Clever Geek Handbook
5 November 2025

Co-Leaders

Recommendation

Although the business press likes nothing more than the rise and fall of mighty corporate monarchs, authors David A. Heenan and Warren Bennis (co-leaders themselves, clearly) contend that today’s most important management trend is the movement toward collaborative leadership. While it’s become common wisdom that the lightening-fast pace of contemporary business demands more flexible command structures than traditional corporate hierarchies can provide, the cult of personality still dominates public perception. Heenan and Bennis present compelling theory as a basis for their co-leadership model, and reinforce their thinking with a string of examples of executive dynamic duos, like Gates/Ballmer, Grove/Barrett and Merrill/Smith. The case histories are not used to blindly buttress the authors’ point, however. The bloody Eisner/Ovitz debacle at Disney is presented in gruesome detail, an apt illustration of the danger of ego in a collaborative age. BooksInShort.com recommends this book as required reading for any corporate executive.

Take-Aways

  • The American workplace needs to be recreated to be more equitable and faster.
  • Mature organizations are moving away from the deification of an individual leader.
  • Historically, many successes - political, corporate and cultural - result from intelligent collaborations.
  • Co-leaders exist in business (Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer) and government (Bill Clinton and Al Gore: The Early Years.)
  • Institutionalized dissent is a part of any effective co-leadership culture.
  • Subordinate co-leaders must be willing to check their egos.
  • Both parties - Number One and Number Two - must feel secure for co-leadership to work.
  • No co-leader can work effectively without the support of organizational leadership.
  • Not every executive (think George Steinbrenner or Ted Turner) is cut out for co-leadership.
  • A pairing of incompatible personalities (Ovits/Eisner) can be disastrous.

Summary

Collaborative Genius

The old corporate monotheism is finally giving way to a more realistic view that acknowledges leaders not as organizational gods but as the first among many contributors. In fact, a study of the lives and philosophies of co-leaders demonstrates clearly that the genius of our age is truly collaborative. Co-leadership is the only way to get things done in quickly evolving markets and fast-changing organizations. The term "co-leadership" is not a fuzzy-minded buzzword. It is, instead, the label for an effective strategy you can use to exploit the strengths of your company.

“We have long worshipped the imperial leader at the cost of ignoring the countless other contributors to any worthwhile enterprise. In our hearts we know that the world is more complex than ever and that we need teams of talent - leaders and co-leaders working together - to get important things done.”

These conclusions about co-leadership are based on a five-year study of political and corporate co-leaders. The study led to in-depth profiles of the relationships between various co-leaders, including Chrysler Chairman Bob Eaton and his co-leader Bob Lutz, Microsoft kingpins Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Intel managers Andy Grove and Craig Barrett, Merrill Lynch managers Charlie Merrill and Win Smith, North Carolina coaches Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge, and Stanford University coaches Tara VanDerveer and Amy Tucker.

“Great co-leaders are often born when leaders decide to do the one thing that most often distinguishes a great organization from a mediocre one - hire people who are as good or better than they are.”

Other profiles focus on political co-leaders, such as Al Gore and Bill Clinton (the early years), former Secretary of State George Marshall and former President Harry Truman, Bernice Pauahi Bishop (of Hawaii’s royal family) and her husband Charles Reed Bishop, and even the co-dependent relationship between Chairman Mao and Chou En-Lai.

“That the American workplace needs to be rethought is increasingly obvious. The mounting anger over executive pay is only one piece of evidence.”

To add depth, you can also draw lessons from the relationship between Helen Keller and her teacher Ann Sullivan Macy, and from the fictitious relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (which even sheds psychological light on their creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).

Paths to Co-Leadership

These diverse profiles teach many lessons. One is obvious: Co-leaders, like other people, don’t fit easily into categories. However, co-leaders tend to follow one of three distinctive paths to co-leadership: fast-tracker, back-tracker or an on-tracker.

