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Case Example #3: Raising Expectations for Concrete Results

Leadership Development at Holcim

LISA BELL
MANAGER, NORTH AMERICAN LEARNING CENTER, HOLCIM

Some people love a parade. I love a challenge. Although, I can’t say that I dove in head first when the opportunity came across my desk to launch a Learning Center for the North American companies of Holcim Ltd. I’m not a corporate daredevil by any means. I prefer to take calculated risks. I had to be sure this was the right next step for me and for the company. Within Holcim North America, there are two independent companies operating side by side: Holcim (US) Inc. and 176St. Lawrence Cement Inc. in Canada. Both companies are leading suppliers of cement and related mineral components in their respective countries. Holcim (US) operates seventeen manufacturing plants and more than seventy distribution facilities, while St. Lawrence Cement is even larger and operates 100 different facilities in Canada. Together, the companies represent $2.5 billion in annual sales. The North American Learning Center (NALC) would be responsible for creating a learning culture across an enterprise of two separate companies serving almost 6,000 employees.

Patrick Dolberg, President and CEO at Holcim (US) and Philippe Arto, President and CEO at St. Lawrence Cement, posted the position for a director of the NALC in the summer of 2005. Both companies had historically made significant investments in training and learning, yet the CEOs recognized that in order for Holcim North America to be the best in our industry, we needed to do even more to develop our people, and we had to be sure that learning investments drove the business results we needed to stay competitive. They felt that a NALC could help identify strategic learning priorities that directly impact the performance of both companies (enterprisewide) and roll out comprehensive training programs that produce sustained results.

At this time, I had developed and was managing the central Staffing and Development Group at Holcim (US). Prior to that role, I had started the company’s university relations program. My background also includes procurement, account management in consulting and special events, as well as company relations work at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

Though I did not have much experience with corporate learning, I was all too aware that when companies couldn’t determine the impact of training, they tended not to see much value in it. If I was going to spearhead the initiative, I didn’t 177want to be in the situation of chasing return on investment (ROI). I wanted to be ahead of the game versus having to justify value and budgets.

Through my research and networking I ran across the High Impact Learning (HIL) Systems approach developed by Rob Brinkerhoff. From this approach and from my networking it became crystal clear to me that the key to sustained results from training was to tie the learning to the issues that matter most to the business and to get managers involved. Measuring training’s impact on the business makes a learning culture a culture of accountability. I began to realize that even with great intentions and top-rate tools, the NALC wouldn’t add real value to the company without a way to inspire managers to execute the changes on the job. It would be the managers who would have to help employees make the link between what’s learned in training and what they are supposed to do with it once they get back on the job. I began to formulate a vision of what a learning culture would mean to the company. I saw learning as an enterprisewide process, not just a series of isolated events. I could picture the collaboration between Human Resources (HR) and people in the field responsible for training—managers and employees—working to apply learning on the job and celebrating the results when business objectives are met or exceeded. I knew this was the right challenge to accept, and I knew I could help build something new and meaningful for Holcim (US) and St. Lawrence Cement. I took the job—and the challenge.

I was quite certain about where I was heading and where I wanted to end up, but far less certain about what specific steps to take to get me there. I knew too that, given the newness of the learning center and my newness in taking on its leadership, everyone would be watching. It struck me that my first foray into offering learning services had better be good. I wanted— and needed—to start with a “win.”

When I met with each of the CEOs individually, the same thing was stated in both discussions: Patrick and Philippe both wanted a learning culture and they wanted training to work— that is, to change behavior in ways that impact business daily. They knew that despite the strong commitment to development and training present in the two companies, we had not done enough in some areas. In many cases, either the training we had done didn’t stick or it was a “flavor of the month” with little follow-up or follow-through. Both CEOs expressed a strong commitment to staying the course with a new learning strategy and seeing sustainable results. I already believed that the HIL process is what we needed to use to shape our learning culture. Hearing from both CEOs individually that they wanted a learning culture and sustainable training results—I knew we were on the right track.

