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The linkage between the future of work and lifelong learning has been emphasized in many studies[i] (ILP and Forbes for example). If lifelong learning is to become a culture in any organisation, there must be voluntary participation from employees. Employers need to invest in creating and sustaining this culture. This does not come easy in traditionally managed organisations. A new paradigm shift is necessary to enable this. In an earlier article, published by CEO Insights India magazine, (also available here) I had written about the need for organisations to democratize learning and empower learners on what to learn.  This is an essential factor for preparing organisations for the future of work. Organisations that have Servant Leadership as an overarching Leadership philosophy stand a much better chance in nurturing this culture. In this blog, let us look at the how part of empowering learners.  How can we effectively empower learners? How can we attract them to the learning opportunities that the organisation is investing in? One of the most effective ways of doing this, is through Simulations for learning. Simulation is not a new subject by any stretch of imagination. The first flight simulator was used for training pilots as early as 1929, almost a century back. Board based simulations were used in corporate trainings often. The advent of eLearning provided a springboard for simulations and rightly so. Simulations became an integral part of blended learning in late nineties or early 2000s. The fact is that they remain an integral part of any learning intervention today and more so in the new normal. The traditional success of simulations revolved around the below aspects (as highlighted in the book Simulations and the Future of Learning by Clark Aldrich , 2004[ii]) Authentic and relevant scenarios. Applied pressure situations that tap users’ emotions and force them to act. A sense of unrestricted options. Re-playability Today we could very well add the availability of simulations over the cloud to this list. But the most critical aspect that makes simulations perhaps the most accepted component of any corporate learning program is the sense of empowerment it gives the learner. The sense of ownership that the learner has when the learner makes a decision, understands the impact of that decision and is given a chance to rectify or learn from that experience is something that no other form of learning can provide. While several organisations do allow mistakes in real job situations and let employees consider mistakes as learning opportunities, simulations provide such a learning at a fraction of the cost of making a mistake in real job situations, especially if the job is mission critical. Airline companies would want to ensure that the pilots use simulations before they let them fly passengers. Nuclear power plants would want to ensure that the safety engineers use simulations to understand the impact of unsafe practices. How about softer aspects like project management or leadership? Our studies reveal that well designed simulations are extremely effective in delivering these types of content as well. Take project management for example. It can be a very dry topic to teach someone in a class room or in a workshop. That is probably why many organisations let employees learn project management on-the-job. What if we could make the theories of project management come alive and provide learners with the delight of making decisions and seeing its impact on the project progress? What if a competitive element could be introduced to create a game like atmosphere? What if this could be done over the cloud with multiple teams competing? This is what UST did in partnership with AXL Learn. This partnership between AXL Learn and UST got them Brandon Hall recognitions in 2016 and 2017. On the leadership front when UST wanted to scale up the Servant Leadership education among its associates and leaders they turned to simulations in partnership with Enparadigm. The results have been amazing for these interventions. Not surprisingly, these initiatives went on to be listed in the Gold level in Brandon Hall awards 2021, in Best of Blended Learning category. Like any other good thing, using Simulations for corporate learning is not without its risks and dangers. At one extreme, it could become laborious and exhausting if the designers incorporate too many possible scenarios in the simulation. On the other extreme, it could become too simple and hence not provide any real learning. The designers must strike a very delicate balance here. The other key aspect that the designers must keep in mind is the quality of content. Great user interface or seamless experience or attractive visuals, are key factors for pure gaming applications. But, when it comes to corporate learning, they are not enough in itself. The content must be cutting edge. That is why the simulation designers must identify and partner with thought leaders on the topic. This is where organisations like Leadyne play a big role. Building a seamless eco system of simulation designers and thought leaders on content is a must for simulations to become the preferred way of learning in the Future of work. Try out the simulation landscape today. There is much on offer and much more to come. [i] https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilyhe/2020/09/22/why-learning-is-the-future-of-work/?sh=20bf820c55ac accessed on 7th October 2021, and Shaping skills and lifelong learning for the future of work International Labour Conference 109th Session, 2021, pp 12 and pp 39-41 [ii] Aldrich, Clark. Simulations and the Future of Learning: An Innovative (and Perhaps Revolutionary) Approach to E-Learning. Germany, Wiley, 2003. Pp 9. ________________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Madana Kumar, PhD is the Servant Leadership Evangelist and Chief Consultant at Leadyne. You can connect with him here or contact him here