  1. Fast-Trackers - These are deputies who are moving up. In fact, for many people, the second spot is a time-honored path to becoming number one. One survey indicated that 86% of Fortune 500 company CEOs are former number twos. These upwardly mobile lieutenants learned that the road to the corner office is paved with luck, loyalty and achievement. They also understand how sharing power creates power.
  2. Back-Trackers - These are former chiefs who have gone back to a position of less authority. Chou En-Lai, who effectively handed over leadership of the Chinese Communist party to Mao, is one example. Generally, these talented men and women find greater peace being the quiet power behind the throne.
  3. On-Trackers - These individuals either weren’t promoted to the top slot or who didn’t want it. Generally, these are people of tremendous ability who are more comfortable as a part of a vibrant team and can prosper as supporting players.
“Man’s inability to get along often transcends economic logic. Fueled by ego, warring partners routinely forget that their collective talents far outstrip their individual abilities and that their professional fortunes are married together.”

Co-leaders can be classified into three other meaningful categories, based on the person or organization they serve to fulfill their own innate sense of mission and purpose:

  1. Crusaders - These are people who serve a higher cause, such as George Marshall.
  2. Confederates - These people serve on behalf of an exceptional enterprise or organization, and would include women’s sports leader and coach Amy Tucker or Chrysler manager Bob Lutz.
  3. Consorts - These people serve the needs of another extraordinary person, such as the vital role Anne Sullivan Macy played in the life of Helen Keller.

Do You Have the Co-Leader Temperament?

Some people are simply not cut out for co-leadership. It’s hard to imagine a strong individual personality, such as George Steinbrenner or a Donald Trump, serving in a number two slot. Anytime the co-leader opposes the chief, no matter how valid his or her position, the number-two man’s position is at risk. This includes his prospects of one day assuming the number-one role, and even his current job. Such risk can intimidate even a hard-nosed executive into holding his or her tongue in the interests of self-preservation, but such hesitancy inevitably diminishes effectiveness, thereby weakening the precarious position even further.

“Being No. 2 is just as hard as being No. 1, perhaps harder. The successful co-leader is one whose ego is strong enough to watch the kudos for his or her best work go to someone else.”

Executives who want to create strong co-leadership relationships should consider the following questions:

  • Can you overcome the Superman complex? Or would you rather run an organization yourself than team up with another great talent?
  • Is there good chemistry between you and your prospective co-partner? Do you share the same philosophies and core values?
  • Can you split duties with your alter ego? Can you delegate responsibilities?
  • Do you have the capacity to cut yourself off from day-to-day responsibilities and hand those duties over to someone else?
  • Can you stand to hear dissenting opinions? Do you trust your co-leader’s opinion?
  • And - this is the ultimate test - could you happily trade places with your co-leader?

Checklist for Co-Leaders

The partnership examples set by the best first lieutenants of all time, including such standouts as Intel’s Craig Barrett and Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, demonstrate some general guidelines other co-leaders can follow:

  • Know thyself - Prospective co-leaders who recognize that they can’t work in someone else’s shop should do themselves and the organization a favor and not take the position. Gateway maverick Ted Wiatt had the opportunity to merge his company with Compaq, but decided that the partnership just wouldn’t fit his style.
  • Know thy leader - If you are going to be a co-leader, choose your boss very wisely. The world is littered with discarded number twos and threes who were undermined and sabotaged by their bosses. This happens frequently when a boss becomes uncomfortable with having a strong second in command. For example, Michael Eisner is widely believed to have undermined Michael Ovitz’s position at Disney.
  • Avoid titanic clashes - When a co-leader enters into a big dispute with a leader, the co-leader loses. If you’re a co-leader, you have to decide to pick your fights with the boss very, very carefully - or maybe not at all. Learn the culture of the company very well so you understand how to express dissent properly. Otherwise, you might find yourself out the door.
  • Give your bosses what they need, as well as what they want - Wise leaders welcome the truth because they realize that the truth is essential to good decisions. A good co-leader should be willing to give the leader that truth. However, not all leaders are wise, so executive suites are splattered with the blood of candid number twos or threes. But tact is no crime either.
  • Know when to stay put - Not everyone was meant to be number one. Many outstanding people recognize that their strength resides behind the scenes. You can be a very talented person and lack the charisma to handle the top spot. And frankly, times have never been tougher for CEOs, who now have to handle markets that change in years, not decades.
  • Know when to walk away - Like leaders, co-leaders must learn to say no. Sometimes, you have to step away. One reason to exit is that you may discover that your boss is involved in illegal or questionable behavior. You might also leave if your boss begins to place far too heavy a demand on your life and health. The other reason you might leave, as would any number two person, is if you think there is a better opportunity somewhere else - an opportunity to be number one.

