Christine Tao sat down with Kevin Stapp, management consultant and former senior vice president of Global Talent Management at Condé Nast. Kevin shared his experience and perspective on learning and development. Here are some hightlights:
Unlocking Opportunity
Kevin shared how his time at De Beers helped shaped his career. The diamond company’s commitment to providing development opportunities, especially to those from underserved and underrepresented communities, inspired Kevin’s passion for learning and development. He saw first-hand how learning opportunities could unlock potential and transform lives.
The Lizard Model
While attending the London Business School, Kevin adopted the institution’s “Lizard Model.” In the metaphor, the tail of the lizard is the company culture. The tail must be aligned to the head, or strategy, of the organization. Just as a lizard can regenerate its tail if necessary, a company must shed outdated or harmful aspects of its culture that are misaligned to its overall strategy and regenerate.
Kevin was also inspired by a colleague working within the supply chain management of the beauty industry. The leader envisioned integrating learning into every step of making a new strategy a reality.
“We tailored a learning program where the entire team could engage on the most important elements of that strategy, decide how they were going to bring it to life, and how they were going to make the necessary changes,” recalls Stapp.
Find Your Use Cases
Championing learning strategies that align and support organizational strategies can be tricky unless the need is visible and tangible. Kevin recommends that learning leaders find use cases and begin with pilot programs that can easily adjust and scale. Using these small pilot programs to test hypothesis and then telling the story of the outcomes can win over stakeholders.
There's No Transformation without Learning
Kevin shared an example of a business he recently worked with. The organization was globalizing several large brands within its portfolio. This type of transformation required collaboration and synchronization between several teams. The company needed a learning strategy that was fast and easy to implement, but also aligned with overall goals and strategy.
Virtual coaching proved to be the game changer the business needed. The program allowed leaders to have access to coaches when they needed it most to help with current obstacles. “Digital coaching became embraced within the organization and got applied much more broadly than to leaders that were leading the transformation efforts,” says Kevin.
