're just going to help the planet that way. So, you know, again, it's, it's sort of looking at how everything is connected, um, because the consumer doesn't just go and buy sustainably. And just for the sake of it, there's got to be a motivation and reason for doing so. So yeah, it's something that,
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're thinking about their future too, and the future of their children and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What happens? And I hope you haven't had too much experience at this James, but what happens if the C-suite doesn't support these kinds of learning initiatives or no, let's call them performance support initiatives.
Speaker 3:Oh, we haven't. I mean, I'm, again, I'm really lucky because, uh, uh, my C-suite generally let me crack on it. So, so they give the, I have that freedom and I have that psychological safety, I suppose I've been asked to hold a couple of times, um, uh, they may tell you that I'm quite persistent, so I've pushed quite hard. Uh, so I suppose what my job is to help them understand the reasons why I think that's important for the business and for our people. Um, and that's, that's my role is to, is to support them and give them the guidance that they need to do to good. Because the stuff that I might do might not mean anything to them. They might not be motivated by that either you move or human beings at the end of there just cause you're in the C-suite doesn't make any difference. So, so equally it might be an area that they've never heard of. Uh, you know, we, you know, I equally myself, I've, I've been, uh, up faulted using Alan de lingo and, uh, not being coherent about what, what we're doing. So by articulating, by communicating with them, um, to make it real for them, that helps things get over, get over the line are, um, uh, especially when you could a learning experience experience platform that we launched last year was it is a good example that I was asked to hold on that I pursued minute, uh, made it clear, right? Why I thought that would be useful. And luckily we launched it in February before I ever got locked down and we had a really good communication channel then to talk about people. So it's lucky that we got it in there, but I think having C-suite need to have open ears, they need to be, um, uh, available to understand. And by taking that they can make a better decision. Some of that might be, no, we're not going to go ahead with that. And that's, that's got to be right. It hasn't said, but if you are close to what your people are saying, then you're, you will be missing stuff, um, without doubt. And, uh, and you've got to be, uh, be okay that you don't know everything. And I think sometimes there's a feeling that he'd reached the C-suite so therefore, you know, everything and that's just not true. I think that's the reality. None of us know everything. So, um, yeah, I think being open is part of it.
Speaker 1:And that can be a challenge for some people, because, you know, there's this thing isn't there about, um, sort of psychological insecurity about how good you are and the higher you get, you know, the more you worry about this kind of imposter syndrome. So I guess for some of the C-suite that, that can be a challenge too, to admit you don't know anything, but I guess the way you're approaching it is quite open and, and being clear with them in the first place that maybe they don't know, but I think that's fine, but presumably also talking in their kind of language, but I love the idea you're educating them.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. It's got to be a mutual understanding that we're educating each other. You know, I, I come from a public sector background. I, I, you know, I, I am junior in the retail world. Yeah. What, uh, and, um, I've had to learn the commercial realities of a, of a private sector business, a family run private, uh, um, uh, business as well. Um, and so I don't know stuff, but if you've got that mutual understanding across the business and you're okay with being vulnerable, Brenae Brown puts it really great around vulnerability. So if you're okay with being vulnerable in the C-suite, then it's okay to have that conversation. You have an adult adult conversation. They're always looking for win-wins, you're emotionally intelligent, you know, you know who you are, what that means. And you're okay with that. Um, then actually it doesn't matter does it, it's about getting the customer a better deal and, and developing the business. And for me, that's then a much better place to work from
Speaker 1:This is, this is really, really important. So what do you think? Cause I know for a lot of people, there's probably a lot of people out there thinking I really want to talk to the C-suite and I really want to know the best way to talk to them. So have you got any kind of real top tips? You've talked about being open and honest, but any other top tips?
Speaker 3:Um, I think the first stage is building rapport, you know, with your C-suite, knowing who they are and getting to know them really, really well, their personal lives, because for me that allows you to find some commonality between you and what they stand for, if you know, what their purpose their drives are, that gives you something to talk about and something to talk to. Um, so I think that's got to be the starting point. If you don't know them, you probably can't talk to them or influence them. You know, that's the key here really is that it's trying to influence their thinking. Um, and then once you've got that, it's trust it's about, you're living up to expectations, it's doing what you said you were going to do and in following through on it, um, if, if you demonstrate that maybe you can't do that or haven't done that, then you will lose that trust. So, and then I suppose even you're going back and looking at yourself is probably a reason for that back to the first step. Isn't it? You, before you build the boys, you know what I know myself, if I know myself, I know what my strengths are and I know where my areas for improvement are, and then I can be vulnerable with that. C-suite as well then for Paul that way. So yeah, again, it's never just one way, is it, it's never a list of,
Speaker 1:There's never a silver bullet for anything you talked earlier on actually about, you know, people looking for one solution. But I think in, in this system, in which we all exist, there is never one solution. It's multiple solutions that as your, as you were saying with the bath water, you know, you have to kind of balance them up don't you? And kind of, if I, if I put some bubble bath in, does that change, you know, does that change? What happens with the bath water?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you can get, you get deep into, I mean, I started reading about homeostasis and all sorts of stuff in my research and you started sort of, you could get quite deep into this stuff. Um, but essentially we're human beings. We, we, we work in tribes, we work with people we trust. Um, and so it makes a difference. What hierarchy is there that the coming back to being a human being, um, how did you, how'd you build rapport with friends? How did you get to know people? If you haven't done that with the C suite? Probably it's probably not going to work. Um, and yeah, and it's hard work. This isn't easy, you know, this isn't, you know, you're going to do it. It's not going to work first time either. I think that's the thing. So being resilient for yourself, a little bit of going, okay, this doesn't work this time. What other angle can I attack? What is the way if I really believe this is the right thing to do, what other options can I take or do I need to speak to somebody else within that team to help me influence who the stakeholders I need to look, look to that are going to help or even proving proof of concept. So not telling anyone, not asking for permission, go in and try something and experiment somewhere. I go, look, look at what we've done here. This is really great. Should we do this a bit wider or can I have your support to do this wider? That doesn't usually need money either because so much is just about getting people to do stuff. So, um, you don't always need a massive budget and we don't have one. Yeah. We don't have a huge budget, but you still managed to do quite a bit.