Creating A Co-Leadership Culture

It is not a happy sign when the business best-seller list is topped by volumes devoted to Dilbert, the cartoon Everyworker. This is organizational humor at its darkest, and one of its loudest messages is that it is time for sweeping change.

“No co-leader, however talented and hard-working, can succeed without at least the tacit support of the person at the top.”

To meet this need for change, you can create an organizational structure that fosters co-leadership by following these examples of effective co-leaders:

  • Celebrate the enterprise, not the celebrity - Try to create a culture that celebrates the team and not the individual. David Glass, CEO of Wal-Mart, says that superstars don’t exist at the retail giant. The executives whose companies successfully implement co-leadership policies don’t show up on the cover of People magazine, unless they show up together.
  • Cultivate egalitarianism - In locations where an effective co-leadership culture sets the tone, caste distinctions are kept to a minimum. Elitism is expensive. Companies that have co-leadership cultures, such as Dow Chemical and Mrs. Fields, do not have expensive executive dining rooms. In this environment, culture rules. In fact, one successful CEO said that his company’s outstanding sales are the result of "70% culture and 30% technology."
  • Institutionalize dissent - Abraham Lincoln was an effective leader because he actually listened to the concerns of ordinary people. He wanted to know the truth about what was happening in the country. This demonstrates that the single most important aspect of the co-leadership culture is its willingness to seek the truth. Wise organizations don’t wimp out. They welcome honest dissent within the ranks.
  • Foster togetherness - Successful organizations discourage capricious self-interest. For example, teamwork has replaced the star culture that used to rule at Fidelity Investment. The firm once had star stock pickers, but instead it now uses teams of analysts. General Electric CEO Jack Welch insists on an organization without boundaries, where valuable information can come from anywhere in the company, not just from those at the top.
  • Redefine loyalty - Blind loyalty to the boss can backfire. Many co-leaders have been done in because they were loyal to the wrong boss. The most recent example is former Vice President Al Gore, who probably lost the presidential election because of his close ties to a very flawed president. Genuine co-leadership abhors toadyism. But co-leaders often have to walk a tightrope between loyalty and the interests of the company.
  • Build team goals - Try to create a culture that rewards the fulfillment of team goals over the accomplishments of individuals.
“Co-leadership is not a fuzzy-minded buzzword designed to make non-CEOs feel better about themselves and their workplaces. Rather it is a tough-minded strategy that will unleash the hidden talent in any enterprise.”

In the emerging networked workplace, it is even more important for enterprises to create shared goals and results. Company leaders should downplay damaging intramural competition.

Looking Ahead

The future trend is toward decentralization and co-leadership. Modern companies are moving away from the kind of society touted in the book, The Winner-Take-All-Society. Instead, collaborative teams provide the power for today’s enterprises. Companies that refuse to recognize the reality of this change will lose a very precious resource in the future - their most talented leaders.

About the Authors

David A. Heenan is a trustee of the estate of James Campbell, one of the nation’s largest landowners, with assets valued at more than $2 billion. A former senior executive with Citicorp and Jardine Matheson, Heenan has served on the faculties of the Wharton School and the Columbia Graduate School of Business. He is the author of The New Corporate Frontier and The Reunited States of America. Warren Bennis is Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the University of Southern California and a consultant to multinational companies and governments. Bennis is the author of more than a dozen books, including the bestsellers Leaders and On Becoming a Leader. His insights have fundamentally shaped the way we think about leaders today.

