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Igniting Innovation with an LMS

Innovation is often identified as a key strategic advantage for organisations who have instilled innovation into their culture.  Innovation need not be on the scale of a major new product and service, often it is creating a new process or tool that works within the business to support greater effectiveness and performance.  One of our clients determined that innovation was going to be a strategic focus for their business.  This client has successfully implemented a learning and development strategy that has driven higher levels of performance both at individual, team and enterprise levels.  Now they wish to translate this learning culture to support one that includes innovation as well.  DOTS LMS is the backbone for the learning and development processes and it was our challenge to explore how we can utilise DOTS to support innovation.  This first entry explores the first phase of the innovation project plan and in the second entry I will illustrate the tools used in DOTS LMS and how they were configured to create an effective ‘innovation incubator.’

The first phase was focused on communication and awareness.  The management team determined that there was a need to ensure a pervasive understanding of the strategic plan throughout the enterprise.  An online course was developed using the DOTS Content Creator that included videos, images, Excel spreadsheets and other file types.  This course is approximately 20 to 25 minutes in duration and included an enrolment so that attendance could be tracked.  The course included a feedback form and a DOTS Survey to gauge reactions and collect ideas.  The other courses in phase one included a course on how the innovation project was going to be undertaken, a course on the concept of innovation and examples of how innovation drives better performance at all leves of an organisation.  These courses were developed using a combination of the DOTS Content Creator and Microsoft PowerPoint with Articulate.  All of the courses included online feedback and a survey so that ideas could be captured even at this early stage of the roll-out.  Since the client already had the employee population in DOTS the course was catalogued so that all persons could access it.  In addition to employees, a couple of the courses were made available to key partners and suppliers to encourage their participation in the innovation process.  These external users were granted access to the courses but did not have access to any another feature or function within the LMS.

DOTS Libraries were used to provide support resources such as links to external sites, articles, presentations and information about key people involved in this project.  To encourage people to engage and participate in the process a number of DOTS Discussion Groups were established.  Some Discussions were open across the Enterprise while others were available to specific teams and departments.  The phase one timeline was designed for 8 weeks to ensure a good pace is established.  The pace ensured there was a prevailing sense of importance attached to this project as well as an energetic level of activity.

In the next entry I will explain the use of DOTS LMS to support the innovation processes.

Are You Coaching? If not, why not?

I suppose there is a need to clarify what I mean by coaching.  When we engage in a coaching relationship with another person we are committed to improving that person’s performance.  Coaching can be used in any business discipline including sales.

The most common used method to improve sales is to provide some form of sales training.  Sales training is done online or in workshops with either a single sales team or a group comprising persons from different organisations and industries.  Sales training may be effective if it is implemented within a scaffold of useful ‘on the job‘ tools, follow up, and refresher learning opportunities.  My experience shows that in most cases sales training is an event with limited ongoing impact on performance.   Sales coaching is much different.

Effective sales coaching is one on one.  The sales coach engages with the coachee in a focused process to improve performance.  There are many tools available to delivery effective coaching.  In sales coaching it is essential that the coach ‘shadows’ the coachee on the job.  Just as a sports coach analyses technique so the sales coach analyses technique and behaviours as well as providing the tools and guidance to create change.

Other tools are available and an effective coach will use at least a few if not all of these.

• Shadowing (as mentioned above).
• 360 feedback tools.
• Self- assessment tools.
• Interviews with clients.
• Personality and psychometric assessments.
• Role play and situation rehearsal.
• Visualisation exercises
• Independent and guided external learning (including online learning).

If you are a business owner or manager you may choose to opt for an external coach.  there are reasons to use an external coach, among these are:

•   You need to remain focused on your objectives in the business.
•   You may not feel confident engaging in one on one coaching with your sales people.
•   You may not have the skills or experience to execute an effective coaching program.
•   A skilled external coach is going to be objective and may act as a great relationship     builder in the business.

What results can you expect from effective sales coaching?  There are many outcomes and some are readily apparent and others are more hidden but still impact positively on your business.  You will notice that effective coaching scores fast wins in the engagement and the benefit steadily increase.  At some point a tipping point is reached and the coachee’s performance will accelerate dramatically.

An effective professional coach will measure your return on investment.  Based on my experience these are a few of the benefits that will be achieved in a sales coaching engagement.

• Higher levels of motivation and energy.
• Clear alignment with company strategy.
• Identified measurable goals and objectives.
• Stronger sales pipeline.
• Reduced sales cycle timeframes.
• Greater innovation and continuous improvement.
• Greater trust established between sales person and management.

There are plenty more benefits that can be achieved using coaching to improve the sales performance in your business.  If you are interested in learning more or scheduling a free one- hour coaching session for yourself or one of your sales team members, please give me a call or send an email using the form on our website.