My goal then was to leverage HIL with our first initiative to get a quick win and begin to change the culture. But I knew also that I could not just score a win in one small area of only one of the companies. The initiative I opened with had to be important enough to draw support, linked to business results that mattered, and importantly, had to span both the Canadian and U.S. companies. Achieving my first initiative goal and effectively launching the department required me to complete three primary objectives. First, I needed to include as many key people as possible and ensure that my intentions were transparent, clearly working in the best interest of both companies. Up to this point, most people in the company viewed training as an event. Second, I wanted to get people to think of training as a process that involves managers. My third objective was to convince the organization that when people try to apply training to everything, it 179ends up being applied to nothing; but when it’s applied to a specific objective with success, it then has the best chance of getting applied more broadly. In my earliest discussions with senior leaders, there was a clear focus on less-tangible skills, such as “better leadership” and “more effective people management.” I had quite a challenge getting people to understand that “soft skills training” could indeed be used to impact a measurable business result. I began my campaign by hosting an HIL workshop for thirty-five people with training responsibilities or involvement (HR managers, technical trainers, line managers with interest, etc.). These individuals came from across both companies. They would be my grassroots champions, so their buy-in was crucial. Fortunately, the workshop was extremely well received, and they were excited to implement the process in their areas.

At the strategic level, we established two key stakeholder groups in November 2005. The Work Group was made up of a subset of those who participated in the HIL workshop, and the other team was a Business Advisory Group. This group consisted of senior managers in the business. This formulation gave me a critical mass of learning and HR staff who understood our conceptual approach, and a group of hard-nosed business leaders who would set our business direction and (I hoped) send a message of accountability. The Work Group was the team that would develop and recommend the North American learning strategy, structure, and focus areas that would be presented for approval by the Business Advisory Group.

We called our first project “Foundations” because it was about determining the foundation for the learning strategy and the focus of the NALC. Ultimately, we had to meet the needs that the CEOs requested of us. To make this happen, I knew that our key stakeholders had to buy in to our strategic direction and have a chance to shape our understanding of the key business challenges. With the help of Advantage Performance Group (APG), we interviewed forty influential business leaders from across both companies and began to draft Impact Maps that reflected our understanding of the critical performance and business issues. We interviewed all members of the Business Advisory Group and twenty-five more key stakeholders in the business. When we set up the interviews, these individuals expected that we would be asking about their views on training and learning needs. Our strategy was to come at these interviews from an unexpected direction and surprise them a bit by our focus on the business. In the actual interviews, we spent twenty to thirty minutes asking about business challenges. The interviews served many purposes. First and foremost, we had to get information about our companies’ key business challenges as well as those in each person’s specific area. We used the time to explain to these top leaders the NALC’s focus on business results. Lastly, the interviews allowed these individuals to have a say, to understand what we were doing, and to be champions—all because they were asked in the right way.

As the Business Advisory Group and the Work Group were forming, I knew it was imperative for the teams to hear directly from the CEOs regarding their expectations for what the NALC would be focused on and do. This would be a powerful and 181memorable way to create the common vision and raise everyone’s expectations for training to the same high level. So, I arranged for both gentlemen to be on the phone together at each group’s first meeting. This was how I could ensure that we started right out of the gate working in alignment with executive expectations. At the Work Group’s first meeting, we interviewed Patrick and Philippe in the same way we did the other key business leaders, asking them:

• As you look out the next twelve to thirty-six months, what do you see as the top two or three key business challenges for St. Lawrence Cement, Holcim (US), or across both businesses?
• What is your greatest fear about the people of St. Lawrence Cement and Holcim (US) not being able to deliver against these goals or challenges?

In addition to discussing the business challenges, the CEOs expressed their desire to see us generate the beginning of a strategic framework.

