Recorded Webinar

Transcript

[00:00:00] Laura Mastrorocco: We are delighted to have you with here, with us here today for Learning Lab Part 3, The Power of Community in Learning. for having me. So regardless of whether or not you've joined us for the first two segments we're very excited to have you join us.

[00:00:16] Laura Mastrorocco: Oh, Patricia, welcome from Brazil. My name's Laura Mastrorocco, and I will be your producer for today's session. You'll notice that I've turned on the live transcription. That function is to the bottom of your screen. And I'll be behind the scenes making sure that things run smoothly during today's session.

[00:00:36] Laura Mastrorocco: Have a great day. So before I go any further, allow me to introduce our speakers today. Pinar O'Flaherty is a learning strategist, instructional designer, and facilitator with over 25 years of experience. She designs for organizations looking to develop their people, including onboarding, performance, management, career [00:01:00] path development, and leadership.

[00:01:02] Laura Mastrorocco: Her passion for learning is paired with her strong belief in using needs- based design. Pinard believes that learning is key, not only for growth and success. It is the core of the team's motivation, satisfaction, and inspiration. Pinard has designed programs for a variety of organizations, including Google, General Assembly, LA County Office of Education, Lululemon, and Intuit.

[00:01:33] Laura Mastrorocco: And she is joining us today. From New York, New York. So glad to have you with us here today, Pinar.

[00:01:40] Pinar O'Flaherty: Excited to be here. And

[00:01:42] Laura Mastrorocco: we also have Rachel Christ. Rachel is the head of product and delivery at PILOT. She drives the creation of impactful coaching products that put employees in the driver's seat of their career.

[00:01:57] Laura Mastrorocco: Rachel works closely with [00:02:00] PILOT participants to energize and challenge them on their development journeys. She finds inventive ways to meet our HR, talent management, L& D, and DEI customer needs for scalable employee development that gets used and actually works. And as you already know, Rachel is connecting from the Detroit area in Michigan.

[00:02:26] Laura Mastrorocco: So before I turn it over hello Rachel, so glad you could be with us. Before I turn it over to Rachel and Pinar, I'd like to share with you a little bit about how we'll communicate today. So many of you have already utilized the chat panel. Thank you for that engagement. And I invite you to continue utilizing the chat panel throughout our time together.

[00:02:49] Laura Mastrorocco: You can feel free to pose questions there at any time. Please note that today's session is being recorded. However, the chat panel is not recorded. So [00:03:00] it's a safe space to pose questions or comments. And we invite you to utilize one of PILOT's core values, and that is vibrancy, by being fully present and vibrant in the chat panel.

[00:03:17] Laura Mastrorocco: In order to demonstrate that, go ahead to the chat panel, and you'll see there a little smiley face emoticon in the chat panel. and select however you're feeling at this moment. Let's see an emoticon for how you're feeling and ready to get started. Yes, Corey, you and I are on the same page.

[00:03:36] Laura Mastrorocco: Rachel's ready to party. All right. Excellent. So thank you all. At any time when you see or hear something that you'd like to show support, you can use any of those emoticons. You can also drop a plus one in the chat.

[00:03:57] Laura Mastrorocco: So I'd like to share a little bit with [00:04:00] you about PILOT, which was founded to help everyone feel powerful at work. We will show participants how to use self reflection, solicit and accept feedback, advocate for themselves. And take effective action in their organizations. This is done through four methods of learning.

[00:04:21] Laura Mastrorocco: We utilize technology enabled group coaching sessions, individual reflection activities, scaled mentoring, and one on one, future focused manager feedback sessions. Now that you know how we're, how we will interact and who we are, I'm going to turn it over to Rachel to dive into today's topic.

[00:04:45] Rachel Crice: Fabulous introductions, Laura. Thank you so much. We are here to talk about community today and the power that community has for learning programs. But before we talk about community and learning programs, we have to talk about what is community, right? [00:05:00] So the word community has this kind of strange power to it.

[00:05:04] Rachel Crice: It's vibrant as Laura said, if we think of thoughtfulness, we think of togetherness, solidarity, but we don't often think about community being inventive and who owns the community, right? And yet, we don't really have a defined definition of community either, the confusion over community and what it is and how it gets built and how it gets implemented, and often the failure of efforts to develop it stem from a casual and inconsistent use of the word community.

[00:05:33] Rachel Crice: So when asked, most people we talk to have a definition of community. It is also the case that most often these definitions are different depending on who you talk to. So community to me might be very different to Laura or Pinar. So that is where we get a little confused about what is community. And if we don't know what it is, we can't implement it, right?

[00:05:52] Rachel Crice: So the most accurate meaning that we have found of community comes from Toby Lowe. He's a professor in public management at the Center for Public [00:06:00] Impact in the UK. And after a lot of research in, from the 90s until now, Toby has defined community as a group of people who share an identity forming narrative.

[00:06:12] Rachel Crice: A group of people who share a story that's important to them, so much so that it defines a part of who they are. And, just as an example, as we've mentioned multiple times, I'm in the Detroit area. I'm a Michigander. I grew up here. I was raised here. And the manifestation of community there for me is that I take pride in showing people around this city.

[00:06:33] Rachel Crice: And when people talk about Detroit in a way that is not so positive, and in the ways that I see Detroit and the Renaissance. city, as we call it. I feel a bit slighted, right? When someone's like Detroit, the hard knocks, whatever. I feel home here. I hear a Michigan or a Midwest accent and that makes me feel like, hey, that's my community.

[00:06:51] Rachel Crice: There's something recognizable about it. It's that identity forming narrative. So it's true that place and locality is an [00:07:00] important component of community. However, community is much more than just a geographic location. That's just an example. It's social, it's psychological entity that represents a place, its people, and the relationships amongst those people.

[00:07:14] Rachel Crice: So community is a very big idea. We're gonna whittle it down to how it applies to learning programs today. Wanted to start with what it is though. All right, Laura, we're going to talk about communities and where we interact. Hey, Rachel.

[00:07:28] Laura Mastrorocco: So now that we've defined community a bit, we want to hear from you.