Read summary...
Co-Leaders

Book Co-Leaders

The Power of Great Partnerships

Wiley,
 


5 November 2025

Brand Asset Management

Recommendation

Managing your brands as an asset is one of those obvious management priorities that becomes less obvious under the pressure of quarterly earnings. To a great extent, however, short-term numbers depend on the long-term positioning of your brands. Take a look at your organization. Is branding relegated to a department in your marketing division? If so, chances are your brand is being managed as a marketing tool rather than a corporate asset. Because the brand is the living relationship you have with your customers, it is critical that branding be elevated as a corporate priority. This book will show you how. BooksInShort recommends this excellent book to top executives looking to reposition a company’s brands, marketing professionals who have charge of branding strategies, and for anyone whose business relies on the power of your brands.

Take-Aways

  • Brands help consumers sort through the 6,000 advertising messages they see or hear every day.
  • Consumer perceptions hold the key to brand value.
  • Increase shareholder value by managing your brands as assets.
  • Brand asset management (BAM) requires commitment from the very top of your organization that sometimes must override short-term profits.
  • Implicit in every brand is a brand contract, the promise of features and benefits that consumers will receive in return for purchasing the product.
  • Learn how customers perceive your brands, as well as your competitors’ brands.
  • Perform an analysis that will attach a revenue dollar figure to brand development.
  • Train your workforce to represent the brand image and position in their daily work.
  • A chief branding officer will ensure that management is not relegated to the marketing department or, worse yet, to an outside advertising firm.
  • Brands that reach the top of the brand value pyramid fulfill customers’ emotional and even spiritual needs, making them almost unassailable.

Summary

The Case of the White T-Shirt

Imagine a white T-shirt that has never been worn. It is made of 100% highest quality cotton. How much will the T-shirt sell for? It could sell for $3 in a deep-discount store, or 10 times that much in a trendy, upscale boutique. How much the shirt sells for, where it is sold, and the margin of profit all depend on one small but important consideration - the name of the brand stitched inside the collar.

“The brand must be enhanced and guarded at every point where the organization touches the customer, regardless of industry and regardless of company.”

Surveys show that 72% of consumers are willing to pay a 20% premium to obtain their favorite brand in a given category. When the demise of Pan Am left the ailing company with nothing but its name, the brand alone sold for $40 million. Rolls Royce sold its brand name for $66 million. The Coca-Cola brand has been valued at $47 billion - yes, that’s billion with a "b." It obviously pays to learn how to manage your brand as an asset. The question: How do you take your brand and elevate it toward such lofty financial heights?

What Is a Brand?

A brand is much more than a product or a service, and it also is more than simply a name or a logo. A brand represents everything that a company is. While a customer will rarely have a relationship with an industry or a corporation, they will establish a relationship with a brand. How many times have you heard someone say, "I’ve got to have my NFL football," or "I’ve got to have my Palm Pilot," or "I’ve got to have my Starbucks in the morning?"

“The failure to understand one’s competition is ultimately the failure to know one’s customers: who they are, how they think, and how the brand can be adapted to meet their needs.”

These people are expressing what smart marketers already know, that they have a relationship with a branded item. In part, a brand implies a set of promises, which may explain the familiar business maxim that "familiarity breeds sales." A brand implies trust that a set of expectations will be reliably fulfilled. Think of some of the leading brand names. What does Fed Ex mean to you? McDonald’s? Disney? Apple Computers? Each of these brand names carries with it a set of connotations or expectations. Similarly, if you think of corporate irreverence you may think of Virgin, if you think of athletic performance you may think of Nike. In essence, then, the brand is a tacit, invisible contract with the consumer, promising that your product or service will deliver the expected result.

It’s All In the Mind

If you asked the average consumer if they thought they could purchase promise, acceptance, trust and hope, they would probably say no. Yet these are the very qualities that they look for in the brands that they rely on. The average consumer is exposed to about 6,000 new advertisements daily. Brands help consumers cut through this barrage to find the products they can rely on.

“Most importantly, a good brand vision tells you and others whether the organization believes the company, its brand and the future are totally linked or not.”

Your brand may involve a tagline or motto, an icon or symbol, a spokesperson, a jingle, or other characteristics. Yet these are not actually the brand. Ultimately, the brand is the accumulation of impressions that your customers have about your product. Because the brand is in the mind of the consumer, it must be guarded by all segments of your business. Customer service, billing, collections, product service, field representatives, retail outlets - these all play an important role in the customer’s perception of your brand. Indeed, each employee bears responsibility for managing the brand assets of your company.