Allowing the group to hear firsthand from the CEOs was a strategy that worked well to raise expectations for the NALC and the two Holcim organizations. The forum also gave Patrick and Philippe the opportunity to listen to each other’s answers. Together, we saw our alignment or lack of alignment. Most importantly, we had the chance to demonstrate our focus on business results to the CEOs. From that point forward, after every key learning strategy development milestone, I set up a call to provide an update of the groups’ work to the CEOs. I wanted them to see progress, provide feedback to shape the direction, and make sure we were on track with their expectations. I felt it182 was also good for Patrick and Philippe to know our steps along the way. After five months of the groups working together toward our goals—while I was continuously selling everyone on the importance of applying training to a specific business objective—I had won a Holcim (US) sponsor and gotten the green light to test HIL in three business units in the United States and Canada. It is fair to say that at this point we had effectively raised the level of expectations within the organizations on the business impact that training could have. The somewhat scary realization sank in at this point that now we had to live up to those expectations!

Managers and supervisors in the three business units would participate in a program we had titled “Building Leader Performance,” which focused on improving coaching and performance management skills. The intention was to support the Executive Committees’ strategic focus on developing leaders and building these leaders’ capabilities in two areas: driving accountability and execution. The Real Learning Company’s Symphony and Conductor workshops were the training platform we chose for addressing the gaps in coaching and performance management skills. We built the HIL process around them to help drive accountability and execution and to ensure that the coaching skills would get applied in important job tasks. We would use Impact Map discussions between managers and participants both before and after the workshops to set expectations and ensure a strong link to specific business objectives.

Our sponsor, a Senior Vice President for the Southeast Region, selected a facility in South Carolina to be the inaugural demonstration project. We helped leaders in that facility create an overall Impact Map that linked the training to their measurable targets for safety and housekeeping, the business results that they agreed were most vital to address. These were issues that affected many areas of the organization, including manufacturing, 183logistics, and sales. The second demonstration project was at a St. Lawrence Cement facility in Canada that linked the training to a very different business objective: improvement in overall equipment efficiency. The third demonstration project was for another St. Lawrence Cement business unit with yet another business need; this group wanted the training to be clearly linked to an ongoing effort to reduce net working capital. So we weren’t just doing leadership development and hoping that participants figured out how to apply the skills on the job. Instead, we were targeting critical issues in the business and setting the expectation that managers would lead the charge for these critical initiatives.

Having training so clearly and tightly focused on concrete and measurable business outcomes was a significant paradigm shift in the two independent companies that challenged us to win the hearts and minds of two executive teams, two multilevel management teams, and two legions of employees. I knew from the start that getting both companies onboard wasn’t going to be easy. Because I had the two CEOs’ support, I hadn’t anticipated that it would be that difficult to get people onboard with the changes. Over time, I came to understand that the communication and leadership effort would be essential to the success of this first initiative. I also came to realize that this would be trying, frustrating, and oftentimes draining.

As with any initiative of this scope and complexity, nothing goes completely smoothly. This effort was no exception. One of the recurring obstacles that we faced was getting all of our184 business leaders and managers to change their mind-sets. Even though we had communicated many messages about the HIL concepts and the focus on business results, they were accustomed to making quick decisions about training and then moving forward to roll it out pretty much as a “one size fits all” and getting as many people through as fast as possible. As tempting as it would have been to go with the flow, I knew that in the long run delivering training that wasn’t connected to the specific business goals of the facilities would not lead to measurable value for the organization or a lasting culture change.

To make sure there were mechanisms in place to tie the training to the targeted business objectives for each facility, Building Leader Performance incorporated a daylong Impact Booster for managers of trainees to fully engage them. The notion of managers attending the Impact Boosters and then conducting Impact Map discussions with their employees was foreign to our organization. There was considerable resistance to what was perceived as “extra steps” in doing the training at several turns, but I recognized the Impact Boosters as essential steps for creating accountability and alignment. I was tenacious about the importance of these steps and had to relentlessly repeat the message throughout the implementation. There were temptations, I admit, to offer a shorter version of the Impact Booster, but since managers themselves had asked to experience at least a part of the training, I held fast to the one-day format. If some did not participate as a result, so be it—I would have my control group for comparing results after the workshop.