[00:07:33] Laura Mastrorocco: So in the chat panel, tell us what professional or personal communities you frequent. So for me, I often find community at my local YMCA. It's a place where I go not only to exercise, but to catch up with friends

[00:07:49] Rachel Crice: And to network as well.

[00:07:52] Laura Mastrorocco: What does, where does that come into play for you? What professional or personal communities do you frequent?

[00:07:59] Laura Mastrorocco: I'd [00:08:00] love to hear from everyone

[00:08:00] Pinar O'Flaherty: in the chat. Oh, I see a lot of good ones coming in there. A lot of people are saying from their church community, the gym they go to, HR advisory, gym, local nonprofit. Yeah I actually know a lot of people through a volunteer group that I call them my, that we all volunteer on environmental things.

[00:08:19] Pinar O'Flaherty: So I call them my woods people. And we share. We share a common story and concerns and passions and met a lot of people in my local community, but also some people who are farther flung. So I see HR chapter theater, coaching kids and nonprofit. That's very cool. IG, I'm assuming that means Instagram, if you've engaged, yeah certainly have come across, every now and then I'll see someone that I know from real life on Instagram on a comment, I'm like, oh, you like that music too, or you like that, it's interesting when that happens.

[00:08:48] Pinar O'Flaherty: Neighborhood book club, love that. Community organizers of my entire community. Friends, kids, golf. women friends. It's this is interesting because I'm seeing some like trends and then I'm seeing [00:09:00] some very unique places where people seek out community. That's really interesting to see all the different places that it can come from.

[00:09:07] Rachel Crice: Yeah. And you can start to pull out some of those identity forming narratives from this, my kids, we're all, I'm a mom, you're a mom, I'm a dad, you're a dad, my friend may be

[00:09:15] Pinar O'Flaherty: facing the same challenges and offer support. And yes, absolutely. We'll dig into that a little bit further.

[00:09:23] Pinar O'Flaherty: So since the chat has slowed down, Laura, do you want to go to the next next poll? Yeah, for sure. So

[00:09:28] Laura Mastrorocco: thinking about the community that you just mentioned, tell us how you are meeting up with them. So I've just launched a poll and you can select any one of those responses and then click submit to the lower right corner.

[00:09:45] Laura Mastrorocco: So are you meeting in person? Are you meeting in online forums? In live virtual forums? Are you meeting incidentally, like a water cooler chat?[00:10:00]

[00:10:02] Laura Mastrorocco: And we'd love to hear from all of you. So we'll leave this open for about

[00:10:06] Rachel Crice: 10 more

[00:10:06] Pinar O'Flaherty: seconds.

[00:10:11] Pinar O'Flaherty: And thinking, thinking about these is very interesting. It's a, it's actually like a really good transition to what we'll talk about next in terms of When we want to design an intentional community,

[00:10:22] Laura Mastrorocco: and if you haven't already clicked submit, please do so at this time, and I do see we have Cindy says a little of a hybrid between the virtual and online forums.

[00:10:33] Laura Mastrorocco: Yeah. All right, very well let me go ahead and share the results. Wow. We have a lot of people meeting in person. But even even we have one vote for incidental.

[00:10:52] Rachel Crice: Fantastic. Okay. Cindy, I like to call it on the hybrid that wasn't on the wasn't on the options here for the poll, but I have a feeling that's going to be [00:11:00] happening more and more often.

[00:11:02] Pinar O'Flaherty: Absolutely. And interesting that so many people so often incidental communities happen. But when we're talking about learning, we're talking about those sort of more formalized or designed or structured communities.

[00:11:15] Pinar O'Flaherty: And I can dive into talking about some of the reasons why those communities are so important to learning. So why is community important in learning? I'm going to stop, start with the one that maybe is is often the driver, but not necessarily the one that's all, that necessarily most beneficial, and that's cost.

[00:11:33] Pinar O'Flaherty: When we have community as part of a learning program with a small budget, you get a really long lasting outcome. It creates future collaboration opportunities where people stay connected with that ongoing community, and it extends, it increases the likelihood of people applying and using what they've learned during a learning program, because.

[00:11:51] Pinar O'Flaherty: Like Laura was saying, when she goes to the gym she might stay there longer, she might go more repeatedly and repeat those good habits of going to the gym because there's [00:12:00] community there and so just like that in learning programs. Community builds habits through peer to peer learning, and it also provides opportunities for triggering recall.

[00:12:09] Pinar O'Flaherty: If we don't, if we don't have opportunities to think about, recall, and apply, we don't learn as much from programs. Having community as a component is a way to extend the budget. or the investment that you make in communities. And on the same note, it has a scalable impact. Having community as part of a learning program really accelerates progress towards that scale impact.

[00:12:32] Pinar O'Flaherty: It can, it basically you create learners who go out and spread what they've learned. Because they have that community, they're talking about it, they're continuing to think about the things that they've learned, continuing to apply and become inspired. You may have often we have learning programs where people are coming in at different levels.

[00:12:48] Pinar O'Flaherty: Like you might have a leadership development program and have some like old pros who are in that group or some people who are newer to leadership. And what can happen is you get this. organic kind of [00:13:00] peer coaching, where someone might ask a question, or maybe they have a lot of experience, but they're asking a question about an area where they don't have experience, and someone else in their peer community does.

[00:13:09] Pinar O'Flaherty: So that can often support a model that, that we often refer to instructional design as observe one, do one, teach one. When you have a community, you organically get the opportunities to observe other people modeling certain behaviors or skills and then to maybe do one yourself because you're applying it and then you might go back to your community and answer a question for another person and then you're teaching it and that's what really can often help to seed learning is to.

[00:13:37] Pinar O'Flaherty: is having different ways of interacting with the information that you're learning, not just going to one learning event and then trying to apply it on your own. So learning and community is, it's an inroad as well to your organization's culture. And so we often will say oh, that'll have a trickle on effect or trickle up or trickle down effect.

[00:13:55] Pinar O'Flaherty: And this is particularly impactful for training skills like leadership, feedback, communication, and [00:14:00] collaboration. When you have a community of learners and they're using those skills with each other, like they're using collaborative skills they may have used during a workshop or communication or feedback models they may have learned during, a series of webinars.

