July Blog Feature - OD Practitioner Journal

Jesse Sostrin just published his article "A Conceptual Framework of Barriers to Workplace Learning and Performance" in the OD Practitioner Journal vol. 41 No. 3.

To read the full piece anytime this month, send a comment and request a PDF. Here is an excerpt:

“Considering the changing nature of work and the mandate for continuous learning and performance,it is no longer an option to endure barriers. A new system for accurately identifying and broadly addressing barriers to workplace learning and performance is required.”

Introduction

The workplace has changed dramatically over the last 50 years. This evolution is marked by significant and wide-sweeping trends, including accelerating technology,
increased global competition and movement toward a service-driven economy. Collectively, these and many other imposing changes require a new approach to defining and measuring the effectiveness and overall success of not only individual productivity at work, but also our collective human capital—I call it continuous workplace learning and performance. I define continuous workplace learning and performance as the consistent acquisition and application of the attitudes, values, knowledge, skills and abilities required to successfully fulfill specific job functions that are consistent with the organization’s desired business outcomes.

Moving beyond this technical definition,continuous learning and performance is a recognition that each day in the workplace presents the critical choice to innovate or decline and to learn or lapse. Developing a discipline of continuous workplace learning and performance is not only the competitive advantage of the 21st century—it is a matter of survival for individuals,teams, and organizations competing
in the modern workplace.

Unfortunately, barriers to continuous workplace learning and performance are everywhere, all the time. Some barriers subtly impact everyday communication and decision-making, while others are more systemic and have adverse impacts on things like workforce selection and retention. Regardless of the nature and impact of specific barriers, they undermine our ability to learn and perform. In many cases barriers are often sustained in the workplace because they are elusive and difficult to address. Considering the changing nature of work and the mandate for continuous learning and performance,it is no longer an option to endure barriers. A new system for accurately identifying and broadly addressing barriers to workplace learning and performance is required.

For Organization Development (OD)practitioners and their clients, acknowledging the presence of barriers is not a novel concept. The premise of most OD interventions in fact is to either react to or proactively intervene against some kind of barrier. However, the ability to successfully resolve issues related to barriers relies exclusively on our ability to accurately identify the barrier and its root causes, as well as its interdependent parts. The fact is, each year billions of dollars are spent on training and development programs,expensive consultants and change initiatives within organizations of all types. For organizations and their leaders to fully maximize these types of investments it is critical to accurately identify the specific barriers to learning and performance experienced by both individuals and teams in the workplace.

After working as an OD practitioner for more than 10 years, I became increasingly frustrated by the lack of a comprehensive model that could help identify and provide context to the many recurring barriers experienced by clients across industries. From a practical standpoint, I was also concerned by the lack of a reliable assessment tool that could help to effectively “connect the dots” and identify the intertwined, systemic barriers experienced by my clients. In time, I resolved to channel my frustrations into academic research that could potentially add benefit to both scholars and practitioners working in the field of OD. The specific goal of my research was to identify and organize a wide range of barriers to workplace learning and performance into a conceptual framework that illuminates this phenomenon in the context of the changing demands of today’s work environment. This article presents a summary of my research, including a description of the model and a discussion concerning implications for OD practitioners.

“What’s Your Emotional Bottom Line?”

In business we pay attention to the bottom line as a measure of net income and as an indicator of the health and potential of an enterprise. But in our own lives, what helps us gauge our current health and potential for success? Our emotional bottom line can be an enlightening interpersonal benchmark of what’s working and what’s not working for us.

An emotional bottom line is the difference between what you need and what you are getting. A healthy emotional bottom line means that in general you are getting your needs satisfied more often than not. For example, if a person has an expressed need to feel challenged in their position at work, a healthy emotional bottom line would indicate that in general they enjoy a sense of challenge on most days at work. This can be measured by identifying and reflecting on his or her various roles and responsibilities and documenting what aspects provide reasonable degrees of challenge.

Similar to a businesses’ bottom line, our emotional bottom line can help us to be reflective about a given situation to determine whether or not we need to address any gaps. While working with a client recently, I had the opportunity to help them articulate their emotional bottom line related to a contentious issue in the workplace. My client explained that she had repeatedly felt “shut out” and “undermined” by a dominating colleague. During meetings, she was unable to present her own ideas without fear of being interrupted or sidetracked. This led to anxiety and an ever-present, underlying sense of worry. I asked the client what she needed in this situation. She explained that she desired mutual respect with her colleague and wanted the freedom to express ideas on her own terms, without fear of sabotage. When asked where her emotional bottom line was right now, she explained that in general, most days left her feeling frustrated and unable to meet her needs.

As we probed on the related issues more deeply, the realization of an unhealthy bottom line helped the client to assess how important these emotional and psychological needs were, what negative effects their absence were having on her life inside and outside of the workplace and, most importantly, what assertive action she was willing to commit to in order to improve her emotional bottom line related to these particular needs.

Walking yourself through this type of reflective exercise to measure your own emotional bottom line can add a lot of value at both a personal or team level. It helps to put something very subjective into a more objective framework, making it easier to talk about difficult interpersonal issues. The New Year is often a time to create resolutions for future changes in our lives. Rather than updating our 2006 New Year’s resolution lists for 2007, imagine what’s possible if we took an honest look out our emotional bottom lines?