In an earlier blog, I wrote about how Servant Leaders empower their employees using the attribute of Empathy. This concept of empowerment is so very essential to creating a learning organisation. Needless to say, learning organisations thrive. So how do we empower our learners and create a culture of continuous learning in the organisation. Let us start with a question. Should organisations focus on the holistic development of employees or invest only on monetizable skills? Thomas Friedman in his book “Thank you for Being Late” emphasizes the fact the Technological advances have overtaken human adaptability. Because of this, employees cannot have the luxury of “taking-time-off-to-learn” but must “learn-all-the-time”. That means they must have access to learn during working hours, during traveling, or doing household chores, etc. In their book “The 100-Year Life–Living and Working in an Age of Longevity” authors Andrew J Scott and Lynda Gratton of the London School of Economics, bring out the fact that today’s employees have multiple choices because of the multi-stage life (as against the three-stage life of earlier times) that today’s generation has access to. This gives an entirely fresh perspective to employee loyalty. Employees who have a choice will require that organisations invest in them as whole persons rather than as “resources” required to meet the organisation goals. One of the major hurdles that come in the way of Holistic development of employees is the concept of Scrap learning. In the early 2000s several people started studying about how much of organisational learning delivered is applied at work. This included illustrious Learning Leaders like General Frank Anderson, and Dr. Robert Brikerhoff. Organisations like KnwoledgeAdvisors who popularized the “Metrics that Matter” concept picked this up, and it is believed that they coined the term Scrap Learning for any learning that was not applied on the job. KnwoledgeAdvisors was later acquired by CEB and then by Gartner. The studies by CEB and Brinkerhoff estimated a whopping 45 to 80% of learning investment as Scrap Learning. This soon became a selling point for Predictive Learning Analytic tools. While the concept of Scrap Learning itself is not wrong, the way it got applied in several organisations became suspect. L&D heads were given yet another metric to prove their existence. The clamor for RoI on every Learning dollar was already high, and the concept of Scrap Learning added to the ammunition of Nay-sayers on Learning Investments. Finance organisations established how many millions they can save if only the L&D function reduced Scrap Learning by as little as 5%. What took a hit was the focus on the Learning culture of the organisations that focused on Scrap Learning maniacally. Such organisations forgot to look at the impact the concept of scrap learning has on employee engagement. Some leaders could not tolerate the fact that employees might spend time (and company’s money) to learn photography or cooking instead of Angular JS. In an actual case that I experienced, that was exactly what happened initially, when we have everyone access to all learning resources from a premier e-learning provider. The leaderboard showed Photography as the most consumed course in the first four weeks. However, my theory was that when you give employees an option to learn, when you democratize what employees learn, they will ultimately learn what is beneficial to the organisation. And accurate enough, the trend changed gradually in the next several weeks and Angular JS became no 1, and photography receded to the 25th position. When organisations insist they invest only in skills that are monetizable or can immediately be translated into business results, the obvious message that the employee gets is this. “You are a resource for us. Hence any investment in you has to have a tangible return”. Contrast this to an organisation that lets employee choose what they need to learn. The message that the employee gets here is “We value you as a person and will invest in your development. You choose what you need for your development”. It is rhetorical to ask which message will give better employee engagement. Isn’t it? Ken Blanchard says “Keep Learning! If you stop, you might as well let them throw the dirt on you because you’re already dead”. I engaged him in a conversation about scrap learning based on this. And I loved his comment. “I don’t know what ‘scrap learning’ is, but I would scrap it”. That sums it up for me. In our Servant Leadership model of DEEP BHC behaviours, H stands for Helping Others Grow and Succeed. This requires commitment to the growth of others described by us as “People have an intrinsic value beyond their tangible contributions as workers. Commit to a personal, professional, and spiritual growth of each and every individual within the organization” It is time to scrap the “Scrap Learning” concept and invest in the holistic development of our employees. Join the Servant Leadership movement and Help Others Grow and Succeed. The returns are prenominal. _______________________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Madana Kumar, PhD is the Servant Leadership Evangelist and Chief Consultant at Leadyne. You can connect with him here or contact him here. An edited version this article also appeared in CEO Insights India website