[00:14:12] Pinar O'Flaherty: When they're going out and using that in community, they're starting to make that part of your organization's culture. If everyone's speaking the same language, so to speak, when it comes to a feedback model, for example. And this one to me, personally, is really important. Having community as a component of your learning programs really impacts employee retention.

[00:14:35] Pinar O'Flaherty: And this it does so because community provides support and it provides meaning and connectivity with others and these are essential as we know from psychology to gratification in life and we spend 40 hours a week at work, a lot of us, or more. And that is essential to having employees who are content, who are gratified, who feel like they're growing.

[00:14:56] Pinar O'Flaherty: And this really translates when they're practicing what they've learned in community. [00:15:00] They're contributing to that sense of connectedness, and they're also having an ongoing, ideally with community, it goes well beyond your learning program. Right? So they have this ongoing opportunity to have that connected community, and they can get a sense of growth from repeatedly engaging in that community.

[00:15:17] Pinar O'Flaherty: And that's often we know that people often leave work because they feel like they, they have no future at a job. They're not growing. It feels stagnant. So that's really important for employee gratification and employee retention. Also communities provide opportunities for peer recognition and modeling, which we know are very motivation big elements of motivation for retention as well.

[00:15:37] Pinar O'Flaherty: When people feel like they're being recognized, that's often, that's a big part of retention. even more gratifying than, getting that sort of six to 12 month raise or, increase in salary or other promotions. So communities offer a lot in terms of impacting employee retention.

[00:15:53] Pinar O'Flaherty: And then of course there's the overall. learning efficacy. It, it curates an inclusive learning [00:16:00] atmosphere where learners feel valued, they feel heard, and that kind of ticks the boxes, all three of the things that I just mentioned. And it also increases accountability and support. So that means that they have a place to go to when they have a question.

[00:16:12] Pinar O'Flaherty: They may have learned a lot from a webinar or an offsite. But they can go back to their peer committee and say, do you guys remember there was a book that was mentioned that I want to read? Or does anyone here also had a, a challenge applying this strategy? So on that note, you might, some of you may or may not have noticed what's going on in the image on this slide.

[00:16:31] Pinar O'Flaherty: There's a woman there with a Roomba. We were talking about what is a good analogy for the way that learners behave after. They have learning experience and when they have a learning experience that involves community, you're setting them up to go out there and be a Roomba, and bump into things and try different things out.

[00:16:48] Pinar O'Flaherty: And Roombas aren't the most intelligent things out there. Your learners certainly are more intelligent than that. But what Roombas do. is they actually map and learn and grow from bumping into things and [00:17:00] engaging in their environment. And that's kind of what communities provide for us is an opportunity to go out there and keep engaging and bump up against different things.

[00:17:08] Pinar O'Flaherty: So we want to think about opportunities when we design communities To keep people engaging and bumping up against things and learning and finding out more from, that experience about themselves and engaging with their peers. What do we notice about all these points?

[00:17:24] Pinar O'Flaherty: They all speak to benefits for learners, but ultimately, they also speak to the benefits for sort of your management stakeholders, good, well designed learning programs tick a lot of different boxes in terms of stakeholders. But when we're designing them, we want to be intentional about that.

[00:17:41] Pinar O'Flaherty: So we don't want to just be completely Roomba. We want to think about how we're engaging all those stakeholders to really sustain and make that the most of that community when we're designing. So here are some really good questions that you can use as a tool when you are designing a program and you want to integrate [00:18:00] community.

[00:18:00] Pinar O'Flaherty: So if you use this tool and you say, okay, for my learners, what are the best ways for them to rely on each other? Teach one another, both during and after a learning program, like during an off site, but then in the weeks, months after an off site, or during a webinar series, or in person learning series, and how can I make this experience and this community grow and last beyond the classroom.

[00:18:25] Pinar O'Flaherty: Think about your learners that way. With managers. It's very hard to have a successful learning experience when you don't have the managers on board. So when you're thinking about your design, how can managers help with accountability and support? Do they need a guide to, like having a conversation and following up with, people on their team that are taking a class or engaged in a learning experience?

[00:18:47] Pinar O'Flaherty: What enablement do managers need to support that community? And to support the skills that that community should be fostering through the ongoing connection and engagement. And it may just be as simple [00:19:00] as saying to managers. Hey, we're gonna we're gonna have a community. Some of your direct reports are attending this.

[00:19:05] Pinar O'Flaherty: Make sure that you know that they're going to be attending a lunch and learn or a book club or some other ongoing aspect of community thereafter and it might be something you want to talk to them about in your one to ones. Alumni. So alumni are like the most intelligent Roombas out there.

[00:19:19] Pinar O'Flaherty: They go on and they continue to support and proliferate. And you can use your alumni to come back and support people who are in current learning programs, they can be peer coaches, they can be provide testimonial. Like when I did this onboard, onboarding a year ago, Here were some things that were really important to me that I applied, or here's what I've learned since.

[00:19:39] Pinar O'Flaherty: So they can help to foster and support an ongoing community. And then don't forget about leadership and thought partners. How are they part of the community, the learning community that you're, like, are they coming and doing a fireside chat, six months after you've completed a learning program to check in?

[00:19:55] Pinar O'Flaherty: and show their support and model engagement in a community. How can they [00:20:00] contribute their expertise? We posted these questions in the chat and and of course there'll be a recording of this webinar, but this is, these questions are really good ways to spark and support the the process of designing community as an aspect of a learning program.

[00:20:16] Pinar O'Flaherty: So I highly recommend that you take note of these and then you can use them as your prompts when you're designing. So with all of these things in mind that I've just talked about in the last couple slides we asked earlier about your experiences with the community and I want to just, we're just going to touch back on that.

[00:20:34] Pinar O'Flaherty: Laura has another poll.

[00:20:36] Laura Mastrorocco: As

[00:20:36] Laura Mastrorocco: Pinar

[00:20:37] Laura Mastrorocco: mentioned thinking back about the community that you brought to mind earlier, why do you continue to go back to that place? I've just launched a poll here, and you can select as many responses as apply, and once you've completed, you can click submit. Is it accountability?