Phase One: Developing A Vision

Developing a brand vision means defining the corporate goals and objectives that your brand should help you achieve. How many dollars do you expect brand management to add to the bottom line? Are you willing to be patient to develop your brand over a period of three to five years? Can senior management be counted on to support the goals and objectives of the brand? Will the brand merely be considered a marketing tool, or will it actually be considered an asset? The steps to developing your brand vision include:

  1. Conduct senior management interviews. Define their expectations for the brand. Probe into markets of future interest, financial objectives for the organization, their view of what the current brand stand for, how they would like to see that brand evolve in the future, and what level of resource commitment is expected for brand development.
  2. Determine the gap in financial growth. Explore the gap between your company’s revenue goals five years from now and current actual revenues. Review how leveraging your brand can increase margins, extend penetration, and contribute to the achievement of the corporate goals. Pointing out a specific revenue goal tied to proper brand asset management will help focus attention on the importance of the undertaking.
  3. Create a brand vision starter. Collect data on your general industry and relate it to your company’s competitive position. Create a presentation on an initial proposal of what the brand vision should be and the rationale behind it.
  4. Meet with senior management to establish a vision for your brand. At this meeting, you will report interview findings, facts and conclusions in an effort to reach a consensus on what the company’s brand vision should be. This meeting will give you the authority to undertake a brand asset management strategy.

Phase Two - Defining Brand Image.

Once you have a vision for your brand, you have to consider consumer perceptions, as they currently exist. Among your current and target customers, how many of them have the image of your brand that you would like them to have? How does your brand image compare to that of your competitors? Pay particular attention to how consistent your brand image is across various consumer segments. Discuss what image you would like your brand to have in the future. Don’t forget to delve into the unmet customer needs and wants that your brand may need to fill as business prospects change. As these considerations would suggest, brand image is externally oriented.

The Brand Value Pyramid

The further up you go on the brand value pyramid, the stronger the "contract" between your brand and the consumer. The base of the pyramid depends on the basics, the consumers’ understanding of the features and attributes of your product or service. The middle section of the pyramid describes benefits, either functional or emotional, that consumers perceive your brands to have. At the top of the pyramid, consumers believe the brand addresses beliefs, cultural values and even spiritual well being.

Brand Persona

Research will reveal your brand’s persona. Brand persona defines the set of human characteristics that consumers associate with your brand. These could include personality, intelligence, gender, kindness, reliability, ethnicity and socioeconomic class. Typically you uncover your brand’s persona by asking questions like, "If Brand X were an automobile, what type of automobile would it be?" or "If you saw someone using Brand X, what would you know about him or her?"

“Brand image has two components: the associations customers ascribe to the brand and the brand’s ’persona’.”

When you combine brand persona with the brand association (as described by the brand pyramid), you arrive at the totality of the image of your brand. By analyzing how your business would benefit from changes in that perception, you will be able to manage your brand assets to better meet the demands of the marketplace.

Phase Three - BAM Strategy

At this point you must determine the strategies needed to achieve the goals and objectives stated in the brand vision, considering the market-based perceptions you uncovered from reviewing your brand image. To develop a brand asset management strategy you’ll need:

  • Brand Positioning. Identify the space in the consumer’s mind that you want your brand to occupy. Focus on the brand contract that you are offering your customers. A strong brand will be unique, believable, sustainable and valued by consumers.
  • Senior Leadership. It’s up to senior management to lead the charge. Lip service is not enough. Your company’s leaders will have to support the brand asset management strategy and the investment that it requires.
  • Rank-and-File Support. The buy-in from your workforce is critical to your brand’s success. They need to understand the image that you are trying to present, so that they can take every opportunity to reinforce that image in the customers’ minds. You need to enroll their support with training and communication.
  • Budget. Yes, of course, all of this takes time and money. But developing a brand asset management strategy doesn’t have to cost a fortune, and many companies do it on a shoestring budget. The key element is to do what it takes to take control of your brand positioning. Don’t let your competitors position your product!