Creating Customer value through Servant Leadership   ‘This is ridiculous!’ Very often this is the thought that runs in our head, sometimes even speak aloud –  as we run into a wall trying to get a solution,  process a claim or service something  The service person gives you a vibe which could mean any of the following “I need to play it safe about my job. Your pain comes next if at all” ‘The person who issued this would have told you’ ‘This is what the system says..’ ‘Let me call my manager’ ( I know he can’t do anything about this either!) One gets the feeling that the ‘house always wins’ and now I have to pay more or convince more people to solve the problem’.  As a customer, there is a sense that you have been denied what is rightfully yours. Ken Blanchard calls it the duck syndrome, where everyone who you contact in the hierarchy says quack, quack, and pushes it to the next level up.  How does it happen? Organizations want to reduce variability of responses in the final mile.  Systematized response ensures predictability of the cost of business or service and guards against any potential exploitation. Organizations believe that all admissible responses to a customer have to pre-exist in the defined manual. Over time this codified customer interaction actually ‘trims’ away the grease of good customer service and adds to the cost of business and risks losing customers. Good Customer service relies on the intrinsic human quality of empathy and the willingness to help resolve any genuine and logical issue in the best possible manner.  Perceived lack of ownership and the capability question Most pyramidal hierarchies believe that the level of ownership and decision making capabilities is weak at the lower rungs. Therefore actions have to be guided and clearly defined for the organization to be successful. Not true. Many organizations have generated phenomenal customer value with a distributed model of  individual or team ownership. Google would not be in a position to conceive  and pursue so many ‘moonshots’ if there were no microcosms of risk taking, experiment and accountability. Southwest airlines pride themselves in empowering employees to do what is right. Ritz Carlton creates a culture where any employee will say “I will take care of it” immaterial of which function the problem belongs to.  The Fear Factor Organisations end up creating a culture of fear, that if the processes are not followed to the letter, their jobs are at risk. So instead of trying to “serve” the customer, employees are obsessed about following the written down procedures and policies. Added to this, a leadership which thinks that “they know the best” do not ever ask for feedback from the people who are actually dealing with the real stuff. Of course, no one dares to volunteer feedback because of the fear factor.  Servant Leadership as a lever of resolution Servant Leadership behaviour is defined as a set of 7 unique behaviours called DEEP BHC and it is a measurable and actionable process. It helps create an idea generative organization, a reductive approach to processes that enhances speed of response, and thoughtfulness that improves customer delight Servant Leadership recommends that organisations invert the traditional pyramid and let the employees at the “bottom of the pyramid” do what is best when it comes to customer issue resolution. Two specific behaviors of Servant Leaders,  mentioned below, can help build ownership and enhance customer value through better engagement and service Empowerment:  Building the confidence that all employee feedback  is welcome and will receive a thought through response from the organization. Recognizing that people are capable of decision making and it is most likely in the interest of the organization Creating some wiggle room for decision making, that is not codified. Let the employees know that every situation cannot be codified and employees can use their grey matter based on the situation, as long as it is in line with the organisation’s vision, mission and values. Encouraging peer learning from customer feedback and encouraging response in real time.  Helping others grow and succeed: Success for the frontline executive is about making themselves and the organization look good in the eyes of the customer.  Taking a holistic approach to their (frontline) development and not viewing everything through the lens of revenue alone can be a key differentiator for the leader and the organization. Encouraging them to ask questions and find answers, training them to build not just their service acumen but also their business acumen,  creating an atmosphere that encourages initiative and acknowledges effort, are some aspects that will make them well rounded contributors.   According to a research paper by Robert Saxe and Barton Weitz on a ‘Measure of the customer orientation of salespeople’, Salespeople with higher levels of customer orientation truly care about customers, and thus engage in actions that customers value, such as listening to customer feedback and solving customer problems. Salespeople who demonstrate higher levels of adaptive selling adjust their sales strategies in ways that better fit customers’ needs and preferences (Spiro and Weitz 1990). Together then, customer orientation and adaptive selling lead to win-win outcomes because customers are served in better, more individually relevant ways, producing higher levels of success for the sales force and the organization.    A flip on the traditional leadership model, Servant Leadership invigorates people at various levels through trust and care, and by default inculcates better ownership and accountability. It is an approach that has been successfully implemented by organizations who have ‘flipped’ conventional thought and built successful and robust businesses. Google, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Tatas to name a few. (A edited version of this article also appeared in the Enparadigm Blog in June 2021 https://enparadigm.com/blog/creating-customer-value-through-servant-leadership/) ________________________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Madana Kumar is the Servant Leadership Evangelist and Chief Consultant at Leadyne. You can connect with him here or contact him here. 

