The spiderweb effect: How S&P Global built an interconnected learning culture

[00:00:00] Jamie Blakey: I think the biggest thing for us, and the biggest roadblock is learning is not mandatory. So people have to be intentional about their development and their time. So it’s really, again, going back to best in class. Like we have to provide a stellar experience or the content, it has to be at a high level, but they’re going to take away great resources and tips to really support them with whatever that topic is.

[00:00:29] Hannah Beaver: 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. For today’s episode, I sat down with Jamie Blakey, director of learning and development at S&P Global, a market intelligence company providing financial information and data analytics services. Headquartered in the United States, S&P Global is a large publicly traded company with over 400,000 employees with a robust learning and development program. These initiatives are spearheaded by Jamie, who leads enterprise learning and development for the entire company. Within her role, she supports enterprise learning performance, leadership development, team development and power skills. During our conversation in front of a live audience, Jamie got to the heart of how to remove the barriers that stand in the way of creating an impactful learning experience. And that all starts with getting buy-in from senior leadership.

[00:01:28] Hannah Beaver: We’ll start there.

[00:01:29] Hannah Beaver: How do you gain buy in from senior leaders at your organization to ensure that learning is a top priority internally, we’ve kind of noticed that learning seems to kind of make up the fabric of your organization. Almost a spider web effect kind of touches all aspects of your organization. So I’m curious how you achieve this and how you ensure that learning is impacting the organization kind of all the way from the top down.

[00:01:52] Jamie Blakey: I love this question because she’s so true. It’s such a spider web. So how do we all stay aligned so we’re not overlapping? Right? Because that’s really important. So it’s really important to build credibility. Everything that we do as a team, we ensure that, you know, the content that we’re developing, you know, we’re being innovative, we’re meeting people where they are. It’s just really important for us to have the best in class experience and content. Stay relevant is so important. And communication, we have to communicate.

[00:02:21] Jamie Blakey: We have to go to teams and talk about what we’re doing as a team. We have to socialize. We have to share. So again, it’s all about word of mouth, honestly, because we do a lot of customized sessions for teams. And so, you know, again, going back to the best in class content, we have to make sure things are relevant, but also partnering with our divisional partners.

[00:02:41] Hannah Beaver: And then, as you mentioned again, from using that Spiderweb analogy, seeing that you’re having teams from different departments, perhaps, you know, hearing from word of mouth or seeing certain learning programs work and then reaching out, how are you to take it a step further? Forming partnerships across departments. So, you know, the sales team hears that learning is working well in one department across, you know, the marketing department. How are you seeing that then kind of catalyze learning among departments? And do you have maybe a success story to share or an example of how that’s worked well within your organization?

[00:03:16] Jamie Blakey: The key I feel, and this has worked for me and my team, it’s really partnerships in alignment. So we take an approach where we have divisional liaisons, each of my team members, we connect with someone in a division to socialize and share what’s going on and different initiatives that are happening on our team. So again, it’s important to communicate. We have a huge initiative right now in leadership development. So we’re going out to the teens. We’re talking about what we’re doing. We’re getting insights from our colleagues to, to make sure that what we’re putting out is really resonating with what is needed. So again, it’s communication.

[00:03:50] Jamie Blakey: It’s putting yourself out there. And sometimes you’re not going to be favorable. People may not love your idea, but that’s okay. That’s where we iterate. You know, we don’t get married to ideas. We’re very adaptable. I love that you said that earlier, because we have to be, we have to be flexible with the way that we think, the way that we structure our programs. Doing like a huge marketing campaign is also really critical for us.

[00:04:11] Jamie Blakey: So again, if I could give anyone advice, it’s partner with that individual in marketing. It’s partner with people in different pockets of the organization because you can leverage those people to be your marketing tools. So just being very strategic with the way that you think about, you know, leveraging your resources, your network, it’s really important to dip into that.

[00:04:34] Hannah Beaver: Sounds like maybe kind of finding your cheerleaders amongst different departments to kind of spread the word is an effective strategy.

[00:04:42] Jamie Blakey: It’s such an effective strategy. And then like, also going back to customized sessions. If my team, if we go to a team and we have a successful session, they’re going to socialize that to another leader and they’re going to reach out to us to say, hey, can you do this for our team. So it’s like a domino effect, you know, I wish I had a bigger team to be able to absorb all the requests we get, but, you know, it’s so great to see the collaboration and the partnerships you form by just putting yourself out there, being innovative, and just going where they have that energy around learning.

