How to prove L&D ROI by solving real business problems

Kristen Hartley: One of my biggest learnings, especially learning from so many great people at Workday, is sometimes simpler is better. Very traditional management training, or traditional leadership development experience, even ones that I designed and ran 8 years ago, had a lot of content and tools and framework. And then there's a little sliver that's about application, and it puts the responsibility on the participants to remember it and reflect on it, and then apply it in their very busy, high-pressure day-to-day work.

What we've really tried to do is shift it. Give them a lot of time to network, collaborate, build relationships, and learn from others to make that piece of the pie bigger. And the application is happening throughout the whole program. And so, yes, they have to apply it back to work, but so much of that generalizing and applying that learning, it's getting done in the group. And so, they shouldn't have to like put on their to-do list: remember what I learned and apply it back to work. They've already started doing it with the group.

One way that we have found to really hone in on the things that are the most important to the business is to ask the participants of the programs to bring with them the most challenging business problem that they're tasked with solving and work on it during the program. It's personalized learning at its best. It's actually helping them with their work. That's probably the biggest selling point of it, and then of course it helps us measure the ROI.

Dan Hibberd: Kristen, welcome to Shapeshifters' Transformation Series. I'm super excited to have you join us on the podcast today, and really keen to pick up a conversation we started not too long ago about the amazing work that you're doing with your leadership development programs. And I know there's been some exciting updates on that front as well, maybe a couple of awards that have snuck in there, too. So, before we dive in though, Kristen, why don't you give us a bit of an introduction. Who is Kristen, and what's the role that you're playing at Workday?

Kristen Hartley: Definitely, yeah. Hi, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. My name's Kristen Hartley. I lead our executive development strategy and programs at Workday. Hopefully you're all familiar with Workday. Got a lot of great customers around the globe. I've been here for four years and sit within our People and Purpose organization, which serves the whole company, and I get to work on high-potential programs for directors and vice presidents. We do some successor-readiness programs and coaching and really all about helping our leaders be as effective as they can be to help drive Workday's growth going forward.

Dan Hibberd: Amazing, and we're going to dive into some of the practical application of what that looks like in just a moment. And as we kick off, why don't you give us a bit of an overview of the programs that you're running. I know across your career you've worked at all levels of leadership development from frontline and high-scale through to some of the work that you're doing now. Why don't you give us an overview of some of those cool programs that you've been running?

Kristen Hartley: Yeah, definitely. We're so excited about the ones that we've been running this year because we've really expanded the portfolio from one key flagship program that we had for executives to a lot more. So, I'll start maybe a little lower on the pyramid with our director and senior director program, which we're so proud of. We just found out a couple hours ago that we won three gold Brandon Hall Group awards for leadership development excellence, so that was super exciting.

That program, it's had a few different iterations. I'll describe what it's like this year. It's for 150 high-potential directors and senior directors. In total, we have 1,200 directors at Workday, so a little more than 10% of that population, and it's really focused on helping them lead their teams, and the company, and the product through all the change and transformation that our industry and our company are going through right now. And it's a long program. It's a nine-month cohort experience, which you know often people are really surprised to hear that it's so long. It's maybe our longest

Kristen Hartley: this program that we've experimented with and tried a lot of things that are working to keep the participants really engaged through that experience. So, we've got that for directors. We just started a new program that helps recently promoted vice presidents transition into that level. We know that transition is a really critical one, and there's a lot of bumps along the way if you're not intentional about that transition and what you need to let go of and focus on instead. And so, we've got a program for that cohort of about 40 people who were promoted this year.

Then we have one of our favorite programs. It's called Vista. It's for about 25 VPs and SVPs who are really seen as the next group of enterprise leaders at Workday. They get to come together in person, spend a lot of time with our executive committee, do some pretty deep self-reflection about how they show up as a leader, Hogan assessment, coaching, business simulation, all the bells and whistles of the best leadership program.

And then we've also implemented and are running a couple new programs for 8 to 10 people at the very top of the pyramid who are getting ready for SVP and executive committee roles in the future. So, really doubling down on our succession management and succession development this year.