Speaker 1:I think your, your idea of influencing is hugely important. And one that I think a lot of people are a bit nervous because they see people in the C-suite as you know, these kinds of, um, a diff a different race almost. And they're not, they're just ordinary people who, as you say, they've got their own likes, their own needs, their own chat challenges at home at work. They are just people. So I think that's a, that's a really important thing to remember. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's something I learned from my military days, if you know, someone's wearing in the military, you've got a rank slide on your shoulders, or you wear your title on your body. So it's even more imposing, but I was always taught that they're just a human being, pay your respects for the rank, but there are human being underneath that uniform. So if you are a human being with them, then that, you know, there's, there's nothing to worry about them. And usually that, that always, you know, enables a better risk, uh, relationship at the end of the day. So, yeah.
Speaker 1:So looking into the future, James, with a, uh, final question, uh, you talked a lot about the skills that I think we need in L and D, but also about the skills that people are going to need, you know, in, in work generally, what skills do you think are going to be the most important?
Speaker 3:Well, I think to your, to your Stella, you know, being able to have the skill to learn, um, it's, it's the fundamental basics, isn't it, people need to be able to, uh, know their goals and, and know where to get to, but also know how to do that. Um, and, um, that, that in its own, right, for me as a skill, I think culturally, are you from a UK point of view? There's, there's definitely, um, a push towards digital and there is for us it's sea salt, so digital capability, uh, and what I mean by difficult ability is just being able to use the tools you've got, because it's not about coming up with anything innovative, innovative, really here. It's about being able to use the tools that the business, uh, use regularly, but in their entirety as well. Because I think we probably all use about 10% of teams. Uh, certainly don't use all of it, um, uh, and a new and other parts of it. And even the outlook email that's been around for ages, I'd probably just use it to send an email and it can do way more than that. So it is it's those sorts of things. Um, uh, and I think that the, what is previously been called the soft skills as you look at the C suite, I'm hugely passionate about emotional intelligence. I think that's, that's, that's a big part of being a leader. Now, I think you can't just get away with telling people what to do. I think people will just leave and they'll find, find a business that doesn't operate like that. So from a leadership perspective, being able to, um, yeah, thinking of giving your team the space to be able to do what they need to do, get the hell out of the way. It's really kind of a, a term I use. I might use a bit stronger than that occasionally, but just, just removing yourself from the situation as quickly as you can, but, you know, starting off by giving the team as much information that can be, to be self-sufficient that autonomy and mastery that, uh, Dan pink talks about is, is a big part of it. I think so. Um, yeah, so I would probably focus more on the soft stuff than the, you know, I AI and, you know, and all of these other things, it's, they're all important. They're all going to happen, but if you've not got the foundation bits, if you can't understand how they work or how people work within them, then actually they, they're probably not going to be successful for you anyway. So yeah, the human,
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think if you've got that, you know, if you have a need to learn AI, yes, you clearly need that, but you also need to be able to communicate about that, to work with other people on projects. So you need both. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And, you know, and just mentioning communication, uh, as a whole, I think we think we're going to communicate this as human beings in general. We're not, uh, and, uh, we, we, we miss stuff. We delete stuff. We distort information all the time. Um, so being able to communicate effectively in our remote world is going to be a really big skill and, and keeping people from making their own minds up of what they're doing. And it's happened for all of us with sat. And I'm starting a, in a box, you know, in an office, lucky enough to have an office in my house as well. Um, and you, you have conversations. You, you, you, you make your own mind up and all of a sudden you've made 10 out of two and actually it's not reality. So being able to have communication and understand what's going on around the business is going to be a big skill. I think influencing
Speaker 1:I've been watching a lot of suits recently while we've been in lockdown and they are just absolute experts at deciding what they think somebody else meant March again, and saying, you did this and actually having the conversation about this thing has happened. What might have led to, I have been told they learned to be more emotionally intelligent as they progress, but it's a great, it's a great program. He wants to see emotional intelligence, not in action. James has been a real pleasure as always talking to you. Thank you very much for sharing your insights. And, um, I'm quite sure we're going to have lots more conversations in the future. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Bye. Thank you
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