[00:20:59] Laura Mastrorocco: Is it [00:21:00] habit sustainment? Growth and learning opportunities? Peer support or practice, familiarity, inspiration or new ideas. soliciting or receiving feedback, networking, or if it's something else that we haven't listed here, please share it in the chat. We'd love to hear from everyone.

[00:21:23] Pinar O'Flaherty: And by already participating in the poll, we're actually learning from our community.

[00:21:29] Pinar O'Flaherty: We're getting some inspiration and ideas about why people value community. And it's interesting to see this, even though this is just a, like a, whether you've joined us for all three of the webinars or just this one, it is a learning community. Can learn from each other a little bit.

[00:21:45] Rachel Crice: That

[00:21:45] Rachel Crice: it is. I see some familiar places or faces over the series. So welcome back if you've been on the previous two webinars.

[00:21:58] Laura Mastrorocco: So we'll leave the poll [00:22:00] open for about five more seconds. If you haven't already clicked submit, please do we'd love

[00:22:04] Pinar O'Flaherty: to hear from you.

[00:22:09] Pinar O'Flaherty: Yes. Participation is a key component of community. Yes.

[00:22:14] Laura Mastrorocco: And the results are in. Oh, interesting.

[00:22:22] Laura Mastrorocco: Looks like we have 65 percent of respondents seeking peer support or practice,

[00:22:30] Pinar O'Flaherty: followed by a very close 62

[00:22:33] Laura Mastrorocco: percent seeking inspiration or new ideas, along with 62 percent selected growth and learning opportunities.

[00:22:44] Rachel Crice: Wow, I'm surprised only 19 percent on accountability. Interesting. That surprises me.

[00:22:52] Pinar O'Flaherty: Yeah. And what stands out for me, Rachel, is that inspiration, new ideas, growth and learning opportunities, peer support and practice are all very much key components of [00:23:00] learning, right?

[00:23:01] Rachel Crice: Right.

[00:23:01] Pinar O'Flaherty: Key components of instructional design. And and so it's almost like there's a thirst for communities that help us grow.

[00:23:08] Pinar O'Flaherty: And learn new things or support us to take action. And it's like the proof is in the pudding there. It's communities are very important for learning, to individual people across a very, as we said, what we saw when we saw the different geographic locations this is a human need that we go to communities for learning, which is it's like why would you not want to add community as a component of learning programs?

[00:23:29] Pinar O'Flaherty: Because clearly that is a place where people go to seek growth and learning opportunities, peer support. I also like that, like networking and soliciting, receiving feedback is in there as well because I think that really when we wanna connect with peers if you think back to your college friends, a lot of them are people that you either lived with in a dorm community or, other living community, people that you went to classes with.

[00:23:50] Pinar O'Flaherty: So it's like when you have these common experiences, like if you're in a learning program and you both are learning about like feedback strategies, you can go back and [00:24:00] you can network with people who have some of the same language and some of the same experiences that you have and continue to grow from that.

[00:24:06] Pinar O'Flaherty: So that's really, that's very revealing to me.

[00:24:11] Rachel Crice: It's interesting. I, if you all are willing, jump in the chat and put how long have you been a part of that community? Ooh. That's a bit of color that's missing here for me. Because I think that community, when you first join a community, 25 years, Becky, wow. Okay, we've got some tenured folks in their communities.

[00:24:29] Rachel Crice: Just a couple months. Okay, yeah, I think when you first join a community, it really is developing that sense of belonging and finding entertainment and connection and knowledge, but the, over time, the value becomes more intrinsic, kind of boils down to I feel safe here. I feel seen here.

[00:24:47] Rachel Crice: I feel powerful here. Even I feel like I have some status here. I'm a recognized member of this community. So it's interesting. Thank

[00:24:55] Pinar O'Flaherty: you all for sharing. Absolutely. It's super interesting. And [00:25:00] so in thinking about that, like I'm, oh, 50 years. Wow. I've only been alive 50 years, Vickie. I love that. It's so in thinking about that and thinking about the value that we can get from community around learning and growing and getting support and networking and peers.

[00:25:16] Pinar O'Flaherty: And thinking about the longevity opportunities, right? And all those points that I talked about, all those benefits of scalability and employee retention, when you think about how community is like, what roles are, is it going to play in the structure of a learning program? And you're, as you're designing that or thinking about it boy, the idea of imagine coming back to, actually, I do have a community that I come back to 25 years on, and it is a places I worked as a young person.

[00:25:44] Pinar O'Flaherty: We still have a reunion every year and we still, have various forums that we engage in and still continue to network and learn from one another. So if you think about how can I have that sustainment of that community in the structure of a program. [00:26:00] I'm going to reference back a little bit to how this connects to, when we were talking about the other webinars.

[00:26:05] Pinar O'Flaherty: Structure is really important for design, but often people think about okay, well, we have the agenda for our design, but it's bigger than that. So in this sort of example there might be like an that. Bright green box in the upper left hand corner is the, there might be like an onsite day that you do or something where everybody's in the same room.

[00:26:24] Pinar O'Flaherty: And then you might have a weekly webinar. And then, that sort of completes. And then, so this structure that I have here is what might happen for the first 3 months of a program, but then what does that look like quarterly in the next year? And you'll notice at the bottom like you can have that community forum going throughout the entire thing and then you maybe once a month or once a quarter, provide a lunch and learn or some other opportunity for, or a book club or some other opportunity that's more formalized for that community to gather.

[00:26:52] Pinar O'Flaherty: And I know that even some programs, they'll say that we'll have like a list of like questions or prompts that a moderator might put in the community [00:27:00] forum to spawn and spark discussion. As you think about Community as a component of a learning program, you want to think about the topics that are discussed during the actual learning program and how you can help to use questions, or you might even have like a set reading list for a whole year and you want to prompt your.

[00:27:21] Pinar O'Flaherty: your learning community with here's an article to inspire you this week or this month, or you might, I worked on a program recently where they actually collected, they had a parking lot of questions and they wanted to use those, any questions that weren't answered during their three day offsite, they wanted to use those as topics for their community forum in the In the following year to help keep those people connected and help keep them on the same page and benefiting from the community as we've been talking about.