Dan Hibberd: Amazing. So, it looks like a great spread of programs to really support everyone. And your focus is on those upper tiers of the organization. When we spoke last, I think one of the interesting things that we talked about was the shifts that you'd started to make across those programs, starting to design around real-world problems. And so, can you speak to us about that kind of pivot or that change that you've started to make in terms of how you design these programs?

Kristen Hartley: Yeah, definitely. And, you know, it's something that this team's been thinking about for a long time and has always known was important, and we're figuring out now how to put that into practice. So, one of the drivers for doing this is that the business is really asking for us to explain what is the value and the ROI of these programs. And for anyone who's been

Kristen Hartley: learning and development or leadership development, that question is hard to answer for a lot of reasons. There's lagging indicators of behavior change. There's some things that are really hard to measure, and we grapple with that a lot. It's one of the key things we're thinking about right now.

But one way that we have found to really hone in on the things that are the most important to the business is to ask the participants of the programs to bring with them the most challenging business problem that they're tasked with solving, and work on it during the program. And that means we can ask them at the beginning about their confidence around solving that problem, can ask it again at the end, we can ask them to measure the value of achieving that problem if they've achieved it at the end of the program, and so on.

I think the from-to for us in terms of design is instead of using a theoretical case study, or even a simulation about a pretend problem, it's them actually bringing their own problem. And so it's personalized learning at its best.

And then what we're finding is there's so many ways to get them to take the tools, and the inspiration, and the peer coaching that they're getting from a program, and just always be applying it back to the problem that they identified at the beginning. And if that problem has changed, that's okay. Things always change during the year or during the span of the cohort, just update your challenge and apply it to that challenge.

So we've been hearing from participants that it really makes it feel relevant for them. It also makes it feel less like something on top of their regular work that they don't have time for. It's actually helping them with their work. So I think that's probably the biggest selling point of it, and then, of course, it helps us measure the ROI.

Dan Hibberd: I love that, and I think you're right. There is so many value adds to that approach. Yeah, I think the ROI challenge is something that is broadly felt across L&D. It's often one of the challenges and bits of pushback, "Can you prove how this

Dan Hibberd: program has had an impact. And so, by designing in these components of people working on real-world problems and and to direct thread through to the business and through to things that are going to shift the bottom line. I also think it really aligns with a lot of adult learning principles, right? Adults are motivated more by things that are relevant to them as opposed to things that are not something that are on their plate or minds right now. And so, this allows you to really tap into some of those principles as well.

Kristen Hartley: Exactly, and I think it's probably true for all levels of leaders that they want it to feel so relevant and personalized. And what I'm noticing, as I'm starting to work with directors and VPs and above, is that they are so incredibly pressed for time. They are prioritizing and filtering things out at such a rate that if it's not relevant to exactly what they're up against, it's going to get filtered out.

Dan Hibberd: Yeah. You might think about not attending a session from your leadership program if you've got a critical thing you're working on and it's not related. Whereas as soon as that is the problem, it's almost like you're waiting for your session with your peers to talk about your problem, because that's actually part of how you're going to create a solution. I love that.

Kristen Hartley: That's so well said. It reminds me of coaching. I think that's why people love one-to-one executive coaching so much, because you know it will be exactly about your problem and you will get the help that you need for the pain that you're feeling. And we're trying to make these programs do something similar, but at scale.

Dan Hibberd: Absolutely love it. And so, what are the other things that stood out when we spoke, alongside leveraging and designing in real-world problems was a bit of a shift in the proportions of what you're designing into a program. A shift away maybe from as much content and frameworks, and towards a little bit more kind of application at work and focus on building the network. Can you speak to some of those kind of changes that you've made?

Kristen Hartley: Yeah, definitely. If I were to describe a very traditional management training or traditional leadership development experience, even ones that I designed

Kristen Hartley: And, eight years ago, I feel like it had a lot of content and tools and framework, maybe 50% of the pie. And then there's networking and peer learning in the pie. And then there's a little sliver that's about application back to work. And it puts the responsibility on the participants to get dipped into this amazing experience and then they have to go back to their day job and it's on them to remember it and reflect on it and then apply it in their very busy, high-pressure, day-to-day work.