In the Impact Booster session, we spent the morning helping the managers understand the HIL process. We emphasized their critical role in making training stick. In the afternoon, we gave the managers a taste of the Symphony and Conductor training. In this way they could understand and support what their direct reports, the facility supervisors, would learn and apply from185 the full Symphony and Conductor workshops. Two weeks after the Impact Booster, supervisors at the facility participated in the Symphony workshop. Thirty days later, they completed the Conductor workshop. By spreading out the training workshops, we were giving time for managers and supervisors to have their pre- and post-training discussions and to practice the new skills.

As it turned out, the Impact Booster sessions, meetings between managers and supervisors before and after the workshops, and the training itself worked together very well to motivate learners to apply the training to the performance areas they needed to improve. The Success Case Evaluation report for the South Carolina facility told a story of resounding success! We were able to demonstrate that the training led to measurable results for the business in its critical need for improving safety— results well beyond what one would normally expect from this sort of training had it not been augmented with the HIL procedures. We had taken the HIL concepts and made them work for our operations in the United States.

I realized early on that getting the message out and raising the standards in people’s minds for what we can achieve and how we need to go about implementing the training process was critical for changing mind-sets and building alignment and support. It is like a political campaign in which the candidate is trying to rally the populace by painting the picture of the possibilities and raising expectations in the minds of the constituents by keeping the message front and center. We continuously looked for strategic opportunities to build partnerships and alignment with the executives throughout the company. One such opportunity to educate them and gain their commitment occurred in May 2006. We convinced the whole 186Executive Committee of Holcim (US) to preview, and even experience parts of Building Leader Performance and the HIL process. This was key to gaining their full buy-in and support for the program and its three key elements: (1) the training modules, (2) aiming the training at a business result that matters for each executive’s area, and (3) engaging managers and learners in accountability for performance results through HIL.

Another great opportunity we orchestrated was having all thirty-five officers of the company experience Symphony and HIL at the December officers’ meeting. Once they experienced it for themselves, I knew they would understand and be hooked. Having them participate firsthand was much easier than trying to explain it in words. My boss and I agreed that the best way to get on the agenda was to have the suggestion come not from HR, but from one of the other two Business Advisory Group Members on the Executive Committee in Holcim (US). I spoke directly with the sponsor of the South Carolina project and with another Business Advisory Group member who was highly involved. They liked the idea and proposed it to the whole Executive Committee at their next monthly meeting. The idea was accepted.

Armed with coaching from members of the Business Advisory Group and the positive results from the Success Case Evaluation report for the Carolina Plant Market System that was hot off the press, this strategic workshop at the officers’ meeting was a success and helped us advance our cause. We were able to show the Executive Committee the business results (i.e., improvements in safety and housekeeping metrics) that the training was helping to drive, as well as connecting the actions of managers (i.e., following the HIL process and having Impact Map discussions with employees before they attended training) with the results.

STICKING TO THE CAUSE AT ST. LAWRENCE CEMENT

Although we were making progress in Holcim (US), the demonstration projects at the St. Lawrence Cement facilities had more bumps in the road. There had been three significant personnel changes in senior management, which caused a slight delay in order to reengage stakeholders and solidify project sponsors.

The head of HR and a regional Senior Vice President, both of whom were members of the Business Advisory Group, left the company. It was taking longer to find sponsors for the Building Leader Performance demonstration projects without the executive sponsorship on the Business Advisory Group on the St. Lawrence Cement side. Because the CEO at St. Lawrence Cement was eager to have all the managers and supervisors speaking the same language about performance management and coaching, it would have been easy to just rush ahead and roll out the Symphony and Conductor training across the company with just a “taste” of the HIL approach included.

