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Buck Blessing

SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE July 1979

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Career Planning Five Fatal Assumptions

Innovative Middle Managers The Key to Productivity

In a workplace where adaptability and continuous growth can make or break a business, effective training is no longer optional—it’s essential. But for talent development teams, managing multiple training platforms can feel like herding cats. Too many systems lead to wasted time, inconsistent learning experiences, and missed opportunities to develop the skills that drive success.A unified edtech system solves this by bringing all your training tools under one roof. This isn’t just a way to save time; it’s a strategy to elevate learning, boost productivity, and build a culture that keeps your workforce engaged and prepared. Here’s why investing in a unified system is a game-changer, especially for organizations ready to streamline and scale their training programs.Why Choose a Unified EdTech System?Centralized Learning Saves Time and Reduces FrictionImagine each department using its own training tools—HR on one platform, sales on another, and marketing on a third. It’s a logistical nightmare. A unified system centralizes learning content, tracking, and assessments in one convenient hub. This eliminates the need for juggling multiple logins and troubleshooting across various systems, creating a consistent and smooth experience for everyone.Pro Tip: Look for a system that integrates with your existing tools for an easier transition and minimal disruption.A Seamless, Engaging Employee ExperienceWith a unified platform, all employees—from new hires to senior staff—experience the same high-quality, consistent training journey. Everything from onboarding to skill development is structured, intuitive, and accessible.This streamlined experience not only saves time but also engages employees more effectively. Let’s face it: no one enjoys clunky, disjointed training. Think of it as making training as enjoyable as scrolling your favorite app.Pro Tip: Use multimedia elements like videos, interactive quizzes, and case studies to keep learners engaged and eager to come back.Data-Driven Insights for Smarter Decision MakingA unified system provides real-time insights into learner progress, course completion, and performance, helping you refine and adapt your programs. No more guessing if a course is effective—the data will tell you.For instance, if engagement is low in a particular module, you can quickly make adjustments. Spot employees who excel? Identify potential leaders and give them growth opportunities.Pro Tip: Regularly review training data to identify trends and make targeted improvements to your content.How a Unified System Builds a Learning CulturePromotes Continuous LearningWith a unified system, employees can access learning resources anytime, shifting learning from a mandatory task to a desired habit. This ease of access fosters a learning culture where employees actively engage, learn, and grow.Pro Tip: Offer a blend of required and elective courses to personalize learning and give employees ownership over their development journey.Accelerates Skill DevelopmentWhen training resources are accessible and organized, employees can build essential skills faster. This access helps close skills gaps efficiently, supporting your organization’s adaptability and competitive edge.Pro Tip: Create targeted learning paths that focus on the skills most critical to your company’s growth.Encourages Collaboration and Knowledge SharingA great unified system often includes collaborative features like discussion boards, peer feedback, and group projects, encouraging employees to learn together and share knowledge. This social component strengthens cross-departmental connections and enhances problem-solving.Pro Tip: Encourage teams to tackle collaborative learning projects—this drives engagement and sparks innovation.The Bottom LineA unified edtech system is more than just a platform; it’s a strategic foundation for modern talent development. It streamlines training, improves engagement, and offers valuable insights, making it an essential investment for any organization looking to support its workforce and drive business results.Pro Tip: Start small—launch the system with a pilot program or one department, collect feedback, and scale up from there.Investing in a unified edtech system is a powerful step toward a streamlined, effective employee training program that aligns with your organization’s goals and supports your employees’ growth.

Simplifying Employee Training With a Unified EdTech System

How can you develop far-sighted leaders throughout your enterprise? How do you find the inner voice of strategic leadership? We’ve been researching these questions, drawing on insights from neuroscience, organizational learning, social psychology, coaching, and the study of values. There are two types of leadership common today at all levels of an enterprise: transactional (making deals, solving problems, pleasing customers and your boss) and strategic (challenging existing ways of thinking, accomplishing things that others consider impossible, galvanizing people around the organization to transcend limits). Each is linked to a different pattern of mental activity and an associated brain circuit—transactional to the low ground of the mind and brain and strategic to the high ground. Both are habit-forming. Both are necessary for the leaders of today and tomorrow. By focusing your attention, you can become more effective at both. A great leader balances the low ground and high ground, moving by choice between expedience (solving problems) and strategy (making a better world). With this practice, you draw on the wise advocate within your mind. This is the inner voice of strategic leadership: seeing yourself as others might see you, with full compassion and care for your success. Calling on the wise advocate changes people; it helps them become more capable leaders, speaking with that voice in the organization around them. This helps them overcome the deceptive messages that travel through an organization’s culture and hold everyone back. With enough people embodying the inner voice of strategic leadership, an organization can take on a wise advocate role in society at large.
Learning to draw on your wise advocate will provide you with three things:
1) the ability to balance the low ground and high ground by moving between expedience (solving problems) and strategy (making a better world)
2) the emotional intelligence to see yourself as others may see you, with full compassion and care for your success
3) the confidence to help overcome deceptive messages traveling through an organization’s culture holding everyone back.
 