We all have heard the proverb “No pain No Gain”. I am not sure if you have given it much thought. But if we give it a thought, we might have differing opinions about it. In the context of doing hard work to progress in life this sounds great. But how do we apply this or translate this in the current context of the pandemic, where we have lost our loved ones, or lost our livelihoods? How do we react when we go through suffering and mental pain for no apparent fault of ours and for no apparent gain that we can foresee soon? I must confess that I have no answer for those questions. But what I would like to attempt to do is to examine this aspect of pain and suffering and see how we can cope with it better. In an earlier blog, I discussed the victim mentality that some of us get into when faced with pain and suffering. We ask questions about why me, why now etc, and feel defeated and stay defeated.  That is certainly not going to help anyone. So what can we do when we are going through pain and suffering? I offer two suggestions that can turn around our reaction to pain and suffering. Consider pain and suffering as an opportunity (God give opportunity, if you have a spiritual bend of mind) to count your blessings, count what you have and develop an attitude of gratitude.   Arthur Ashe was the first black man to win a Grand Slam. He is believed to have got infected with HIV/AIDS during a blood transfusion during a surgery.  When it became known, people all over the world started asking questions on why him? The questions reached him and his response was this. “The world over — 50 million children start playing tennis, 5 million learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, when I was holding a cup I never asked GOD ‘Why me?’. And today in pain I should not be asking GOD ‘Why me?’ ” Happiness keeps you Sweet, Trials keep you Strong, Sorrow keeps you Human, Failure keeps you humble and Success keeps you glowing, but only Faith & Attitude Keeps you going..” Consider Pain as Gift No, you didn’t read it wrong. I mean it. It is a gift that tells us where to draw the lines and how to enjoy the pleasure of life responsibly. Let me illustrate this with a medical study. Dr Paul Brand (1914-2003) worked amongst and studied leprosy in India.  He establishes the fact that what lepers suffer with most is not because of the decease per se, but because the decease acts as a very very strong anesthetic and takes away their sensation of pain. They cannot feel pain and thus they end up hurting themselves (without feeling anything) repeatedly. They put their hands in fire because they cannot feel the heat.  They walk on broken glass because they cannot feel the pain when glass pierces their feet. Even common activities like holding a mop or turning a key, or working with a screwdriver could damage their skins and muscles, because they just cannot fathom how much pressure to put on those things. Simple shoes can cause infections because they do not know when the shoe hurts and causes bruises. Imagine a nail piercing your foot when you walk and it is staying there, and getting more and more deep into your flesh because you did not feel the nail piercing your foot. Imagine not being able to itch when a mosquito bites you, imagine waking up with your toe missing, because a rat chewed it off and you didn’t feel a thing. It is difficult for you and me to fathom this, because we take these things for granted. And we are able to take these things for granted because we can feel pain. Pain helps us to stop doing things that could damage us more permanently. Pain warns us to stay away from activities that could be harmful. Pain tells us when to stop. That is why Dr Brand boldly states “Thank God for inventing Pain. I don’t think He could have done a better job. It is beautiful.” Dr. Brand knows the value of pain, because he raised and spent millions of dollars  to design and manufacture gadgets like special gloves, special shoes, special audio devices etc, to enable lepers to be able to “feel” pain artificially.   Are we ready to use pain and suffering for developing an attitude of Gratitude? Can we consider pain as a gift given to us? Servant Leaders are able to cope with pain and suffering better, because of the behaviour of Emotional Healing that I wrote about in an earlier blog. Servant Leaders put the need of others above their own, as we discussed in a previous blog on putting others first. So instead of focusing on their own pain and suffering Servant Leaders focus on others pain and suffering and ask the question “what can I do to alleviate someone else’s pain today?   What is your response going to be?  Join the Servant Leadership Movement, manage your pain gainfully and help others manage their pain. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Madana Kumar is the Servant Leadership Evangelist and Chief Consultant at Leadyne. You can connect with him here or mail him here.

