Build a system of learning (not just one-off programs)

Ryan Smith (00:00):

When we think about a system, it’s what are those tactics? What are those things that we need to use in our organization to drive the culture and results that we want, all in kind of alignment with our leadership philosophy?

Hannah Beaver (00:14):

You’re listening to How to Make A Leader, a leadership development podcast from Big Think+, where we take the best ideas from the biggest minds in learning and development and distill them into actionable insights. I’m your host, Hannah Beaver. Today we’re going to discuss how to move beyond one-off trainings to build an entire system of learning. Our guest is no stranger to that challenge, having spent his career building this exact kind of system at scale. Ryan Smith is the head of global leadership and career development at T. Rowe Price, an asset management company and one of our partners here at Big Think+. At T. Rowe Price, he focuses on career mobility as well as developing opportunities for high potential leaders and managers. Before joining T. Rowe Price, Ryan spent 15 years at the Truist Leadership Institute where he led leadership and professional development for their over 45,000 employees.

(01:13):

Ryan’s career has been defined by his passion for creating equitable access to quality leadership development. And I think that passion will become very apparent very quickly in today’s conversation. Ryan, we first met a few years ago, and I think your passion and enthusiasm for your work really came across in that first conversation. And I’m very sure that it’s going to come across today. So thank you very much for joining us.

Ryan Smith (01:39):

Oh, thank you so much for having me, especially in this beautiful studio. Glad to be here with you.

Hannah Beaver (01:43):

Why don’t we start out with something that I think is so special about T. Rowe Price, and that is your mantra that everybody is a leader. Can you tell me about that? How did that start? How does that influence your work today?

Ryan Smith (01:55):

Honestly, I’m going to steal a couple of things from people. First the one I talk about is being for us by us or the old FUBU. So everything that we do at T. Rowe Price, we take an inward look at ourselves, but we also try to look at the world around us. And so Everyone as a Leader Mantra kind of was born not just in science, which this idea that yes, empirical evidence shows that every single person that wants to get better as a leader, they can. But there is a big difference between leader and manager or leader and boss. And so we really wanted to make sure that we were equipping and empowering everyone at our organization through this mantra that no, regardless of your level, regardless of your title, you have an opportunity to lead. And we really think about leadership as influence, right?

(02:39):

We think about influence as our shared collective goal of really helping our clients and moving towards a way that they can live successfully in retirement.

Hannah Beaver (02:47):

I want to touch on the point you made about leader and manager. I know in prior conversations you mentioned the problem is we can sometimes identify them as the same thing. So how do you separate a leader and a manager? What does that look like in terms of how you’re defining them and how that’s showing up in your programs?

Ryan Smith (03:03):

100%. And so as we think about our programmatic way of leadership, we really anchor it to our leadership framework. And so we use the team shape model of leadership. So across, we have these broad leadership capabilities, leading outcomes, leading change, leading people and culture, but then we have those very niche things that are sales executives or our equity folks or even in HR, those specialized things that we need to get better at. And so as we anchor back to leadership capabilities, we really define them as those broad things that go across our organization. But managers are those people that lead other humans. And so a lot of times what we don’t talk about is this idea of power, right? Power can be earned through us working together, collaborating, us being equals, or even being in a leader and follower relationship. You can influence me without your power.

(03:52):

But we also know that organizations run with hierarchy. There are people that have been designated with power and control and span. And so those people have to make sure that they use their positional power with great responsibility to quote Spider-Man there. But as we think about leader and manager, a lot of times we want our managers or leaders of people to be both, but that doesn’t not kind of deputize other people from being leaders, even if you’re a high functioning individual contributor.

Hannah Beaver (04:19):

I think that’s the first time we’ve had a Spider-Man quote on the podcast, so I appreciate that. Miles Morales, I’ll

Ryan Smith (04:25):

Take it any day.

Hannah Beaver (04:26):

I love it. And then how does being an asset management firm impact how you’re approaching leadership development? What are kind of some of the unique … And you did touch on this slightly. What are some of the unique ways that you approach that given your specific industry?