And what we've really tried to do is shift it, making the business challenge at the center of it, and absolutely give people some content and some inspiration, but give them a lot of time to network, collaborate, build relationships, and learn from others, to make that piece of the pie bigger, and the application is happening throughout the whole program. And so yes, they have to apply it back to work, but so much of that being about, you know, like the generalizing and applying that learning, it's getting done in the group or through reflection experiences, and so they shouldn't have to like put on their to-do list, "Remember what I learned and apply it back to work." They've already started doing it with the group.

So it's really like a shift, I think, in that ratio of time that's spent and what's put into the program design. And the great thing about it, for us who are designers and delivery people, it's actually easier to design and deliver things like that. You're not spending hours and hours creating slides and finding the best framework. The wisdom is often with the crowd. They have advice for each other. But you have to give them the space. So we talk a lot in our team with the enterprise programs we put on, it's really about creating the space and time and conditions for them to do that, less about telling them some secret framework or solution that they

Dan Hibberd: to deploy.

I completely agree and we're definitely seeing a lot of growth in that area of topic-agnostic, content-agnostic leadership development where it's actually about people bringing real-world problems to the table and tackling them and solving them together, because I think you're right. There's so much wisdom in the room, but often everyone is so busy just doing their jobs that there are not these spaces for problem-solving and practice and sharing and leveraging each other's expertise.

Kristen Hartley: To build on that, Dan, I would just say one thing that, you know, if you were to ask me like, what's something that's surprised me or I've learned about that peer sharing thing, is that I think people are often thinking that their problem is so specific and unique that, surely, there's no peer in the company who would have advice that would be helpful for them.

And so, I think there's a hesitation there, like a perceived barrier around seeking that advice. And what we hear every time we bring those groups together and they do peer coaching, like troika consulting in a little triad, is people are so surprised and amazed that they're facing such similar challenges to others and that the other people have actually helpful questions, ideas, inspiration for them.

And so, I think part of it is just getting them over that hump and realizing there is so much help out there that I could be getting from my peers.

Dan Hibberd: You've reminded me of something that you said in our previous conversation, and I think you'd asked for feedback. You know, you designed an amazing program, it's got simulations, it's got all sorts of cool components to it and you go, "What did you enjoy? What was the best part?" And you go, and it's like, "Love connecting with my colleagues and learning from everyone else."

You made the comment, you know, "We might as well have sent you on vacation together." You're like, actually, you know, so often, that is where there's real impact. And it's also, I guess, making those long-term connections with other people in the business

Dan Hibberd: instead. But long after the program, I'd call Kristen to ask her a question six months or a year later because I've established that relationship."

Kristen Hartley: Exactly. And we hear that exact thing, especially with our VP/SVP program. We hear that quote of like, "I wouldn't have felt comfortable sending a Slack message or picking up the phone to call that peer leader before I was in this program, and now I can, because we took a quick walk outside in San Francisco during the program or we were sitting next to each other at dinner." So, you know, just trying to make this really big company feel smaller so that people can do all of this complex cross-functional work that they need to do at that level.

Dan Hibberd: Yeah. One of the things I want to go back to, you talked about sometimes there's this hump that you have to get people over to get them involved. How do you get leaders onboarded and trusting the process upfront? Do you have any kind of practical strategies that people can use for making this pivot or this change? How do you get buy-in and sell it to the business or sell it to the participants?

Kristen Hartley: That's a great question. I mean, I'm thinking of one of our biggest programs—I didn't talk about it at the beginning because it's actually for all of our people leaders. It's called our People Leadership Summit, and everyone gets to go once in their career as a leader at Workday, and that's between 400 and 500 people every year. And in that program, we do this peer consulting where we get them all in person, and we get them to sit in three different chairs, and one of them turns around and gets to hear advice and wisdom and coaching questions about their problem. And so, I think the answer is maybe really simple. You just give them the instructions and you tell them, "We're about to do an activity. We're going to make it safe. We're going to make the instructions clear, and all 500 of you are about to do it."

And I think you just have to experience it once to be bought in that that is helpful. And then I think the more you get exposure to that kind of thing, the more you think about doing it in your day-to-day. And

Kristen Hartley: That's like what we really want to get them to of this new habit of like, I have a problem, I really don't know what to do. I'm not going to ask my boss first. I'm not going to ask AI first. I'm going to pick up the phone to someone, you know, across the hall in another function who might be facing the same thing. That's what we really want people to do, and I think to answer your question is get them to have a taste of it and see how helpful it is, and then keep giving them a taste of it until it becomes a habit.