Phase Four - Brand-Based Culture

You must get the entire organization to understand the importance of managing your brand as an asset as opposed to a marketing vehicle. In effect, you must establish a brand-based culture. Workers in a brand-based culture see products and services in terms of how customers think about brands. If an initiative doesn’t enhance the customer’s perception of brand value, it probably is not a worthwhile initiative. However, you’ll probably encounter several hindrances in becoming brand-centric:

  • Most companies lack established brand-based career tracks that reward brand advocates.
  • Pressure to report on quarterly results tends to encourage short-term thinking.
  • Those at the top of the organization often lack marketing experience.
  • Global organizations often suffer from inconsistent global brand management.
  • Many organizations relegate brand management to marketing departments or even to outside advertising firms.

Required Support

Proper support for a brand-oriented culture includes appointing a chief branding officer (CBO) responsible for the positioning of the brand; a brand asset management steering committee to help establish cross-functional linkages with other teams, and an operational brand asset management team that ensures that the company is running in a brand-based way. It is also recommended that the company establish an internal communications plan to support and tout the importance of managing brands as a company asset. The most important requirement to creating a strong brand-oriented culture is consistency. Leadership from senior management is essential.

About the Author

Scott M. Davis is a former marketing and distribution manager at Procter & Gamble, and is managing director in the Chicago office of Prophet Brand Strategy. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and USA Today. Davis is also an adjunct professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

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Brand Asset Management

Book Brand Asset Management

Driving Profitable Growth Through Your Brands

Jossey-Bass,
 


5 November 2025

Developing Employees Who Love to Learn

Recommendation

Linda Honold describes a system for helping everyone in your company learn to become more creative, responsive, efficient and team-oriented. She describes various techniques, including methods for developing an interest in learning and self-knowledge. Her book covers individual learning tools, mentoring, coaching, group learning and peer learning. She pays particular attention to learning styles, drawing on the system set out by the Myers-Briggs personality test. Honold’s book speaks primarily to corporate managers who are trying to create serendipitous learning systems. Some may find the book dry and overly concerned with the details of systematizing supposedly informal learning, but BooksInShort recommends it to HR practitioners and to knowledge management professionals who will find it productive. They will gain a lot from this theoretical – and practical – look at how people in companies actually learn.

Take-Aways

  • Formal training usually dominates workplace learning, but actually people learn better informally.
  • Individualized, spontaneous learning increases productivity.
  • Learners move through several stages, from tentative and unsure to self-directed and competent.
  • Learning can take four different shapes: “cognitive or knowledge learning,” “attitude and values learning,” “skill development” and “aspiration learning.”
  • People have four different learning styles: “activist, pragmatist, reflector and theorist.”
  • When you set up employee education programs, use the learners’ preferred styles (not yours).
  • People learn in four contexts: formal learning in a classroom, semi-formal learning in a group, nonformal learning in out of the classroom and informal learning from daily life.
  • The first three stages of establishing a new learning system are exploration, envisioning and planning.
  • The fourth phase is incubation and development.
  • The fifth phase is implementation and improvement, which is ongoing.

Summary

A Learning Atmosphere

While formalized training programs usually dominate workplace learning, individuals learn better informally, through daily activities, than they do in a formal classroom. To encourage your employees to learn more, promote everyday learning. A few key concepts should shape the way people learn at work:

  • Learners should be responsible for self-directed learning.
  • Self-knowledge provides a beginning point for further learning. Use tools like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to learn about yourself and how you relate to others.
  • A flexible setting will promote your effort to create opportunities for people to learn.
  • Learning can occur through reading, reflecting, experimenting or engaging in activities. Often unusual activities are very educational.
  • You can’t know all the issues that may come up in a rapidly changing environment.
  • Employees should be able to apply their current tools to be able to devise solutions in unfamiliar situations.
  • Learning should be conscious. Accidental learning is inefficient.
  • People learn better when they are aware of the learning process and actively choose to participate.
  • Integrate learning into daily activities and let it happen as employees work.
  • To experience new learning, people sometimes must “unlearn” what they already know to look at things in new ways.
  • You may find that a past axiom no longer holds true. For instance, a directive management style, which was the old standard, might not work as well in a learning environment as encouraging people to ask questions and be independent.