[00:27:49] Pinar O'Flaherty: When you're thinking about that design, encourage learners to create a community in which they feel safe in which it is valuable to them and so it's [00:28:00] not an afterthought. It's part of the design. So think about how you're asking them to participate set it up as a habit forming thing.

[00:28:07] Pinar O'Flaherty: Maybe it's something where they get a, they get like a community thought of the day every week or once a month. Show them the value of that space during the learning journey so they continue to use it as a resource. And there's a lot of different ways you can set that up, but I think really giving them some ownership and some It's a really good way to make it feel like Rachel was saying, she feels part of her community.

[00:28:26] Pinar O'Flaherty: It's when she's traveling and she hears that Michigan accent, she feels at home and she feels part of the community, even when she's away. Because examples are a really good way to explore these principles in action. Actually, Rachel, do you want to talk a little bit about like how PILOT as an example has used these strategies and programs?

[00:28:43] Rachel Crice: Yeah, absolutely. I think one big thing there on, on just the structure and how PILOT has built communities in this learning program that we have, an Emerging Leaders Program the big thing I think is really looking at how much time does this community have to dedicate to community? Each [00:29:00] week, each month, and finding things that drive towards your goals, but are also feasible for them, right?

[00:29:07] Rachel Crice: We don't want to set them up for failure in joining a community and feeling like I'm the odd one out, I'm not the one participating, and then, months and months go on, and it becomes harder for them to engage over time because no one knows who they are just yet. Right? They don't want to be, the lone wolf in the community.

[00:29:22] Rachel Crice: That's not what we're shooting for here. So you are likely on this webinar here because you are a decision maker, whether that is about what kind of features go into a community design or a learning program or purchasing or building learning programs for an organization. And you're someone who understands the value of investing in solutions that actually work.

[00:29:41] Rachel Crice: and drive towards those goals. And you want to have a lasting impact on people. I think that's part of the, the identity forming narrative here on this community, is that we want to have a lasting impact on people through learning. And PILOT has put that secret sauce, is what I call it, into what we're talking about today.

[00:29:57] Rachel Crice: A scalable solution for not just [00:30:00] learning and growing people in their careers, but also giving them that community that they need more and more so. the pressure and need of what we get out of community is being put on the workplace through managers, through colleagues, through happy hours at work, because we are becoming more remote and hybrid, and unfortunately we're becoming a little more reclusive, so we're looking to work for more communities.

[00:30:23] Rachel Crice: So we've got that structure in place to build a community of learners over a six month program here at PILOT, and we do that through group coaching sessions, through breakout rooms on those group coaching sessions, fireside chats, as Pinar mentioned, with leaders at organizations scaling their expertise to folks.

[00:30:40] Rachel Crice: It's almost like a big mentoring session for multiple people. Leading learners to have, do activities together, offline, asynchronous. So it's not like together time, but it's, pop in when you can share your insights because we all have different schedules. It's very hard to get, especially people who are emerging leaders, finding time [00:31:00] for, 10 of them even to get together at the same time is very hard so finding ways to get that asynchronous connection in is a huge unlock for scalable communities, and that's what we do a lot of at pilot. And like I mentioned the vibrant group activities for them. I'm noticing more and more that learners that go through the pilot program. Want time to practice together.

[00:31:21] Rachel Crice: So as Pinar mentioned, doing some kind of, role play or homework together, holding them accountable to share insights, giving them strict deadlines on when that stuff needs to be done, having that structure in place and then slowly moving that structure away because they're learning to own their communities and you won't have to do that so much that's a little bit about how PILOT has done that. We know it's hard. We know it's a lot of work to create a community, especially around folks who are learning to drive and own their careers. So it's going to move the needle, but PILOT was built by a team of HR professionals. We know how hard it is. We know how hard it is.

[00:31:59] Rachel Crice: It's a [00:32:00] lot of work. So if you don't want to worry about building a community, you don't want to worry about getting the Emerging Leaders Program launched, we are here for you. So you can scan that QR code, you can book a meeting, you can talk more about what PILOT does with community and beyond community, but we're increasing self awareness, we're getting folks to take action, we're having them network in those peer communities, we're getting them equipped to solve problems of now and the future of, change management, being agile, there's a lot that goes into PILOT, but community is a big piece, so if you're interested in learning about it, you can scan that QR code.

[00:32:34] Rachel Crice: Alright, with that, we are going to talk about best practices for setting up your community. We're going to talk before, during, and after you will Lauren, does everybody get these slides afterwards?

[00:32:46] Laura Mastrorocco: We'll be sending out a recording of this

[00:32:49] Rachel Crice: webinar. Okay? Okay. So you'll have a recording of this, so you won't lose this.

[00:32:53] Rachel Crice: You wanna take a picture on your phone you can save it for later. But these are the things that you wanna think about before programs launch. As [00:33:00] you're thinking, I kind of wanna incorporate community into this. You have to think about the reasons people join community, right? There's a lot of reasons.

[00:33:07] Rachel Crice: Pinar and Laura and I were just talking before the webinar started about this, this biological need for us to have community as humans. And for a new member, like I said, it's usually transactional. As you're thinking about that structure, when we start communities, Having more of those transactional things up front of, what do we have in common?

[00:33:26] Rachel Crice: What do we do for entertainment? What shows do you like? Do you have books that you want to recommend? Simple things like that to get people quickly and easily engaged. You want to define success. What does success look like? You want striving but achievable goals. Like I said, don't set yourself up for failure.

[00:33:41] Rachel Crice: Think about what is the point of this community. Getting people together might, you might say, we want people to feel like they have a community. What's the so what? Do five whys of the problem solving there. Why do we want community? What are we hoping that it results in? And try to get some numbers around it.

[00:33:59] Rachel Crice: Try to get [00:34:00] some proof points around it. So when you come back to this, you can go, Oh, the community was actually successful and we know that because XYZ. Setting those goals up front is going to be really important. Consider the rules for engagement for these programs. If it's, once a week, we want you to pop in and just say, how's everybody doing?

[00:34:18] Rachel Crice: That's a rule for engagement. If you want, to plant someone from an organization to be, the flame thrower of the community, I'll call them. You want someone who's just like the spy in the community, who's there to drive the engagement. That's a rule for engagement.