Ryan Smith (04:40):

I’ve been with T. Rowe Price for the last four years, but this is something that is in our DNA. If you think about Thomas Roe Price, I actually had an opportunity to read one of his former letters to the organization where he’s talking about being innovative and being collaborative and being kind of groundbreaking. And so as I think about the things that we started our organization with, those things continue to be kind of tried and true. And so asset managers can be tough, right? It’s a business that you really think about investing in people’s best futures and really trying to get that right through analytics. But for us, we’re an asset manager with a soul. So being a part of an organization that really cares about the people that work there, really cares about the community in which we serve, makes it a lot easier to then talk about influencing people towards outcomes, collaborating across silos, how we make decisions.

(05:28):

It really is who we are. It’s not something we’re just trying to be.

Hannah Beaver (05:32):

Yeah. It sounds like you really live your values that you set forth. That’s great. So today we’re going to be talking about building systems of learning rather than those one-off training programs. So when did this become a top priority for you? Did anything bubble up where you figured I need to prioritize this and this is extremely important to the direction of the business?

Ryan Smith (05:51):

We can get so focused in on the learning and the development piece of it that we forget the context of the business. We’re so blessed that all of our programmatic elements are going back to FUBU. They’re for us by us. So we include our executive team and what we’re trying to accomplish and how it aligns to their business priorities. We use the people that are going to go through the programmatic elements to give us feedback on, “Hey, what is it that you want to learn? How can we co-create and get some shared values? Because we know that check in the box, I own required learning for my organization, please hear me now, required learning matters.” And it’s even better when you can add the element of shared ownership involving the people along the way. And so when we were really thinking about the system of learning and the system of ownership, that really started with our most senior leaders, their leaders, and then us as an organization kind of tying hands and kind of saying, okay, we want to create a system in which we engineer leaders.

(06:46):

I’m just so excited the idea that where we started is really built by us. I can remember one of the first conversations with our now CEO, Rob Sharps, and also a former executive of ours talking about how do we engineer leadership, Ryan? How do we create this place where we can really equip people with the capabilities that they need to lead, not just in their function, but across our org? And so having that type of connection and buy-in, not just from our most senior leaders, but all the way down to our kind of frontline associates, those people that are not necessarily managing big scale teams. We have call centers in Colorado Springs asking them that what they need. And starting there, I think really helped us set the curriculum in a way that is this system that goes beyond just a learning event into a system in which we can understand alignments and misalignments across our organization, what are the different capabilities we’re working towards and be flexible because that’s the number one thing that I think we get wrong is we set something and we forget it.

(07:45):

I’m old enough to have the set it and forget it. There was this rotisserie chicken thing that you would put in. And I will tell you now, that can’t be that. It has to be set it, maintain it, change it as we change. And so starting with buy-in from our leaders, then creating something that works for us and having the ability to change it along the way, I think really is where we kind of started from.

Hannah Beaver (08:04):

Remove that rotisserie chicken mindset.

Ryan Smith (08:06):

That’s right. Move the set it and forget it.

Hannah Beaver (08:10):

And as you were gathering those insights from employees and learners, as you thought about co-creating this, what were some of the messages that you were hearing? What was really indicating the certain areas that you wanted to focus on from the people that would be learning from these systems themselves?

Ryan Smith (08:25):

There were some overwhelming themes. Number one, most leaders are experiencing some of the same issues, especially around change and leading, keeping up with the pace of change. Number two, how can we make where we’re going incredibly clear, and then how can we motivate people towards that? And number three, doing that all in a way that rewards people for the right behaviors that lead to the right outcomes. Because we know that sometimes you have to do things a thousand times before you get to the right answer. And sometimes we don’t want to just reward that end result. It’s the progress and the failing and the sharing things along the way that we really wanted to do. So anyway, I think that that’s really, really important kind of buy-in from that perspective. And then also talking to a lot of people really helped this theme of how do we share what’s working and what’s not working.

(09:15):

There has to be a medium for that. And then the last thing I would say, I think is just really important to our conversation today, which is, show me how I can apply this to my job. Now,

Hannah Beaver (09:25):

I know you’ve mentioned this as we discussed a system of

Ryan Smith (09:29):

Learning,

Hannah Beaver (09:29):

But in a very simplistic sense, how do you define a system of learning?