Dan Hibberd: I love that. Proof is in the pudding. Once you've tried the pudding, then it's very easy to go get some more. So like, as you, you've obviously got three amazing programs, you've made some shifts that have been really positively received. You know, what's next? What are the next kind of changes? What's the next iteration? What are you going to bring in to kind of level the programs up even further based on what you've learned?

Kristen Hartley: Well, you know, the first thing that comes to mind is really about measuring impact and telling the story of impact. And so, like I said at the beginning, you know, that's a hard thing to do, but possible. And so, you know, we're starting to play with different ways of getting insights and data from the participants about what the experience did for them, what they got out of it, how they're behaving differently. And so, you know, we're thinking about how to do that both with numbers and with narratives and storytelling, and so that's one thing that comes to mind.

It's also been really fun with the director program that I mentioned. We're now on like the third version of it, and I predict that each year we'll do a new version of it. And so I'm enjoying the permission to iterate on it, and once we try something that we're not promising that it will always be like that, we'll do something else next year. So, you know, last year it was 300 people, it was all virtual. This year it's 150, and they got to come together in person once for two days. Next year we'll see, what does the business need?

Kristen Hartley: what's the audience that would benefit most from it? So, I'd say that's a second thing. And then maybe a third thing is our team is thinking about what about leadership for all? Self-leadership, personal leadership. I think there's going to be more and more individual contributors that are doing really strategic work and leading project teams. I think AI is changing org design and org structure already and more in the future. So, we're thinking about what service and solution can we provide for that audience? And so, maybe taking this concept of leadership development and it doesn't have to be about a position, but it could be about the influence and the leadership skills that individual contributors have. So, that's something fun that our team is starting to ideate on.

Dan Hibberd: That is exciting, and I think you're right. It's probably always been true that everyone has to make decisions, everyone has to give feedback at times in their job, so there's all of these things that we think of as leadership skills, but actually, a lot of them are just foundational skills that you need to work effectively in a team or with other people. And so, that vision is expanding.

I'm glad you went back to, you know, this idea of proving impact and showing ROI, and kind of iterating on that because I think that is really powerful. It's been a missing piece in an environment where learning and development, leadership things are being challenged, building those components in and getting really clear around that kind of tangible value that can be connected back to the business and business priorities is key. So, love that vision for where things are going.

Now, as we look to wrap things up, Kristen, what would be your one takeaway? So for those leaders who are listening in L&D, OD, change, transformation, leadership, what's the one thing you've learned recently that you'd like to leave with our listeners?

Kristen Hartley: I think I'd call back to what we talked about in terms of creating the container and time and space for people to learn. And maybe one of my

Kristen Hartley: My biggest learnings in the past several years, especially learning from so many great people at Workday, is sometimes simpler is better when it comes to leadership development, and when it comes to the design. And instead of trying to jam so many different modules, or pieces of content, or reflective questions into a program, thinking about how to strip it back to what will actually give them a little bit more expansive space and time to connect with each other, but also to reflect, because in their day-to-day they're probably not getting any of that. And so I think my realization is that is a value add that we provide through these programs, and so don't gunk a program too much with like too many things in the agenda, but let it be a little bit more spacious.

Dan Hibberd: I love that piece of advice, and I think in, as a team, we like to think you don't come together to watch TV. You come together to talk, to discuss, to contextualize, to practice. That's really where the value is of coming together with other people, so this idea of, how do you, how do you create as much space for that as possible?

Kristen Hartley: Yeah. It's more about like you come together to sit around a table with some good food to talk, and connect, and bond, and that's the value of coming together. I like that comparison.

Dan Hibberd: L&D's all about just sending people on vacation together, and how do you create vacation spaces where people can relax, and reflect, and connect with their peers?

Kristen Hartley: Yes, exactly.

Dan Hibberd: I know about that one. That's a great finishing point. Kristen, thank you for joining us. I've loved our conversation today. I've no doubt that there is plenty of nuggets and insights that our listeners are going to take away, so thank you, and we're excited to see where these programs go to next. Congratulations on the Brandon Hall Awards that you've just come away with.

Kristen Hartley: Thank you, Dan. Really fun to chat with you.