[00:34:34] Rachel Crice: They are owning the community. So consider what those rules are and make them something that's sustainable and reasonable for folks in the community. Big piece of this is brainstorming, generating those group activities up front. So once you know the goals of the program, the topic of your program, those rules for engagement, what are the activities that you want learners to do throughout?

[00:34:56] Rachel Crice: Using that structure that Pinar had could be a great way for you to plot that out [00:35:00] on a calendar. This week we're going to do this and it's going to line up here. Match things together. It's a little bit like a puzzle. Thoughtfully planning out and posting the deadline schedule for that community.

[00:35:10] Rachel Crice: So you can plop things into that puzzle, but be very clear about those deadlines and how long they take. It might be three days from now that activity is not going to be done yet. So we don't do this group coaching until three days after that. Be mindful of where those things are and how they're interacting with one another.

[00:35:27] Rachel Crice: Research and find some helpful articles and books. I'm seeing so many PILOT participants that are like, I love coming to group coaching because I know I'm going to get a book recommendation. Or I know that I'm going to have a podcast to listen to on my way home from work. So think about what those things can do.

[00:35:42] Rachel Crice: They're, it's kind of like a choose your own adventure with community of, if you're, if you've already got enough on your plate and you're getting enough community and learning from this, then you focus on the things that are core and crucial to this learning program. But for those who are ahead already. The overachievers in the learning program. Here's something extra [00:36:00] for you. Listen to this podcast on the way home. Watch this video. You've unlocked this extra piece of content if you will recognize that they are winning in that community. You wanna do that research upfront so it's easier for you to just sprinkle those things throughout the community.

[00:36:18] Rachel Crice: Okay. Anything to add? Pinar, Laura?

[00:36:22] Pinar O'Flaherty: No, I love the thought the, all the key points that you touched on about being thoughtful as you go into designing and I can talk about what that looks like during the program. But certainly, I'm a learning designer. So I'm always making this curriculum and finding out I'm thinking about the experience and like what learning journey do these people need to go on.

[00:36:41] Pinar O'Flaherty: So I think having those things thinking about them in advance and then, executing them during the program. I can cover some best practices for that as well. But again they should be part of the structure. Some things will happen organically, but I think you need to set yourself up for success and thinking about those.

[00:36:56] Pinar O'Flaherty: During the program. And again, you'll have thought about this in advance. You [00:37:00] want to start with activities that create safety and help to promote forming that positive habit of engaging with the community and those relationships. So, , we always start off with an icebreaker.

[00:37:09] Pinar O'Flaherty: But if we think about a simple icebreaker as a model for how to engage. You prompt the community to introduce themselves, like, what do you, a little bit about yourself professionally, a little bit about yourself personally, just like we did today during this webinar.

[00:37:22] Pinar O'Flaherty: What they like to do outside of work, and then you use discussion prompts like that, that everyone can participate in. So what was your first job and how do you still use those skills? You're building on and providing, supporting what happens organically in communities, which is people slowly get to know one another.

[00:37:39] Pinar O'Flaherty: But because this is part of an intentional learning design, you want to think about how that's going to play out during and you don't just stop at the icebreaker. As Rachel said, you plan those activities for, and one thing I think, particularly for longer programs, that's key to think about is how do those activities relate to their day to day.

[00:37:57] Pinar O'Flaherty: We talked about real world action on a [00:38:00] previous webinar. It's great to have things that are very much like like brainstorming things that happen during learning, but then also when you're thinking about community, like you might say this week engage the community in one brainstorming activity that you have to do for your regular day to day anyway, right?

[00:38:16] Pinar O'Flaherty: So create activities and opportunities for your that extend that community beyond the like actual, webinar or off site. And then, let the community define some of the rules of engagement for themselves. So we know from learning psychology that ownership is very, very important.

[00:38:32] Pinar O'Flaherty: With adult motivational learning theory, when people feel that they are owning and directing their own learning, they're much more likely to be successful. They're much more likely to be engaged. They're much more likely to identify the relevant aspects of whatever it is you're trying to help them learn and apply it.

[00:38:52] Pinar O'Flaherty: And that's really the goal of any learning program, whether it's in a corporate or personal environment is being able to apply what you've learned. Think [00:39:00] about community agreements. They're very powerful. They're very motivating. And it helps to provide that sense of ownership.

[00:39:07] Pinar O'Flaherty: You have ground rules, that we all have as expectations for the way that we engage at work, but Think about asking the community what do you need from this experience? What are you willing to give to this experience? How will you hold one another accountable? And let them establish those rules.

[00:39:23] Pinar O'Flaherty: And I think, as part of the design, you can say, well, we're going to use the first 15 minutes or first half an hour. I've designed and participated in programs where we spend half a day establishing what our come into consensus on how we will work together and engage over a period of time.

[00:39:37] Pinar O'Flaherty: So that, that is very important in terms of accountability and ownership and it gives strength and longevity to programs. And then implement activities that learners will integrate into their day to day. I touched on this just a moment ago but that's where habit formation really comes in. You don't want to have a space for learners just to connect and come together, but you want.

[00:39:55] Pinar O'Flaherty: You don't want them to be just separate from their day to day again, application is [00:40:00] important. So you want to find ways for them to apply what they're learning, not just in the formalized community, but in, in their day to day, like they might, I have a Skype group with Various instructional designers that we've just known each other from different projects and we'll go to that Skype group and say, Hey, I'm designing something and I'm not sure how to do this.

[00:40:19] Pinar O'Flaherty: Or, does anyone have an idea about how to use scenarios in this situation? Whatever the question is. And I maintain that community for several years. I go back to them and use them for brainstorming so. Think about that during the program, how those opportunities are there and celebrate.

[00:40:35] Pinar O'Flaherty: We all love a shout out, right? And communities really help us to provide opportunities for recognition by the peers. And that, Peer recognition can often be more motivating and meaningful even than being recognized by your manager. So think about opportunities for that as well. Maybe you celebrate milestones and anniversaries as if you have a community moderator who says, Hey guys, you know, this is six months together.