[00:05:12] Hannah Beaver: And then what does a successful learning program look like for you? How do you measure that success?

[00:05:18] Jamie Blakey: Yeah, and that’s. That’s a great question, too. So, for me and for my team, you know, success is people that are continually coming back for more sessions or people that we’ve facilitated a customized session. They’re coming back because we. We made an impact and they’re sharing their testimonials. They’re sharing, hey, I tried this and this really works. So thank you for giving me a framework on difficult conversations or giving me some tips on how I can effectively communicate to my team. We do launch a survey after each session, so it’s really great for us to know.

[00:05:53] Jamie Blakey: Did the facilitator do a good job of keeping you engaged during the session? Did you feel like the content was informational? Like, did you get a lot of information from the session? Are you able to take away, would you recommend, create our leadership development program to a colleague or our enterprise learning sessions to a colleague? So, again, just really keeping a pulse on enrollments, keeping a pulse check into our experiential data is really important as well. And then just honestly knowing when people keep coming back, that makes me feel like, okay, we’re really building that credibility from a customized session perspective, removing obstacles.

[00:06:36] Hannah Beaver: And obtaining buy in from senior leaders at your organization is certainly a challenge. But let’s say you do it. How do you demonstrate value to help spread your l and D program’s impact across departments? How do you build this spiderweb effect, so to speak, as Jamie has at.

[00:06:51] Hannah Beaver: S&P Global?

[00:06:52] Hannah Beaver: It all starts with understanding what success looks like in the first place.

[00:06:56] Hannah Beaver: Can you give any specific examples of wins or moments you’ve had when you’ve kind of taken a step back and you’ve thought, wow, we’re really doing this? You felt that learning was really, truly embedded? Kind of a moment when you’ve taken a step back and really thought, this is exactly what we set out to accomplish?

[00:07:14] Jamie Blakey: Yeah, I have two good examples on this one, so I want to share. Last year, we did a new initiative around International Women’s Day, and so we wanted to celebrate International Women’s Day, and we did these really well. I’m going to call them really special coaching circles, but they were around a topic and so we had like a short summary of a book around women in leadership that we shared prior to the session and invited people to attend these sessions around certain topics and just facilitate conversations. And what we found so interesting. First we had a waitlist for the sessions. We typically cap our enrollment for our live workshops, but we had a waitlist and then there were so many other topics that came in from, from having those coaching circles, you know, around imposter syndrome. There was a little bit of heated topics coming in, but it was nice because it gave those individuals a place to really share some struggles they’ve had in leadership or knowing that they’re not alone in a situation. And it just felt very, very held and supported in that situation.

[00:08:17] Jamie Blakey: So I want to say that was like a huge win for our team. It’s really spotlighting a special worldly event and wrapping a coaching circle around it. I think another thing that I want to highlight here is, you know, the customized sessions. I know I’ve mentioned that a couple of times, but we typically have live workshops. But then last year we noticed that a lot of people wanted customized sessions for their team. We had recently gone through a merger, so there was new teams being formed together and there was a lot of, you know, conflicts on teams or, you know, teams are trying to figure out how to work together. So we were able to come in and facilitate sessions to really support Dei, fostering trust and belonging, helping people navigate change. We have so many, we have a huge library of topics that we can facilitate, but again, that’s another area that I saw grow last year and we have repeat leaders that come back and say, hey, we would love for you to come back and do this for our team.

[00:09:12] Jamie Blakey: So again, two very specific examples of just being creative, trying different things because sometimes those things that you think may not work, they tend to work. So I just encourage people to try that out sometimes.

[00:09:26] Hannah Beaver: On the other side, what are some of the roadblocks that, you know, you run into as you think about getting more learners? Kind of engaged with l and D resourceS&Programs and are there any creative strategies? I know we’ve talked about those a lot, but any creative strategies you’ve employed to get over some of those major roadblocks?