Ryan Smith (09:33):

Ooh, I think it’s … Can I use an organizational model to help me explain what we’re

Hannah Beaver (09:37):

Going through? You can.

Ryan Smith (09:38):

Certainly. And so there’s a model that we actually use as a part of our development to help us understand where there may be alignments and misalignments. And so in the model, it’s pretty simple. There’s the external environment that could potentially impact your leadership philosophy, that impacts your systems. Think tactics, think payroll, think benefits, think those things that you do at your organization, those systems that lead to your culture, that lead to results. And so when we think about a system, it’s what are those tactics? What are those things that we need to use in our organization to drive the culture and results that we want all in kind of alignment with our leadership philosophy? And so one of the tactics that we use is this idea of the leadership academies. And so it scales from the Executive Leadership Academy all the way down to the associate or emerging leader academy.

(10:28):

And we have an opportunity to drive, again, going back to leading outcomes, leading change, leading people and culture, we have behavior anchors for each one of those. So for example, in leading outcomes, it’s decision making, accountability and execution. And so knowing that those are the behaviors that go along with leading outcomes, we at every level in the firm from a behavioral standpoint can really hook back into how does it show up? How does it kind of apply to you at your level? And so using those leadership academies as a system to drive those behaviors, we know where we can find an alignment or a misalignment with our leadership philosophy or in the culture that we’re trying to build.

Hannah Beaver (11:08):

So to touch on the Executive Leadership Academy level, I know about a month ago you wrapped up your most recent session, which you do in partnership with UVA Darden. What was the most exciting thing that you found from that session? And I mean, you’ve been doing it for a while now, but anything in particular from that session that you learned?

Ryan Smith (11:27):

Oh my goodness. Oh, what I learned. What I learned is that we are all human and that our shared humanity is really what gets us through really tough times.

Hannah Beaver (11:35):

Wow.

Ryan Smith (11:36):

But I would say kind of an additional takeaway is when you bring that many leaders together, we had about 85 leaders come together, our most senior leaders in the firm to talk about those different capabilities that we were doing in partnership with Darden, using case studies, using partly the organizational model that I mentioned a little earlier and ways that we could say, what’s going on in this capability of driving execution or driving change? And it was just so fun to have people together and you look around and you go, wow, your problem is maybe not as different as my problem. And maybe I now know the person to unjam, remove roadblocks that helped me get to the right space. So I would say shared humanity was my biggest takeaway moment and kind of just reminding me of that hope. But the humility to say it’s been a four-year journey where this program didn’t exist four years ago.

(12:27):

And here we are with almost kind of at least 10% of our most senior leaders all together learning and growing together with no stopping insight. It’s creating more momentum and more energy and it’s going to help us when we start measuring our impact.

Hannah Beaver (12:41):

That’s awesome. And how do you think about systems of learning specifically as it relates to manager development?

Ryan Smith (12:48):

Oh, I think that’s a great question. And so I talked a little bit about our executive leader academy and leadership academies at all levels, but we’re also taking a very focused look at building manager capability. So we’re on this journey where we’ll build the foundation, accelerate the foundation, and then kind of enhance it. And so as we build the foundation for people leaders across the firm, we’re actually starting with accountability and feedback. And those things are woven into our performance management process. It’s also woven into all of our strategies. So we’re really excited to take the things that we learned from the leadership academies and apply that same thing to this manager world where the leadership in action or manager in action and those same elements of measurement are starting to really become robust. So we actually this year created this thing called our core concepts training where we’re really building foundational skills.

(13:37):

But the best part is we’re doing it in a way, it’s not foundational meaning. We have a lot of senior tenured people. It’s not foundational in lack of capability, foundational in how can we all be doing it uniform? How has the world changed? What can we do in a way to make us better? So really excited about that program coming out soon.

Hannah Beaver (13:56):

And is there one big learning that you discovered in rolling this out at the leadership level that you will be applying at the manager development level?

Ryan Smith (14:03):

Yeah. My biggest learning has been remember to continue to involve the people in the process. So often it’s easy to kind of get in my focus way of thinking with me and the team because we’re so focused on the feedback and the results and we’re trying to tinker and play that you can lose asking people for feedback and involving them in the process. And this might sound like a little bit of an oxymoron, but also let the system roll. You don’t have to constantly be changing the system. Let the system get to a place where you can evaluate if the changes you’re making are necessary. I have two boys, and so we watch Moana too. And I always think in the second Moana where the young lady’s always fixing the vote, which did come to save them. In this moment, I’m like, let’s find a good balance of that.