Spontaneous Learning

Individualized spontaneous learning offers your company many benefits, including:

  • Increased productivity and quality – Employees who know more can do better work.
  • Increased innovation – Employees who are in the process of learning are more responsive to the needs of other people, including your customers.
  • Increased adaptability to change – Learning is virtually synonymous with personal change, so it makes employees more flexible.
  • A competitive advantage – You have more knowledgeable people in your workforce.
  • Fewer communication barriers – Managers can act more like mentors as they help employees understand what they are learning and how it contributes to their performance.
  • Increased employee motivation, attraction and retention – Employees who are in the midst of learning usually like their jobs. This makes your firm a better place to work and it draws new talent. Your employees feel motivated to do their best and to stay with your company.
  • Lower costs – Informal teaching is cheaper than traditional educational methods.
“As the world keeps changing, knowledge workers must add to what they know in order to stay current or ahead of the competition.”

The organizational advantages of increased learning are clear, but you will need to show your employees that they also reap benefits. Whether they are goal-oriented, activity-oriented or learning-oriented, individuals who are adding to their education find that their work becomes more interesting. They have a strong sense of their own value and they obtain more satisfaction and joy from their achievements. Knowledgeable workers are more employable, more secure and better paid, since they know how to do superior work. Your HR staffers also will enjoy filling a new, positive role as they help their co-workers by facilitating their learning.

Learning Styles and Practices

To help employees become self-directed, informal learners, recognize their individual learning styles and match the learning methods you use to those styles. As you design your workplace learning system, consider these factors:

  • How much do the learners know about how to learn? – Are they prepared?
  • How do they learn best? – Do they absorb and retain information better by reflecting, experimenting, listening to a speaker or discussing the subject matter. Good learners know what methods suit their learning styles. Some learners prefer reading instead of experimenting with new ideas. They want to become fairly knowledgeable before they talk to other people about a new set of information. Conversely, others people may want to discuss subjects first to get grounded, and then apply what they’ve learned from the discussion as they move into new material.
  • What context is best for learning various subjects? – Teachers find that some information is easier to convey in a classroom, but may prefer to teach other sorts of data or hands-on skills in a semiformal facilitated arrangement or in an informal setting.
“Employees who are learning are more inclined to innovate, particularly when encouraged by the organization.”

Consider, too, that each learner is in a different stage of learning:

  • Stage-One learners are unsure of their learning skills – They are just beginning to learn and may not even know how to start.
  • Stage-Two learners still need some assistance – They are motivated, but they don’t know much about the subject and may only be somewhat self-directed. They generally need someone to indicate what is important to absorb and to suggest how to manage it.
  • Stage-Three learners are already in the “learning mode” – They feel ready to explore new subjects on their own if they have a good guide to help them when needed.
  • Stage-Four learners are very self-directed – They are willing and able to plan, execute and evaluate their own learning. Though they may occasionally need help, they mostly can manage their own educational experiences.
“Research shows that most learning does not take place in a formalized classroom setting, but informally, often as a matter of course, in daily events.”

Your goal is to help employees become Stage-Four learners. At that point, they are able to learn from any kind of activity because they can engage in the seven components of learning: “self-direction, creativity, expression, feeling, learning while working, continuous learning and reflexive learning,” in which they learn about their own learning processes. At this stage, a person learns effectively, and knows where and how to find information, and how to analyze, capture, store and retrieve it.

“Informal learning is less costly than traditional training. Employees do not necessarily have to leave their work sites, there is no tuition and expenses for supplies are minimal or non-existent.”

Learning also has four possible results:

  1. “Cognitive or knowledge learning” develops understanding.
  2. “Attitude and values learning” leads to a change in perception.
  3. “Skill development” results in new physical, mental or social capabilities.
  4. “Aspiration learning” produces changes in a person’s goals.
“Goal-oriented learners use learning to achieve a goal. Activity-oriented learners are interested in the activity of learning. Learning-oriented learners are those who seek knowledge for its own sake.”