I knew, though, that this would not help in the long run. I kept remembering my early discussions with the CEOs, in which they communicated that they wanted a learning culture and that they wanted training and results to be sustainable. They didn’t really know what it would take to do this when they uttered those words, and neither did I at the time. However, this was a “moment of truth” in which we had to stick to the cause and not take the easy path just to be able to show progress or succumb to short-term political pressures. If we just did the training, we188 would completely miss the opportunity to demonstrate the difference and the results—and we would miss the opportunity to start to change the learning culture. Certainly, it isn’t a onetime shot, it would only be the start—but without the right start we would give up the opportunity completely.

I presented the concepts and explained the benefits to the company in several meetings, but too often the decision makers were not present. I finally “sold” the sponsor of the two demonstration projects in Ontario by sending him information and then asking to talk about it over a group dinner at a senior leadership meeting we were attending. Maybe it was the food and drinks that did the trick, but I think it was more the persistence and passion of my discussion. (OK, maybe it was my desperation!) He could probably tell he wasn’t going to be able to brush me off easily. At the dinner, he asked one of his direct reports to meet with us afterward. At this quick meeting, his direct report became one of the project sponsors in Ontario. With each instance of turnover, I had to start telling the story over again and building the case from square one. In some ways, I’m sure it might have been politically less risky not to try to push the issue of bringing Building Leader Performance coupled with the HIL approach to St. Lawrence Cement. But I just never considered it, because I knew this was the right way to shape our learning culture and ultimately to bring sustained results from training. Believing in the process and remembering the early discussions I had had with the CEOs, I never questioned staying the course.

RESULTS

Each Building Leader Performance project focused on improvements in a key business objective selected by senior management of the three business areas in Holcim (US) and St. Lawrence 189Cement. The stories reported in the final Success Case Evaluation illustrate specific areas where the training played a critical role in helping to achieve the results. From better management of networking capital in one facility, to efficiency improvements in another, to safety and housekeeping improvements in a third, there are numerous documented cases of how the Building Leader Performance training provided significant cost savings and operational effectiveness for Holcim (US) and St. Lawrence Cement.

In December 2006, we presented the results to the Holcim (US) officers. They were impressed by the fact that 90% of participants had applied some aspect of the training on the job—a result that, in fact, surprised even those of us in the NALC. But our verification of these instances of application of learning confirmed our success: 44% had applied what they had learned and had already gotten results, while the remainder had taken clear action to apply the training but had not yet documented business results. The contribution of the managers’ involvement was strongly verified: 75% of the people who achieved measurable results had Impact Map discussions with their managers, whereas the trainees with lower impact experienced significantly fewer instances of manager involvement and support.

Our leaders at all levels were impressed that we measured the results and measured them in this way. The interviews revealed that people were seeing changes in behavior relative to the business objectives (no accidents, better and more frequent safety and housekeeping observations, and timely closure of related issues identified in the observations). The Vice Presidents were enthusiastic about the results and gave us their support to continue rolling out the program—in the same “focus on specific business results” way—in other facilities.

The St. Lawrence Cement facilities also had solid results and the Success Case Evaluation reports for both facilities provided clear proof that the HIL process was much more effective than 190stand-alone training. One facility’s data revealed that 67% of the participants applied what they learned and nearly two-thirds of those got tangible results. In the other facility, 64% of participants applied what they had learned with more than 40% of those achieving tangible results. Beyond the solid business results, we found that participants who followed the HIL process (e.g., defined in this case as those who met with their managers before and after training) applied what they learned twice as frequently and were three to four times more likely to produce measurable results than those who did not. As the three demonstration projects were our first round of HIL programs, we were realistic about the fact that the quality of the discussions overall was probably not that high. But still, the results showed that it made a huge difference to have the discussion and complete the Impact Maps. I can imagine the significant results we will see when we get even better and more disciplined about having these discussions before and after training. Still, these early findings gave us the conviction to press forward and work diligently with leadership in the other locations and to hold their managers accountable for using the HIL process.