(14:50):

What is it that we need to tinker and change and listen to people and then go, Ooh, let’s give this time to marinate and see if it’s really building the way we want it to.

Hannah Beaver (14:58):

That’s great. Thank you. So I want to talk about something that I know is really important to you, and that is around community and networks of practice. So I know this shows up as a huge priority in your work. First of all, what does that mean for you and what does that look like at T. Rowe Price?

Ryan Smith (15:16):

Oh, can I be a nerd for five seconds?

Hannah Beaver (15:17):

Oh, of course. All the time. So

Ryan Smith (15:19):

I’m finishing up an educational study here and some of the things that I’ve been learning about on my journey is this idea of experiential learning, social learning, and then transformational learning. All of these ideas that learning, going back to why it has to be shared outcomes and shared goals doesn’t happen in a vacuum. And so when you talk about community of practice, one of the things that I think we miss in typical L&D programs is you have this great event that creates all of this energy and then we don’t use those same people to help us pull it through. We create a, when are you going to stop, start and continue, which is a fabulous way to get you started. But what are those very intentional systems or tactics that you can use that can kind of re-energize us? One that has really worked with this programming is this idea of called leadership in action.

(16:07):

So after any kind of learning event we have, typically 30 to 60 days after that event, there’s some type of interaction where you come back to learning again, but it’s only about practical application on the job. Where have you seen it? How has it worked? What’s working well with you? And the best part is you are in with the group of people that you’re learning with and growing with and experiencing some of those same challenges, sharing those practices in ways that matter. And then we also utilize even our most senior leaders, like our executive leaders will come in and give, “Hey, I’m dealing with that problem too, and this is how I use that model, this language. This is how I can work together to do that. ” And it really, I think, shows up in ways that matter to people when the community of practice turns to leadership in action versus leadership on a shelf.

Hannah Beaver (16:54):

Let’s talk about driving adoption. So at the top of the conversation, you mentioned the co-creations of these systems of learning and getting leadership buy-in and buy-in from the C-suite. What is your approach when getting that buy-in? And do you have any advice to share on how to get that buy-in?

Ryan Smith (17:10):

This is my favorite thing to talk about because although I’m a learning and development person, I started in sales. I was a blue shirt at Best Buy. So when Magnolia and Best Buy came in as a high-end theater, I worked there for a long time, more than the average person. I worked there for 10 years.

Hannah Beaver (17:24):

Oh wow, I love that.

Ryan Smith (17:25):

And one of the things I learned, and I credit them with learning, is this idea of CarePlus. And so it’s called contact, ask questions, recommend and encourage. And so that’s a simple sales model that people use. I would distill that down to, what does it matter for the person that you’re talking to? And so when you’re trying to understand a learning or programmatic event and you’re trying to get followership, it’s what does it mean for that person that you’re talking to? What’s the input and the output for them and how does that match with what you’re trying to do? So getting really good, going back to that with them, what are our strategic goals and how does this buy into our strategy? As learning leaders, we often go, “We are underinvested and we can’t get the money.” And I was like, yes, I know. And I think there’s this energy that I’ve noticed with executives if you bring them along, you involve them in the process and you allow the opportunity for everybody in the chain to give feedback.

(18:17):

I noticed that the investment, the return on investment is different. It’s not just about the dollars in, it’s about the behaviors and how people feel proud coming out of it. For example, right now, we made a really big investment in our Executive Leader Academy. We have 120 leaders that are either in the program or going to complete the program within the next 12 months. And so that investment is starting to see that return, not just through performance, but also just idea of shared language and energy. And so as we continue to move forward, that’s really, really helpful for us. But the simplest thing to say to someone is, you have to have buy-in and buy-in only comes when you know what’s important to the person that you’re talking to. For the leadership framework, when we were first doing this, I am astounded and humbled here to say with a huge team that did this.