DEMO: Developing Your Wise Advocate

It’s ironic that successful self-leadership has more to do with others and less to do with self. I learned this later in life. The sooner you see it, the better for your career. Following are three lessons I learned from personal and professional experiences.Surprise #1: Serve a Cause Greater than SelfThe first surprise about self-leadership is that working for money, power, and fame is an unfulfilling pursuit. Frances Hesselbein says it succinctly: to serve is to live.Choose a career that helps others by bringing truth, goodness, or beauty into the world and you will find greater career satisfaction and contentment. From time to time, you will experience the joy that comes from seeing the efforts of your work directly improve the lives of others. Here are a few examples:The teacher who helps a student learn to read brings greater truth and goodness to the world.The landscape architect who designs aesthetically pleasing outdoor environments brings greater beauty to the world.The journalist who helps the public see both sides of a story brings greater truth to the world.The salesman who helps a customer find the right product or service to meet a real need brings greater goodness into the world.You should seek to serve others in these ways, too.Surprise #2: Get a Coach or Mentor(s)No world-class athlete gets to the top without the help of a coach or multiple coaches. We need other people to help us achieve our potential.For instance, each of us has blind spots. Your blind spot may be that you are argumentative or perhaps you don’t speak up when you should. Some people have a blind spot when it comes to not knowing when to end a conversation or meeting. Some managers have blind spots of being over-controlling, and others don’t interact enough with the people they are responsible for leading.The need for coaching and mentoring goes beyond needing to address our blind spots, though. We need experts to help us develop skills. When I left Wall Street to write a book and begin public speaking and teaching, I needed the help of Twyla Thompson, a top acting coach at the Actors Institute. Twyla taught me how to emotionally connect with an audience.On Wall Street, I had learned to turn off my emotions when communicating and I needed Twyla’s help to turn my emotions back on. She had me do exercises that included speaking to a group of acting students. I had to make eye contact with one student at a time and maintain eye contact until the student raised his or her hand to signal that he or she felt connected to me.Twyla’s colleague Gifford Booth would stand at the back of the room and yell, “Louder, louder,” as I spoke. He helped me see a blind spot I had: I was too soft spoken. I could never have learned these things on my own and I’m grateful that Twyla and Gifford helped me become a more effective speaker.#3: Be Intentional About Connecting With PeopleI learned the hard way that all people are hardwired to connect. Connect with God.  Connect with one another. When we don’t connect, we become dysfunctional. We feel lonely, which makes us more vulnerable to stress, anxiety, and depression.  Connection makes us healthier, happier, and more productive. It helps us grow in competence and character. It gets us through the inevitable difficult seasons we all experience in life, a lesson I learned as our family and friends helped us get through the three bouts of cancer my wife Katie experienced. Today, she is cancer free and thriving.Bottom line: You can be more successful in your career and life if you serve a cause greater than yourself, get coaches and/or mentors to help you learn and grow in competence and character, and be intentional about connecting with God, family, and friends. As you experience greater peace, hope, and joy that comes from having an abundance of connection in your life, you will discover wealth of even greater value.Is your workplace culture supporting your success with self-leadership? Join Michael Lee Stallard for the June 23 webcast, “Your Workplace Culture: Life-Giving or Draining the Life Out of You?” to learn about three predominant relational cultures in the workplace—and how each affects your productivity, health, and happiness.Editor’s Note: This post is adapted from Connection Culture: The Competitive Advantage of Shared Identity, Empathy and Understanding at Work. Read more on the Connection Culture website.

3 Surprising Ways to Succeed in Self-Leadership

Colin Van Ostern is chief marketing officer for College for America. He has led business, marketing, and communications strategies for commercial and nonprofit organizations ranging from Stonyfield Yogurt to Dartmouth College.  He has a particular passion for finding market-driven solutions to pressing social challenges, and currently serves as an Executive Council for the State of New Hampshire.  Colin holds a BA from The George Washington University and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

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