Chief Learning Officer’s “Learning Insights” series is dedicated to showcasing the thoughts and career journeys of chief learning officers and learning executives—the tireless trailblazers who are transforming the landscape of corporate learning and workforce development. In this Q&A series, we garner strategic insights, innovative approaches, and challenges overcome from visionary leaders worldwide.
CLO: What initially drew you to a career in learning and development, and how have your experiences evolved over the years?
Learning and development is in my blood. My mom and my aunt both worked in education—my aunt was a school counselor, and my mom taught for the Medical College of Pennsylvania and later transitioned to the role of staff development director for several long-term care facilities. I got my bachelor’s degree in English, theater, and certification in secondary education. I taught high school English and theater for three years after graduating college before realizing academia wasn’t the best fit for me. I bounced around a few industries in roles away from L&D for many years; I wore many hats and garnered experience and/or certifications in Six Sigma, business analysis, project management, and change management. Ultimately those experiences led me back to my first love: learning. In my current role as dean of Choice University, which serves more than 7,400 hotels and their staff worldwide with learning tools and resources, I have the chance to work across all areas of the business and wear many of the hats I’ve accumulated over the years.
CLO: What key initiatives have you implemented as a learning leader to drive employee development and foster a learning culture?
I believe that fostering a learning culture starts from within the L&D team itself. If the L&D team is growing and developing, and enjoying the journey, then how can they possibly understand the thrill of learning and putting new skills into practice to experience greater levels of success? I am most proud of implementing mass cross-skilling across each team I have led. The goals of cross-skilling are two-fold – greater efficiency and effectiveness of a highly capable team and better engagement and satisfaction of the employees on the team.
I often say learning professionals are professional learners—they typically love learning and want to know that there isn’t a limit to development opportunities. The approach to cross-skilling has to be flexible to the team members because not everyone wants to develop the same skills and capabilities, and not everyone will become good at everything they try. I employ an approach of options for opportunities, with a no-regrets policy for stepping back from tasks they try but decide not to pursue further. Whenever possible, I also partner with other leaders across the organization to upskill and cross-skill outside of the L&D space. This helps build business acumen for the L&D team as well as bring fresh perspectives to non-L&D projects.
CLO: What is the most impactful learning program you’ve introduced in your organization, and how has it contributed to employee growth and business success?
While the Pathfinder learning program is still in its infancy, it is already changing the scope of our L&D team’s reach with system size and franchise performance. Pathfinder brings learning to franchise owners earlier in the hotel life cycle. Previously, the Choice University became available to an owner and their hotel staff starting with opening and onboarding; The opening portal nudged that learning exposure earlier to help assist between when a franchisee is awarded a contract until they open their hotel. With Pathfinder, however, we make learning available even before a potential franchisee decides to pursue hotel ownership.
Many Choice Hotels franchises are first-time hotel owners and Pathfinder not only builds their competence but also their confidence. Our team has partnered closely with the franchise development team, which continues to identify the needs of potential franchisees, to ensure that the program is relevant, engaging, and demonstrates firsthand the value Choice University can provide to them as a new franchisee.
CLO: What is a common misconception people might have about the L&D function, and how do you address it?
That L&D is easy to do! When training is developed and delivered well, participants experience little friction in the experience which can deceive them into believing that it is very easy to do. Very rarely do people outside the L&D field understand the complexity of decision-making and the thought, care, and experience that goes into designing effective learning solutions.
CLO: What excites you the most about the future of workplace learning, and how are you preparing your organization to adapt to the changing landscape?
The potential for leveraging AI. It’s uncharted water for all of us. We are currently learning how to use and incorporate it into our internal content development processes. We hope that provides us insights that we can harness its power for delivering content to our non-traditional franchise learners.
CLO: What essential qualities or skills make a successful L&D leader, and how do you cultivate these traits in yourself and among your team?
Seeing my role in the organization as a support to the business has been the cornerstone of my success. This requires a strong measure of humility, listening skills, and a broad-based business perspective. First and foremost, I am a partner to leaders across the organization who help achieve their business objectives. My approach is to bring together their subject matter expertise with my team’s learning expertise—and co-create solutions that help drive business results. My goals are their goals. When they are successful, I am successful. When they achieve their objectives and performance improves, they will continue to come back again and again for L&D support. Also, it is important to remember that L&D isn’t just an output for our end users. Our own L&D teams need to experience learning and growth for themselves too.
CLO: What game-changing advice would you offer if you could go back in time and mentor your younger self?
I would tell my younger self that it is OK to say “no.” So often, people treat L&D teams as order-takers. They come with specific requests to create this type of learning or have an outline of exactly how it should be delivered. Sometimes learning isn’t even the best solution to help solve the business problem. It is OK to tell your business partners what your opinion is—even when sometimes that means saying “no.” Earlier in my career, I was more concerned that they would be upset with me or they might take their “business” elsewhere or go create something without me. However, asking thoughtful questions that seek to understand what the business wants to accomplish can be way more powerful—and make you more valuable to the organization—than just saying “yes” to something that may not make the impact the business needs.
CLO: What do you feel is currently the single biggest challenge facing L&D professionals and the industry as a whole?
L&D teams are constantly being asked to do more and to take on broader reach within their organizations. More often than not, it comes without an increase in headcount. Make no mistake, a broader reach within the organization is a good “problem” for an L&D leader to have. The trick is to find ways to work smarter, not harder. As an L&D leader, it is imperative to find ways to answer the call to bigger opportunities to make a difference in their organizations but must be done without burning out or taking advantage of your people.
CLO: We’re always looking to showcase innovative tools and technologies. Can you share one work or learning tech product or platform that has significantly improved your work processes and why you find it valuable?
My team loves Miro! It is a great tool for brainstorming and collecting lots of ideas, but also for organizing them for prioritization. It activates visual and tactical modalities that traditional brainstorming excludes, which leverages different parts of the brain, unleashing creativity and broader thinking.
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