LESSONS LEARNED

Along this journey I have gained many valuable insights. I realized that while I need to be tenacious in establishing the framework and focusing on the business outcomes, at the same time, I need to be patient and adaptive with my partners in the business. For instance, I had to integrate Building Leader Performance in a way that made sense at St. Lawrence Cement, which was not necessarily the way it was done at Holcim (US). It has taken me awhile, but I’ve resolved myself to the fact that each new stakeholder is going to have to go through their own191 personal learning curve at their own pace. I know now that starting with the basics, I’m going to have to step each emerging leader through the concepts and earn their trust and support in order for us to achieve a learning culture. Perhaps one of the most gratifying and confirming instances of the progress we have made is the fact that, at the time of this writing, line managers involved on the HIL process have stepped forward and requested that more time be devoted to the Impact Boosters. Initially, one of our biggest concerns was that managers would never give up their precious time to participate in the “extra” steps we asked of them. And now, lo and behold, they themselves have asked for more. Will wonders never cease!

My conviction and the clarity of the NALC’s vision keep me going. It all makes so much sense and is really very simple. Yet it is not always easy to communicate. And people and organizations don’t turn on a dime. Over the past couple of years, I’ve had some defining moments where I’ve wanted to bail out but it’s not in my nature. I took on the challenge of building the NALC from the ground up because I like to watch departments come together. I’m motivated by the finished product. I know there are peaks and valleys in the journey, but the patience to stay the course has been such a huge reward. The talented team of people who make up the NALC carry the message of training as a means for impacting business results across all areas of both companies. Our collective passion is driving change in the organization. The new mind-set is starting to live and grow on its own merits not just because of our persistence.

The Success Case Evaluation reports played a key role in our success in winning over hard-to-convince leaders. The results from the demonstration projects have given us the credibility192 we need with executives, supervisors, and employees to influence changes in various areas of the company. For example, in

May 2007, the executive sponsor for one of the Canadian Building Leader Performance demonstration projects sent out a bulletin announcing a process improvement project as part of our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software system in which they would partner with the NALC and follow the HIL process. He did this on his own without any prompting from us, because he saw the value in the new process for turning training into business results. It was a solid win to have strong backing communicated from the field.

My advice to anyone embarking upon or in the middle of an Advantage Way initiative is to make sure you are committed to, and have extreme clarity around, your vision. You have to know exactly what you are trying to achieve. Reach out to industry experts and other business leaders who have done what you are attempting to do. Use this mastermind group to test and validate your strategy Once you have solidified your vision and strategy, find the simplest way to express it. Whatever you do, don’t vary your pitch. I’ve learned through trial and error that constant and consistent communication is the key to successfully implementing cultural and process changes.

When you are launching the process, be armed with talking points at all times. Like me, if you are passionate about leveraging learning for measurable results, you are going to want to tell the whole story from beginning to end. However, most people, especially executives, do not want chapter and verse. People want to hear from you what they need to know in the simplest of terms in order to make sound decisions. Focus on the business results and do not be afraid to raise their expectations 193about what is possible. The catch is, you have to be brief and you can’t make people connect the dots for themselves. After all of the creative ways I came up with to describe HIL, I found “learning as a process” to be the most understandable for people new to the concept. Once you have your talking points down, be prepared to repeat your message again and again. You are not boring your audience. You are helping them learn. (Remember, repetition is the mother of learning.)

Also get ready for opposition. If you’re not meeting resistance, you’re probably not working on something that really needs to be changed. Don’t expect people to eagerly catch your enthusiasm for change. Chances are you are an early adopter of innovative ideas. Recognize that most people, however, need more time than you to shift gears and see the value in new ways of doing business. And my final words of advice: have the courage to take the risk.