[00:40:58] Pinar O'Flaherty: This is a year together, [00:41:00] or Let's just have an appreciation moment. What have you learned? Recognize, call, prompt them on it. Call somebody in this peer community who's really helped you out this month or this year. And then, as Rachel said before, you may want to plan in advance, like a reading list or extra resources that you can pepper into that community to continue to spark conversation.

[00:41:20] Pinar O'Flaherty: But also invite them, just like that parking lot that, that was used on a recent program I designed make sure the community has the opportunities to say, Hey, here's a great book I read, or I'm looking for a good article on, you use that to Give them some fuel, some fodder for the way that they're engaging with one another.

[00:41:38] Pinar O'Flaherty: So those are some best practices for during the program and managing that community. And Rachel, I'll let you bring us in with after programs, long

[00:41:48] Rachel Crice: after. I love it. Yeah. I, one call out on that last slide on during your programs. Finding those celebratory moments are so easy and I don't think often done

[00:41:56] Pinar O'Flaherty: enough.

[00:41:58] Rachel Crice: And you wanna go the extra mile. [00:42:00] put folks into like mini triads, accountability buddies within your community. We have this kind of, social identity theory or social comparison. We want communities, we want to be recognized in our communities, but we want our groups to be better than other groups, right?

[00:42:15] Rachel Crice: So how do we recognize the folks who are doing really well? And give them little carrots. There's peer pressure can fan the flames of community too. You don't want to be the one that's you know, 100 gift cards on the line for my group of three people. And I'm the one not doing what we're supposed to do.

[00:42:29] Rachel Crice: And I'm going to toss up that 100 gift card. Right? So, think about this, the social comparison and things like that. that we really need in order to feel motivated. Daniel Pink has a great book called Drive about motivation. I highly recommend it as you're thinking about community and engagement and what works to get people involved.

[00:42:47] Rachel Crice: It's a great book. Really quickly, we'll go through, we'll go through after. So, after programs, we want to let learners know that this community will remain active for them. I hear all the time from PILOT participants that graduating from the program is bittersweet, is what [00:43:00] they say, because they feel, confident and accomplished in all they've done over the last six months, but they don't want to lose their consistent habit.

[00:43:06] Rachel Crice: They don't want to lose their consistency. The touch point with their community. So they, we make it a point to remind them that, you can continue to own that community. You can keep that community alive. They can keep that structure going. So remember, employees are more engaged and likely to stay at your organization if they have a work friend or community, and a bit of connection.

[00:43:24] Rachel Crice: So don't let that good thing fizzle out after. The program end date. As your program approaches its end, let learners know that space remains active. Stay in the community. Keep a pulse on how things are going. How often are they coming back? What are the things that they're talking about?

[00:43:42] Rachel Crice: That is, like I said earlier, even more little secret sauce nuggets for you on, more programs you can launch later. As Pinar said, there's, a program that used additional questions we didn't get to, to create more learning for the future. Maybe you do fireside chats or Q& A hours after the [00:44:00] community and use some of the things that they didn't touch on.

[00:44:02] Rachel Crice: So continue to engage in that community, continue to hold a role as a manager of the community or that plant that I mentioned earlier. Asking the group what resources or strategies were more helpful for them so that you can double down on that. Keep doing those things. Use the community as an experimentation place.

[00:44:20] Rachel Crice: You know, drop a podcast. Is that helpful? No, won't do that next time. Oh, this worksheet got a lot of clicks. Use little hyperlinks so you can see where people are going. If you're in a virtual community, see the things that are most helpful for them and give them more of that the next time around.

[00:44:35] Rachel Crice: So monitoring, monitoring that community engagement even after it's over is really crucial and will unlock a lot for you the next time you go through a community learning program. But to make this kind of practical, if you're building a community, three things to focus on, right? Curate it so people believe that the community is high quality.

[00:44:52] Rachel Crice: This is a place that they're going to learn. This is a place with like minded people. This is a place where they're going to feel like they're a part of something. Create an [00:45:00] environment of emotional safety so people feel comfortable. Start those transactional conversations so that they feel like, Oh, I feel known and seen here.

[00:45:08] Rachel Crice: And then you can get into the more juicy stuff later. Create opportunities for people to officially improve their status in a community, whether it's that peer pressure or I'm an alumni or I'm at this rank of our community, things like that are going to get people coming back more. So those are three things, high quality community, emotional safety.

[00:45:26] Rachel Crice: Status in a community. Three things to think about. That's great,

[00:45:30] Laura Mastrorocco: Rachel. Thank you so much. Got it. Okay, everyone, we're going to test these best practices out with some of your programs. To find real life applicability and hopefully help you apply your learnings. So, choose a program from the past or the present.

[00:45:49] Laura Mastrorocco: It can be one that you worked on or are currently working on. And please tell us in the chat, what is the topic of that learning program? and [00:46:00] the goal of the program. So share the topic and the goal. And then Rachel and Pinar will call out some examples from the chat and find a best practice that could help drive

[00:46:12] Laura Mastrorocco: community engagement.

[00:46:16] Rachel Crice: Thanks

[00:46:17] Rachel Crice: for coming, Cindy.

[00:46:20] Pinar O'Flaherty: Yes, this is your opportunity to get a little brainstorming and input from this peer community here. Yeah. And any challenges that people have faced it's certainly as a learning designer, give you a long list of different ways that I've used community and have used these best practice to really sustain the learning and have people going on and continue those relationships.

[00:46:42] Pinar O'Flaherty: Thank you. I think, often and you can think a little bit too about the type of learner that you're working with. For example when I've worked on like technical development skills, I know that not always, but often people who are like developers, programmers, people with technical things might, they [00:47:00] love having a forum where they can go.

[00:47:01] Pinar O'Flaherty: They love having like a knowledge base. That's always a question that bubbles up. Well, where's our knowledge base? Like where can we contribute to and draw from? You know, or post, post what we've learned, or maybe they try out some example from the learning program themselves, and then they post well, here's what I ran into, here's the trouble I had, and here's how I resolved it.

