What Learning & Development have in common with your hair stylist.

In my work in learning and development in the past 15 years I have noticed that people will say things in a training room about what is really going on in their part of the organization.  Some times it surprises me how vocal people are and how free they are to talk about management and leadership concerns.  It’s like the experience many of us have at a salon where we talk about our family problems with someone we only see every couple of months. I used to see it as venting.  Now I see it as information that could be harnessed by the executive team to help the organization.

Who else in a business interacts with every department and across all organizational levels?  No one.  In an average month in a large organization from the first day of onboarding to performance management courses, L&D probably interact with 50 to 100 people.  Behind the closed doors of the training room, facilitators create a space for employees to interact with the content that was identified as necessary to support the strategic plan.  The rubber hits the road here.  The feasibility, engagement, buy-in and support of employees are on the line.  And employees share their opinions quite openly.

Surprisingly, I have never had someone from an executive team ask me what themes are emerging from the courses or how people are responding to the material.  These conversations could be very helpful in showing some of the systemic issues that are at work. All that without a scalp massage.

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