[00:09:45] Jamie Blakey: Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing for us and the biggest roadblock is, you know, learning is not mandatory, so people have to be intentional about their development and their time. So it’s really, again, going back to best in class. Like we have to provide a stellar experience or the content has to be, it has to be at a high level, but they’re going to take away great resources and tips to really support them with whatever that topic is. So for example, if it’s delegation, we’re going to equip you with resources, and I’m so happy to share that. Now we can link big think to that as well as an additional resources to really expand the learning after the session. So you’re not just learning in that 1 hour session, you’re going to take away an abundance of resources to continue the learning. I lean into creativity because, you know, I think we have to try things and if they don’t work, we have to be flexible and think about what else can we do. So there’s a lot of roadblocks that we face, but we always are willing to be creative and try different tactics to see what will work to drive people to our sessions, to engage with people.

[00:10:51] Jamie Blakey: So a lot of, again, socialization, we go to a lot of team meetings and talk about what we’re doing and share and then bringing our people partners along as well to help us drive these initiatives and build that momentum as well.

[00:11:06] Hannah Beaver: Have you created a creative technology solutions.

[00:11:09] Hannah Beaver: To embed learning in the flow of work or otherwise make learning kind of more accessible to your learners?

[00:11:16] Jamie Blakey: Yeah, I love this. So we actually have and I want to share its big thing. We curated learning paths last year based on leadership level. So we had some really great learning paths that we embedded into our intranet site for our people leaders to take part in. And so again, it’s, it’s meeting people where they are not everyone can jump into a live workshop, so we can write a blog post, we can have a podcast, and then we can have some e learning modules as well to tap into that learning. So big think was incredible when we came to you all for curation because it really did generate a lot of interest even around the power skills as well, having a learning path around that, so people can tap into it. If they have five or ten minutes in their week or their day, they can jump into a course. So again, creativity is the theme of this, of this Q and A.

[00:12:06] Jamie Blakey: But I really think just always thinking, trying different techniques and seeing what other companies are doing is another great way to leverage different ideas.

[00:12:15] Hannah Beaver: So what we’ve learned is that leveraging simple yet creative solutions has helped SMP global support their learners with as many touch points and resources as possible along their learning journey. To close the conversation, I posed a question from an audience member asking best practices when starting to develop a learning development program. Here were Jamie’s final words of advice.

[00:12:38] Jamie Blakey: When we built our leadership development program a few years ago, we did a lot of research and it took just really understanding what are other organizations doing? How can we meet people where they are, especially without a budget? What can we leverage? So I will say the best framework to use is do a lot of reading. We leverage PowerPoint a lot, throw ideas into a PowerPoint to really shape up the what, the how, and the why. So that’s always helpful to use for us. But really understanding what am I trying to solve for? What is our need? How can I support the company? And typically going from there? So we did about six months of planning when we were building out our leadership development program, and it was iteration after iteration. It was communication, taking ideas, taking it to the business, sharing our ideas with the business. So I would just say, do your research and just really understand, you know, what kind of culture do you have and how can you bring that into your environment, into your organization?

[00:13:42] Hannah Beaver: For more from Jamie Blakey, listen to our full conversation linked in the show notes and for more from How to Make a Leader, make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode. We’ll be back next month and every month with more actual insights and big ideas from another L and D leader. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time as we learn How to Make a Leader.

Have you struggled to make learning a core priority at your organization? Or wondered how to transform your organization’s learning culture from the ground up? These are questions we set out to explore in the inaugural episode of the How to Make a Leader podcast.

For answers, we turned to S&P Global’s dynamic Director of Learning and Development, Jamie Blakey. A champion for lifelong learning, Jamie unpacked the intricacies of building a robust learning culture that pervades an entire organization. From gaining buy-in from senior leadership to forming partnerships across departments, Jamie’s practical wisdom and strategies are sure to elevate your learning and development program.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• In-depth strategies for obtaining senior leadership buy-in on L&D initiatives and aligning learning programs with organizational goals.
• Practical advice on building and maintaining cross-functional partnerships to enhance the reach and effectiveness of learning initiatives.
• Best practices for measuring the impact of learning programs and using feedback to drive continuous improvement.

Jump into the conversation:

[04:42] Jamie’s thoughts on aligning innovative learning practices with company objectives.

[07:14] Jamie shares successful initiatives that created a supportive space for learning and development.

[09:45] Building a robust L&D program? Start with creative, engaging sessions.

For more from Jamie Blakey watch the full How to Make a Leader live interview.