[00:47:19] Pinar O'Flaherty: So communities can be all sorts of different formats, and you do want to think about your audience. We've got a few examples here. Beth wrote in that the topic for leadership development is top talent. And the goal is self awareness of leadership approach and recognition. Ooh, that's a great one.

[00:47:36] Pinar O'Flaherty: I would say right off the bat is think about setting up a community where they have an opportunity to do like a little bit of a little bit of role play and reflection group reflection with that. Maybe they have a reflective, you question assignment that they can then post about what have I learned about myself this week?

[00:47:52] Pinar O'Flaherty: And then they there's, they're sharing that. So they're practicing it. And then they're also seeing other things from their peers. And [00:48:00] so while they're getting the modeling from other people and observing what other people have done, there's also the opportunity for recognition going, Oh, you know, Jack, that's a great one.

[00:48:08] Pinar O'Flaherty: You know, that's a great one. I love how You really put yourself out there and showed something that you've learned about yourself. So that's one there. We've got mentoring program aiding a variety of topics. Absolutely. Leadership, work life balance, navigating the organization.

[00:48:23] Pinar O'Flaherty: Developing technical ability. I mentioned knowledge base as one having something where there was a company I worked at long ago. That was a very small company where we had a lot of technical skill that had to be shared. And we would always have the new hires maintain the pages for their departments as a way to practice.

[00:48:40] Pinar O'Flaherty: Applying what they had learned quickly and then also getting to know other people in the department who could say, Oh, yeah, it was a great article that you posted or Oh, actually, this was not quite correct. So providing opportunities for mentors and their mentees to contribute and share information that they've learned is one way.

[00:48:56] Pinar O'Flaherty: Rachel, I don't know if you have anything to add to that one.

[00:48:58] Rachel Crice: No, I think you covered that. I [00:49:00] did want to mention one thing for Beth too. It sounds like we're on the right track, Beth, with the group role play, as Pinar mentioned. So nice work. One thing too, just around self awareness of leadership approach in a group setting.

[00:49:14] Rachel Crice: It is. So easy to prompt folks to get feedback from each other. That is a missing piece of self awareness. Sometimes it's either I'm going to do some reflection and I'm going to think about what I think about me, but we're missing, I can't see the back of my head. So we need a mirror. We need someone else to give us a bit of that self awareness too.

[00:49:32] Rachel Crice: So think about group role play, but then also have them give each other feedback.

[00:49:38] Pinar O'Flaherty: Yeah. A hundred percent

[00:49:40] Rachel Crice: feedback assessment

[00:49:40] Pinar O'Flaherty: included. Yep. I know we're down to four minutes, but I do want to address Sean posted leadership transition mastery. So successfully integrate with the current culture and company.

[00:49:49] Pinar O'Flaherty: So community is, as we talked about before is a really good way to proliferate company culture. So certainly being part of a community and that's where I would draw on alums. Perhaps you have [00:50:00] People who have been in the community for a while and you have a sort of a community that integrates not only people in the leadership program, but other leaders other thought leaders and alumni from that program that goes on so that they can.

[00:50:15] Pinar O'Flaherty: Help to promote that maybe they you have an alum takes a current person to lunch once a month or something where they have kind of those connections to company culture with people who've been there for longer reducing the speed of learning.

[00:50:29] Pinar O'Flaherty: Actually, you just said something that actually I was thinking. So when you're in a group, a community, And you can see let's say you say everybody solve this problem and come back or solve it in pairs and come back and share what you've learned. That's a way to really accelerate learning is to see the trajectory of how other people arrived at the same answer or a different answer.

[00:50:48] Pinar O'Flaherty: So certainly sharing and community, having them do small projects and then present to one another like a, like a. Speed, brainstorm, and then group presentation within that community is a really quick way to do that [00:51:00] and both of those things will help you to achieve your results sooner but I think like accountability teaming up learners with other learners or with mentors who have maybe gone through a similar program or exemplify those skills that you're trying to help them achieve.

[00:51:13] Pinar O'Flaherty: Those are some suggestions that I would. I would put there for drawing on those best practices that we covered a couple minutes ago.

[00:51:20] Rachel Crice: Yeah, those are great. I think on on the transition to roles too, just zoomed out a little bit. If you're thinking about what your goals are for that program, think about talking to some people who've recently transitioned into a role and just ask them, what could you have used?

[00:51:33] Rachel Crice: What have you found along the way that you're working for yourself? And how do we build that end of the structure out of time? Okay. All right. I know we're short on time.

[00:51:43] Laura Mastrorocco: Yes, indeed. So, as we wrap up, please share in the chat. What's one thing you're taking away from today? Maybe it's something you want to try.

[00:51:51] Laura Mastrorocco: It could be a quote or a framework. It's helpful for us to know what stood out for you today. And while we're waiting for those [00:52:00] responses to come in, I would like to share with you about an upcoming webinar that we're hosting. So here we are, December, the 2023 is wrapping up, and we'd like to invite you to get a jump on 2024.

[00:52:17] Laura Mastrorocco: With our quick guide to the most important and practical aspects of HR tech, featuring PILOT's own CEO and founder, Ben Brooks. We'll outline the topics and give you a quick foundation to prepare yourself and your team for what's coming down the pike. So that webinar is later this week, and you can either scan the QR code on the screen, Or you can click the link in the chat to register.

[00:52:45] Laura Mastrorocco: But we'd love to see you there. That's like I said, Thursday at 1pm. And for those of you pursuing recertification in HRCI or SHRM, today's webinar [00:53:00] is eligible for one credit. I'm just dropping those codes in the chat.

[00:53:11] Laura Mastrorocco: Rachel, I'll turn it over to you.

[00:53:12] Rachel Crice: All right, we are at the hour, everybody. Thank you so much for spending 60 minutes of your day with us in this little community. If you would like more information about PILOT, you can email us any questions to [email protected] or check out webinars, check out pilot.coach, our website. Upcoming webinars will be listed there. And on our website, you'll see a resources tab. We have a ton of eBooks, a ton of resources for you. Head to pilot.coach, email us [email protected]. If you have questions and if you want to set aside some time to learn more, you can book a meeting at the link that Laura is dropping in the chat.

[00:53:47] Rachel Crice: Make the most of the rest of your day, everybody. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you so much.