No matter the topic, no matter the individual drivers, it’s always energizing to sit in a room of like-minded individuals and talk about things in common. Even with desert temperatures of 106 outside, there’s a certain magic in the air when thought leaders, experts and practitioners come together to share, to learn, to advance the industry that embraces us all.
That sense of collaboration and purpose was certainly evident recently at the Four Seasons in Scottsdale, AZ, when the annual CLO & Talent Management Forum was in session. Produced annually here in the United States by Richmond Events, the CLO & Talent Management Forum brought together about 150 senior learning leaders from organizations including Apple, ADP, Dow Jones, Bank of America, AARP, Hertz, Raytheon, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Coldwell Banker, Nationwide Insurance, Iron Mountain, Bristol-Myers Squibb, ManTech International and ESPN.
With topics as broad as workforce development and talent management on the table, the conference conversations were equally as diverse. In keynote presentations, breakout sessions, individual meetings and networking discussions, the attendees, speakers and suppliers share resources, suggestions and support for the full event.
To start the conference wrap-up at the beginning, let me introduce you to someone you may already know, Ed Cohen, formerly chief learning officer for Satyam and Editorial Board member for TrainingIndustry Quarterly e-magazine . Ed provided the opening keynote for the CLO & Talent Management Forum, telling attendees a compelling story of greed, corruption, crisis and opportunity. The room sat rapt as Ed outlined how Satyam suffered a very public crisis that ended with the CEO behind bars and 30,000 people out of work.
As terrible as that sounds – and is – learning saved the day here for more than 20,000 Satyam employees as the company literally came together to save what could be saved. Using tools as commonplace as email and as creative as internally produced talk shows, Satyam’s employees and training professionals rallied together to make payrolls, continue business and keep the company afloat. One nugget from Ed’s speech tells the whole story: Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, was so impressed with the team efforts he agreed to pay for services in advance, essentially helping to underwrite the recovery efforts.
From that rallying point, the CLO & Talent Management Forum conversations were off and running. Here are some other highlights and points to ponder:
- Karl-Heinz Oehler, vice president of global talent management for Hertz, outlined the organizational challenges that learning is helping address at Hertz, talking about how learning and talent management can create value, improve effectiveness, make an impact and maximize potential. (It’s hard to believe that No. 2 could try harder than this.)
- David Birnbaum, vice president of learning for Coldwell Banker, led a session on incorporating video in the Learning 2.0 experience. Technology is clearly advancing the capabilities and promise of learning, and David’s message certainly reached the right audience.
- Holly Tyson, VP of Pharmaceuticals HR for Bristol-Myers Squibb, presented repeated sessions on a key topic: Realigning talent management with business strategy. Part of the takeaways from those well-received sessions was a four-part approach to talent strategy: Identify critical roles, segment talent, ensure top talent is in critical roles and ensure talent processes are simple, focused and action-oriented. On that last part, Holly urged learning professionals to not over-engineer talent processes and to recognize that the most-effective approaches are sometimes the simplest.
- One of the event highlights was the session presented by Kevin Cope, CEO of Acumen Learning. In a session that started with a picture of his family and ended with a pantomimed approach to running learning like a business, Kevin offered perhaps the event’s greatest interaction with the audience. That in turn made his message memorable, starting with his thoughts on the five universal drivers of business: Cash, Profit, Assets, Growth and People. To impact people, which impacts the business, build your business acumen, listen to customers and communicate with supervisors, asking monthly, “how am I doing and have my priorities changed?”
- While much different in style, structure and delivery, two sessions seemed to work the same side of the street (in good ways). Tom Clancy, vice president of global education for EMC, spoke on “The Value of the Training Buck” and Alan Malinchak, CLO of ManTech International, addressed “The Corporate University as a Revenue Generator.” Tom’s session used a Little League baseball experience as a metaphor, urging attendees to “steal home” – the toughest play in baseball – whenever the opportunity presents itself. Alan’s session told a more straight-forward story, outlining how ManTech University transformed itself from cost center to profit driver in a short time, turning a former CFO from an uncertain ally into a best friend. Talk about stealing home.
- Vince Eugenio, vice president of learning & development for Iron Mountain, also presented a popular session on a crucial topic: Aligning learning to the business. Vince urged learning leaders to move beyond an “order-taking” approach to managing learning to being a strategic partner in the business. Some steps toward that goal included reorganizing the learning function, linking learning to operational streams, developing a governance model, driving accountability to senior business owners and increasing the utilization of suppliers and partners.
- Finally, several other sessions shared food for thought on topics like innovation, communication, creating corporate universities, onboarding talent and executive leadership competencies.
As always, it’ll be interesting to see (or hear) how the discussions have advanced a year from now, when the 2011 CLO & Talent Management Forum moves to Dallas. The air may be just a bit cooler deep in the heart of Texas, but you can bet the magic will still be in place.