(19:02):

And I say huge going, all of my L&D partners out there, I mean, sometimes you’re a team of one, a team of two, a team of three. We did not have that many, but we ended up talking to almost a thousand people at our firm just about what their feedback was and what that means. And does that mean that we could take every single individual piece of feedback? Not exactly, but we can definitely theme them and try to get the big pieces of those things. And the most important part of that is as we roll the program, talk about how their input influenced what we’re doing. And again, going back to the buying, going back to the investment. So then when you’re going back the next time, I’ve noticed it’s a lot easier to have the conversation because we started what’s important to them, we involved people in the process and we continue to move forward and they can see the, I always say thank you team for your grace as we try to make progress over perfection.

Hannah Beaver (19:56):

I really like that. And can I ask when you did have those 1000 conversations, which by the way, is extremely impressive, how did you do it?

Ryan Smith (20:03):

Oh, man. So depending on which level you were at, depending on how you were able to do this. So it could be, for example, our executive leaders were one-on-one conversations

(20:11):

And then group conversations to synthesize and make sure that we were focusing and aligning to the right pieces of our strategy. As we think about our even more senior leaders, a lot of group conversations by business, cross businesses to really understand when we got to our middle level and senior managers, again, more group and then also individual surveys like electronically trying to get feedback. And then certainly at different points of the house, entry levels of the house, we’re trying to look for electronic kind of mass scaled opportunities to do that. But we still did groups at that level as well.

Hannah Beaver (20:42):

How do you connect this work to the metrics that the C-suite really care about?

Ryan Smith (20:47):

For us, again, going back to that idea of CarePlus, that contact and ask questions, because the C-suite is so involved in the creation of our programming, what’s important to it, it’s now easy to align to our strategic pillars and how we move forward. We’re actually rolling out an enhanced strategy. And so we’re using our leadership academies as one of the systems to understand our shared language about our strategy, how to define it for ourselves and define it for the organization. So it doesn’t always have to be a performance kind of metric, although leading and adapting our strategy and driving it at every level of our org is performance and it is one of our biggest pillars. And so we get that through things like performance management. We’ve actually tied the way that we give feedback to people through our leadership framework. And so now we’re really aligning are these behaviors that are aligned with our framework, aligned with the program, that align with the metrics that matter to our executives.

(21:44):

I would be lying to you if I told you that we’ve got it all figured out and we’ve got one for one, this is the investment that you put in and this is what you get out. Not true, but here’s what we can say very confidently. Our engagement is going through the roof. We’ve had more people involved in learning and leadership development than we ever have at the history of our firm. The attendance and no-show dropout rate. So for example, for the executive leader academy, we had 100% participation rate.

Hannah Beaver (22:10):

Wow.

Ryan Smith (22:11):

And so for an average course, that might be 30% no-show rate or 25% no-show rate, depending even if it’s virtually, it might go higher. And so those are the type of metrics that we’re trying to use to say, here’s how people are enrolling, how is that showing engagement in our programs? But then tying it back to what behaviors are we starting to see, like giving candid feedback, being transparent in ratings and other things that really matter to our executives and also matter to the people at the organization as they really feel this. Last thing I would say is we actually have our engagement survey coming. And so we layer a lot of our metrics together. Shout out to our data and analytics team in HR. They are such great helps to us as we do this, Shannon and team. It’s really great because we can now layer information like what type of learning people took on top of the engagement, on top of the outcomes people are getting.

(23:02):

So for example, we hypothesize that people that come through our training are probably more likely engaged and having higher outcomes. I wouldn’t want to say with 100% certainty that that’s exactly what’s happening, but a lot of our data is starting to trend in that way, that people are coming through our programming are typically more engaged and typically performing.

Hannah Beaver (23:21):

As you look ahead, what is next for T. Rowe Price around leadership and manager development?

Ryan Smith (23:27):

Oh man, I think the next thing for us is to continue to attach it to our enhanced strategy. We’re right in the middle of just continuing to be really clear about how we win in the marketplace and really support our associates to support our clients and shareholders. And so the next thing for us is to let it run a little, right? Let the executive leader academy along with the leadership academies at every level and then focusing on those manager core concept trainings to really build and try to exercise those things. And then hopefully we can have a follow-up where we talk about the measurements and the impact and some of the growth that we’re trying to see, especially people that are listening to us in the L&D world. It can be so hard to say what I did worked and didn’t.