These are troubling times for all of us. Several of us are perturbed by the pain and suffering that is going on.  Where can we go for comfort? Where can we find solace? How can we comfort others? You must have heard the saying “ You can’t live on love and fresh air alone”. The underlying assumption behind this saying is that they are the only two things that are available free. Let us look at it in the context of today. Newspapers and social media are full of heart wrenching stories of people gasping for oxygen, something that is supposed to be available freely in fresh air. The air pollution in Delhi, India, for quite a number of years have taught us that we cannot take fresh air for granted. COVID has just reaffirmed that. We cannot take fresh air for granted. How about love? Is it free anymore? Is it available when we need it the most? Whatever your answer is for this question, the good news is that each one of us can make an effort to make the answer positive for others. Yes, if we turn around the question to “Do we love freely anymore? Is love our first priority in life? “ The picture will change for sure. I define Servant Leader as “A Servant Leader is someone who invests in the life of another person to the extent that the other person becomes better, bigger, wiser, richer, healthier, wealthier, happier, more famous than the leader themselves.” This should not be limited to formal leaders. This can be applied to each and everyone of us, immaterial of whether we hold a formal leadership position or not.  Let me suggest a few practical things we can do to take our love to this level Stop chasing success and start pursuing Significance. I have written about this in an earlier blog . Significance is when we use our success to add value to others. When we use our wisdom to lift up the foolish, when we spread our knowledge to educate the unlearned. When we use our wealth to help the poor, when we use our health to care for the sick, when we use our network to be able to help someone in need get the precious gift of an oxygenated bed when they most need it. If we just chase success alone, we will forget the people around us, and will be very busy achieving things one after another . but will not have time and inclination to use anyone that for someone else’s benefit. Look for opportunity to lift someone else above you. In an earlier blog, I spoke about the little child who could not see the festivities around her till the time the father decided to lift her up above him. There are a lot of souls around us today who need that uplifting. Smile at someone. Ask another person, how you can be helpful. Just lend a listening year to someone who needs to pour out their troubles. Mourn with someone who lost a loved one. Pray for them. Provide for them as much as you can. Don’t let distance and lockdowns hold you back. Understand and practice the deeper meaning of forgiveness and grace. In my blog on Emotional Healing, I spoke about the true meaning of Grace.  Don’t get caught up in the prison of unforgiveness and entitlement. Let us learn to let go and be willing to give others a second chance (and a third chance and an umpteenth chance). We are all messed up. Let us cut some slack for others to make their mistakes and learn from them. And if you are working professional, start by rewriting your job description. If your job description is all about results, and goals and projects, it is time to rewrite the same to include love for your employees/ team members in your Job description. In the podcast Key Mental Shifts for Servant Leadership, by Pete Mockaitis, available in LinkedIn Learning and lynda.com, the presenter describes a case study in Walt Disney Parks. As all of us are ware, Disney prides themselves in providing a magical experience to all their guests. They started getting complaints that the housekeeping staff was being rude or not responsive to several Guests. The analysis revealed an interesting fact. The housekeeping staff’s job description was to keep the park clean. They were focused on their job description to such an extent that when they saw a client throw trash all around it made them antagonistic to the guests. And if a guest who was throwing trash on the road, comes and asks the housekeeping staff for directions, the natural response is going to be, “I don’t know, I am just a janitor.”  They are thinking inside, “why I should I help this person, he just made my job harder by throwing trash on the road”. Once the leadership realised this, they changed the job description of the house keeping staff as “To create happy guests, to contribute to the happiness of our guests. How do you do that? Well, you provide them with directions when they need it. You give a kind smiling face when they ask you questions” and by the way, as an additional duty you also keep the park clean. This simple but definite switch to the Job description made a world of difference to the way the housekeeping staff treated the guests. The message is this. Change your job description to something that you can look forward to. Add love to your job description. Make the first sentence “ My job is to take care of the people I am entrusted with, to care for their wellbeing, to motivate them, to develop them, to help them grow and succeed ”. Don’t worry about the HR drafted job description that might remain in the HR systems. Go ahead and change the Job Description that you will live every working day of