When you plan curricula and learning activities, strategize about how you are going to handle individuals’ different learning styles. The four major learning styles, according to leading educational theorists, are:

  1. “Activist” – This open-minded, enthusiastic person learns by testing alternatives.
  2. “Pragmatist” – This problem solver learns through concrete experience.
  3. “Reflector” – This cautious, observant learner uses reflective observation.
  4. “Theorist” – This logical, analytical student learns through abstract concepts.
“All employees must work to meet organizational objectives and must change in one way or another – therefore, all employees must be learning.”

When you set up a learning situation for employees, use their preferred learning styles (not yours). Arrange the appropriate context for learning, be it formal learning in a classroom, informal group learning, conference-style group learning, non-formal learning outside a classroom, with or without a facilitator, and informal learning based on experiences.

Assessing Learning Tools

Whatever system you establish, you can draw on numerous types of learning tools, strategies and resources. At each step, consider the style and ability of the learner, the context of the material, and the results you want. These techniques are strong learning tools:

  • Clarifying essential personal values.
  • Creating a learning lifeline, which depicts how people learn.
  • Using instruments that help you (and the learners themselves) determine individuals’ learning styles, stages, motivations, perceptions and tendencies.
  • Making an inventory of the person’s current skills.
  • Offering a comprehensive personal development workshop.
  • Facilitating personal development self-studies.

Building a Learning System

Follow these five phases when you set up a system to support learning in your company:

  1. “Exploration” – Begin with planning. Name a learning-system planning chair and create a planning team. Decide who will work on creating the system and define their authority. Make sure each person understands the purpose and goals.
  2. “Envisioning” – Think about how to make learning relevant to your organization’s mission. Identify underlying principles to guide your learning system and define its mission in writing, perhaps including such principles as: “Continuous lifelong learning must become a standard feature of the workplace,” “The organization must encourage and enable learning” or “Learners must be responsible for learning.”
  3. “Planning” – Plan the components of a learning system that is tailored to your organization. Determine your staffing needs and budget. Evaluate a variety of learning activities in terms of your resources, staff, space and time, so you can decide what to offer and what personnel you will need. Create a grid showing different learning options so you can analyze them by the type of learning (individual, peer, group), the employees’ stages and styles of learning, the context (formal, semi-formal, non-formal, informal), and the desired outcome (promote knowledge, teach attitude or values, convey skills or define aspirations).
  4. “Incubation and development” – Develop your offerings and prepare the space, materials and equipment you will use. Determine what kind of schedule best meets your employees’ needs. Plan and implement your internal marketing strategy to build organizational support and “buy-in.” Create a pilot group or trial run to test new learning approaches. Inform the workforce about the new learning system as effectively as you can, using announcements, newsletters, online notices, speakers and other avenues available within your company. Consider using financial incentives to encourage people to learn, such as providing an employee development fund offering a certain amount of money each year per employee that workers can access by contributing a minimum number of hours of learning or service. A reward system works especially well for early phase learners. For instance, Buckman Laboratories offered its 150 best “knowledge sharers” resort vacations, new laptops and invitations to a Tom Peters presentation.
  5. “Implementation and improvement” – Start with a kickoff event and programming. As part of your opening, invite people to fill out a checklist about their learning styles. Offer a door prize related to learning. Once the system is up, start measuring, documenting and improving.
“In a world that is constantly changing, there is not one subject or set of subjects that will serve you for the foreseeable future, let alone for the rest of your life. The most important skill to acquire now is learning how to learn.” [ – John Naisbitt]

Tell your employees about various individual learning tools, like tape recording themselves to practice public speaking, observing an unfamiliar meeting and shadowing another employee. To demonstrate effective ways individuals can learn better by working in groups, set up a learning network. This provides opportunities for people to tell stories that share the organization’s culture and to foster dialogue groups to help employees work with and listen to each other.

About the Author

Linda Honold, Ph.D., president and founder of Empowerment Systems, is a human resource development and organization consultant focusing on employee learning and organizational transformation.

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Developing Employees Who Love to Learn

Book Developing Employees Who Love to Learn

Tools, Strategies, and Programs for Promoting Learning at Work

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