Hannah Beaver (24:06):

And

Ryan Smith (24:06):

So I think the next thing for us is to come back with some measurables that we can come and share with the community and so we can continue to grow together.

Hannah Beaver (24:14):

I love that. And if someone was listening and is at the very beginning of their journey and they’ve been tasked with defining the strategy around leadership development or even rolling out a new program, big question, but what’s the first move? What would you do?

Ryan Smith (24:30):

Oh, man. Multipliers. If you’ve ever heard or read

Hannah Beaver (24:34):

The book,

Ryan Smith (24:34):

Multipliers, it’s like, you definitely got to find and utilize the strength of others. And so the first thing that I would think about is who’s your guiding coalition?

Hannah Beaver (24:42):

Who

Ryan Smith (24:42):

Are those people that you’re going to go and help you think about what the problem is and how we define it? And so for me, the first person I always go and look for is who knows the most about what we’re trying to accomplish. And so sometimes in organizations that’s who’s in the person at the organization that knows about us, who really represents us, knows how we show up. In my home life, that could be somebody that knows more about where we just went on vacation, where we’re going, what those things are. And so finding that person and other people that are going to help shape the reality for you is critical. Too often I see leaders tasked with a really big problem and all they do is run on the hamster wheel because they’re running as fast as they can, but they can’t get off.

(25:23):

And I’ve always found that multiplying impact of others and raising my hand and being bolded and saying, “I don’t really know where to start. Here’s what I think has really, really helped me in my career.”

Hannah Beaver (25:33):

I love that. Liz Wiseman is a Big Think+ Plus expert. She’s

Ryan Smith (25:36):

Great.

Hannah Beaver (25:37):

And I believe her book is on our bookshelf, Impact Players, but we love Liz Wiseman. Shout

Ryan Smith (25:42):

Out

Hannah Beaver (25:43):

To Liz. Thank you, Liz. So my favorite question to ask all of our guests on the How to Make a Leader Podcast is, what is the best piece of leadership advice that you’ve ever received?

Ryan Smith (25:53):

For me, the best piece of advice just comes to the brass tacks of master your craft and doing that kind of in a shared community. And I think that that’s the part that’s important is because the more that I learn, the more that I realize that I’m only a part of our shared humanity, I’m on a part of our community and growth.

Hannah Beaver (26:10):

Thanks for listening. For more from Ryan, I’ve added his LinkedIn to the show notes. For more from how to make a leader, you can subscribe so you never miss an episode. We’ll be back next month and every month with another expert insight from an L&D leader.

T. Rowe Price doesn’t do one-off training programs. They engineer leadership.

Ryan Smith leads Global Leadership and Career Development at T. Rowe Price, where he’s spent nearly four years building a company-wide learning system that reaches leaders at every level, from the C-suite to frontline associates. The foundation: a belief that everyone, regardless of title, has the capacity to lead.

He shares how they built their leadership academies, why co-creation was non-negotiable at every level, foolproof tactics to get buy-in from the C-suite, and how they turn a learning event into lasting behavior change.

Things to listen for:
(00:00) Introducing Ryan Smith
(01:13) The “everyone is a leader” mantra
(02:39) The difference between leaders and managers
(05:51) Why systems of learning became a priority
(09:33) Defining a system of learning
(10:28) Leadership academies and behavior frameworks
(12:27) Insights from the Executive Leadership Academy
(13:37) Building manager capability
(15:16) Building communities of practice
(17:10) Driving adoption and executive buy-in
(19:56) Connecting learning systems to organizational metrics
(23:02) Measuring engagement and performance
(24:30) First steps for leadership development strategy
(25:53) Best leadership advice Ryan has received

About Ryan Smith:

Ryan Smith is the Head of Global Leadership and Career Development at T. Rowe Price, where he focuses on career mobility and building scalable leadership systems that develop leaders at every level of the organization.

Before joining T. Rowe Price, Ryan spent 15 years at Truist, leading leadership and professional development for more than 45,000 employees. His work centers on creating equitable access to leadership development and aligning learning with real business outcomes.

Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn.