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L & D teams or cultural amplifiers. We

are more than just content creation

teams. It's on us to really own that

upgrade. We really need to nail hitting

those three dimensions of the human,

brand, and strategic realms so that

others can see us that way.

You're listening to How to Make a

Leader, a leadership development podcast

from Big Think Plus, 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. Our guest this

month is Dwayne Britain. With over 15

years of experience shaping culture and

capability at brands like Apple on

Zelando, Lululemon and Atudas. Dwayne is

a firm believer in the truth that

learning amplifies culture. In a moment,

we'll be talking about all things

learning culture and learning

philosophy, including a breakdown of the

two, why they're so important, and the

best way to think about both as you

tackle learning at your organization.

Dwayne will share a case study example

of how he rolled out a learning

framework at OnRunning, and you'll hear

some little nuggets of musical theater

along the way.

Dwayne, welcome to How to Make a Leader.

>> Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be

here.

>> We met a couple months ago now at

Offbeatfest and Dwayne had a fantastic

presentation um in front of the

conference. So, we kind of got chatting

about that and we'll be digging a little

bit into that theme today. But, I am

very excited for Dwayne to share his

learnings with us today on the podcast.

>> Yeah. No, it was a great conversation we

had um and I'm happy to continue it.

>> Great. Well, Dwayne, I would say that a

common thread that we have with guests

on this podcast is kind of their varying

path into L & D. Um many people ended up

in one industry and kind of wound their

way into the world of learning and

development and you are no exception um

to this commonplace theme that I've

noticed. So can you talk to us a little

bit about where you started in your

career and how did you get here to where

you are now?

>> It actually started even as a young

child. I was a I think a sort of a

sensitive emotional young lad and I

really found my community in theater and

I found a space where people would hold

space for others and it was really all

about connecting on an emotional level

and I think that's what actually helped

me later in my career with really

connecting with audiences and getting a

sense of an audience's needs because

it's really more about it's not so much

about standing on stage in a spotlight.

It's really about meeting your audience

and what their needs are in that moment

and uh and connecting with them that

way. So I went to school on a musical

theater scholarship. I knew even back

then I didn't want to be an actor. So

got another degree in organizational

communication with an emphasis in

organizational diversity back when DEI

was just getting its legs. And I spent

the next part of 12 years as a performer

and ended my career about 12 years later

taking all of my experience and putting

it into a CD that I recorded that got

signed with an independent Broadway jazz

cabaret label. So I began actually then

teaching the software and hardware that

I use to make music and to market that

music as a retail trainer for Apple. And

that's how I started not in HR but

becoming a retail trainer for Apple

teaching folks on how I created uh and

what I did and went on to lead that

training program.

>> That is such an interesting background

and I love the way that you wo us

through the story there. And I think

what's interesting is we've had the a

conversation about this like in person

around how the importance of connecting

with the audience, inspiring kind of

engaging learning experiences. Like I

certainly see the parallels between

theater and the connection there and

then also L & D. So I think it's just

fascinating how that skill set has

translated so beautifully into L & D and

your career in L & D.

Well, on that same theme of connection,

that brings us to why we're here today.

Um, and that is to talk about learning

philosophies and learning cultures. So,

why don't we start with the basics?

Could you define for us what is a

learning philosophy and how does that

differ from a learning culture?

>> Yes. So, you know what I might do if

it's okay, I might flip it. I think in

order to understand the philosophy, we

might need to want to look at culture

first. And I think even to understand

learning culture, we might want to

understand organizational culture.

>> Let's take it all the way back to the

beginning. Let's do it.

>> Organizational culture as I know it and

define it is the way things are done

around here. Quite simple and

straightforward. I've also heard it

defined as the way decisions are made

when no one is looking. And also this

responsibility that it's not just passed

down, but that we all have a part to

play in it. And the reason why companies

are so explicit in defining their

cultures, their values, their vision,

their goals, their habits and rituals is

because if they don't, typically what

happens in organizations is, as we know,

the strongest and loudest voices kind of

come in and fill that vacuum. And the

same is true for learning culture. If a

company doesn't necessarily explicitly

express what they believe good learning

to look like, you can have a whole

hodgepodge of different types of

learning experiences and and and not

even in a maligned way or you know

people trying to uh sabotage the system

or whatever, but people have different

backgrounds, have different strengths

and they'll naturally gravitate towards

putting those forward. So a learning

culture can be skewed by people's

individual contributions unless there

are some clearly stated guard rails,

let's just call them. And that's what a

learning philosophy is. It is a north

star that an organization can detail

that aligns their learning and

development community, gives them

something to hold themselves accountable

to and can really tie in their

programming into sort of an umbrella

point of view foremost so that

everything that they make and everyone

that's paying into that learning culture

from interns to new managers to vendors

can really have a sense of what we're

trying to achieve here as a brand. And

in terms of learning, it's the same

thing. We might have marketing

philosophies on how we want to connect

with our audiences. We might have

product philosophies on how our products

and services should look and feel.

Having a learning philosophy helps the

organization know what we are a stand

for for how people grow and develop at

our organization.

>> Fantastic. I appreciate that breakdown.

And I know the last time we spoke you

kind of we were talking about

philosophies and cultures and you

mentioning it's kind of a chicken and

egg like which comes first. you have to

talk about one to talk about another. So

why do you think that distinction and

knowing the difference between the two

is so important? How does that show up

in an L & D program?

>> Yeah, when teams have a learning

philosophy and when they've articulated

and even shared it out with the

organization, what it does is it

positions a learning and development

team as a strategic partner to the

business more just a way of creating

content or attaching themselves to a a

strategic brand initiative or target. So

typically there are three realms that

we're working at within the learning and

development in my view. There's the

strategic realm where we're going after

business KPIs and trying to impact

behaviors and help achieve a a certain

goal. There's the brand component that

the learning philosophy serves which is

more like sort of the cultural elements

which is more what the brand is hoping

to achieve and be a stand for for

internal and external customers. And

then there's the human realm which is

how we can create and design learning

experiences and meet folks where they

are in it so they have individual

relevancy with the learning inside and

outside the organization. And so when

you clearly articulate how you're

working to design and target these you

elevate your L & D team to actual

strategic partners as opposed to

sometimes the content creation teams

that we're sometimes viewed and

sometimes we view ourselves as. And so I

recommend to CEOs, to CPOS, to learning

teams to really take that upgrade

because when you look at those different

realms that we impact, how we're

literally given permission to evangelize

the way things are done around here, you

can really see that we are poised to

really have a lot more impact within an

organization than just creating content.

>> And then further down the line, what

does building a learning philosophy

impact? Why is it important?

>> It can impact those three realms. the

strategic branded human realms, but also

it really holds the L & D team also

accountable to this north star. It also

can create a sense of efficiency in what

you're building. So rather than going

through so many iterations, if you have

a clear north star that you're you're

aiming towards from the beginning, you

can really align the learning towards it

and it can really make a off-the-shelf

training feel a little bit more

customized and translated for an

organization. on my website and and in a

recent podcast I gave an um an example

of translating radical cander into an

organization. So rather than just taking

radical cander which is a great uh

framework for giving feedback for those

who may not know it and just kind of

taking it as it is really looking at it

through the lens and seeing how we can

apply this to our systems and have it um

correlate to strategic goals that we're

impacting how we might tweak the the

verbiage or the the framework a little

bit to ensure that it's meeting our

brand and our culture. and then helping

folks immediately find the learning in

it from the very calendar prompt of

asking someone, you know, what's a piece

of feedback that you've delayed giving

and why or what's a great piece of

recognition that you um that you've been

meaning to share with someone and how

might it improve their performance,

their day, their quarter, whatever it

might be and getting folks thinking

through how this can really impact them

on a human level. And then additionally,

what I believe a learning philosophy has

the ability to do is create impact. So

when you have your entire team, everyone

that's creating learning experiences,

whether it's an intern who's giving an

office tour or a new manager that's

onboarding someone into their team,

>> starting at the beginning, how would a

listener listening today identify their

organization's learning beliefs? If

they're not clearly laid out, what's the

first step that you would take to

identify those? One question that I

would encourage you all to answer and

consider in tandem with your your

stakeholders and your your partners is

answering this one question foremost.

What do we believe about how people grow

and develop here? And by answering that

one question, you're going to find

different avenues to go down. But that

really is the essence of what a learning

philosophy is. You might consider

different ways that your values tie into

learning. You might consider the

different ways leadership shows up in

learning about how your brand

positioning your brand design shows up

about how what you uniquely believe

about people and the stand you want to

be for people in DEI topics in regional

concerns in operational on the ground

matters whether you know if you have

retail teams for example or people in

factories or if you have people

interacting everything via chat and then

finally what the you know what the

actual modalities look like you know

what types of learning experiences are

you creating these are all things that

could be answered

or uncovered and bubbled up through

answering that first uh question I think

foremost and then from there as you

detail this out what I would also

encourage you to do is consider the next

step is really within those guard rails

what freedom do people have to move

within those guard rails because adults

typically learn by making sense of the

information themselves and listen we're

all adults it's it's less about kind of

dictating what folks need to do but

giving them some guard rails and letting

them know how they uh implement and

tweak it. And then the final layer I

would encourage you to consider is

detailing in how the team can pay into

it. So what if they find more efficient

ways to pay into this? How can they

contribute feedback? How can they pay

into that document? In which places can

they contribute their unique expertise

and point of view. So then you have this

great foundation how it can be adapted

uh to fit certain needs and then how the

team also contributes and then by

sharing that out and making it public

you can also ask your team to hold you

accountable to that and that is a really

robust first step in generating a sense

and really detailing out your cultural

learning cultural ambition.

>> Fantastic. I appreciate that you're

laying it out so clearly with this with

this multi-step framework. I think

that's very digestible format to to

learn time for a little bit of a case

study. Can you talk to me about your

time at on and the work you did there

with the spark methodology?

>> Yeah, there's a lot in there and listen,

I think what what spark is is just a a

vivid example of what I just walked

through. So, um on my role as the first

dedicated head of global learning and

development was we needed a way to

protect our culture as we scale. We

didn't need another framework. We didn't

need another training on you know x y or

z. What we wanted to do was create our

point of view. So we created spark which

is an acronym sp a r k and the s stood

for spirits on calls their values their

spirits. So we felt that they were

really responsible for the success of

an. So we wanted our our learning

experiences to be grounded in those

spirits to tie our experiences back to

the bigger picture whenever possible and

when it made sense. At this particular

point we were really working to unify

the brand internally on leveraging the

brand design and point of view. So

whenever possible, we wanted our

learning experiences to be positioned

from fonts and colors to the tone of

voice and this sort of thing. We hired a

media designer to ensure that our

learning experiences were really on

brand. But one in particular was I think

particularly important to the human

spirit of learning it on and that was

the explorer spirit which was this

entrepreneurial way of thinking of

iterating of trying you know calculated

risk-taking and so forth and we really

wanted to protect this. So in our

learning experiences, we wanted them to

be agency enabling, and that's the AE.

We didn't want to just throw content at

folks one way. We wanted them to um be

in choice about how they learned when

they signed up for learning. And we

wanted to leverage learning discovery or

over sort of like a list of steps

whenever possible.

DEI is also very important on and so we

really wanted in addition to cultural

considerations we wanted to consider

things like contribution preference

scheduling needs session length and this

sort of thing within our offering and

design for that and then finally um

great learning takes place I think when

folks practice so at on we said that

learning is kinetic it's an active

participary sport so we wanted people

like practicing whenever possible new

behaviors trying on new thoughts and and

so forth so that is spark and then it's

giving teams parameters within which to

work. And then for those team members

that we did have to be really explicit

with customer service, maybe retail team

members, we still want them to feel

comfortable asking things like, okay,

this is great, but like what if I find a

better way to do this? What if I find a

more efficient way? How can I pay into

this? How is my feedback considered?

Where can I contribute my expertise and

my point of view? So that there was this

accountability to us as L & D2 that we

weren't just kind of pushing things on

to folks, but we were really treating

folks as the experts that we hired and

allowing them to pay into and to

contribute to that culture.

>> And what would you say was your biggest

learning and perhaps your biggest piece

of advice for someone listening that

might want to roll out a similar

initiative at their organization? In

general, I would say it's not, I think,

very common for folks to always view L &

D teams as this much of a strategic

partner. You might actually be

demonstrating this for the first time.

And what I would encourage you to do and

the only way I think I was able to get

this through a little bit even at on was

that we tied it to a strategic win. So

speak the language of the business and

we were able to tie that philosophy to a

big strategic retail win. We uh had our

retail trainers use Spark philosophy as

a lens to roll out onspurs customer

service training and they didn't even

have to do very much. They gave their

training a chiropractic adjustment to

the Spark philosophy. So they rooted

good service in our spirits. They worked

with our media designer to make sure it

looked perfectly positioned. They

created a space for the facilitators and

the team to make it their own. They

worked with our DEI team to make sure

that we were using inclusive language

and practices on our retail floor so

that our guests felt great. and they

made it come alive with real case

studies, practice and and follow-up

nudges and so forth. So they really

adapted it to that learning philosophy.

But what that did and this is the

important thing is that it made that

cultural component come alive at the

retail level which candidly sometimes

are the are the people that are that

probably feel furthest remove even if

they're not feel from the culture that

we might have at the headquarters the

main office. And so that's I think what

we do in learning and development. We

make that culture come alive. But

sometimes we have to show people the win

to get them to see like, aha, this is

what you mean. You know, it's

interesting as I share that as it's

coming out of my mouth. It actually

reminds me of when I was recording, I

was at the end of my my career and I

just wanted to record some beautiful

songs and as I was explaining this uh to

folks, they're like, "Well, what is

that? Is that like pop? Is it like

cabaret? Is it like what is that?" I'm

like, "No, it's my take on these on

these songs." And it wasn't until people

heard the music when they were like,

"Oh, I totally get this now. I see what

this is." You kind of have to show

people sometimes what it is for them to

completely understand what you're going

for.

>> And then aside from your work at On, do

you have any other examples of your

approach to storytelling and branding

within the L &D function?

>> During my time as an artist, I of course

when you're an artist, you're the the

manager, the product. I had to develop

skills to sort of market that. And so

when I first had the chance to actually

build my first learning and development

team, um I was working within a small

startup and I knew that I wanted to

bring on someone that could help elevate

the visual the audiovisisual look and uh

tone and feel of our learning

experiences. So uh we hired this

part-timer and the L & D team really

became known for this look, tone and

feel of our sessions and it actually

part of the reason we were asked to to

be involved in so many other areas of

the business and eventually get folded

into the greater business because folks

saw the way that we were working and we

were working to create learning

experiences. When I came over to

probably the coolest thing that we did

in terms of practical tool is we created

a website called the own your

development map. So many organizations

say folks own their development, but

what does it mean? And it on we really

tried to put that into words. So I

drafted 10 tenants about um different

steps that folks could take from getting

clear on their their values and their

why up to entertaining lattice um

lattice framework development. And we

created an interactive clickable uh

relief map with different brand imagery

and brand uh videos that would tie

people to different external sources

that were inspirational that clearly

articulated what that tenant meant and

internal resources to explore it

further. So for example, one of the

tenants might be uh discover uncharted

paths the the lattice framework and

internally it might link to our job

board for internal job placement this

sort of thing and at the top it would

just have three or four questions for

reflection to get the team member

thinking about where they are within

that particular tenant and it's a very

choose your own adventure style thing

and we rolled that uh out just before I

left. That's such a fantastic example of

how to really embed learning into your

organization. And I loved how you

mentioned too like even the different

mediums of kind of tear off or having

like visual maps because we all learn

differently and so trying to meet the

learner and any possible touch point

just to bring them in. I think that's

just such a fantastic example. Thank you

for sharing.

So Dwayne, we've covered a lot today,

but if listeners could take away one

piece of advice from today's

conversation, what would that one

learning be?

>> If you walk away with nothing else that

I would share is that L & D teams are

cultural amplifiers. We are more than

just content creation teams. It's on us

to really own that upgrade. We really

need to nail hitting those three

dimensions of a human, brand, and

strategic realms so that others can see

us that way. Um, so I would suggest

partnering, getting clear in that

learning philosophy, partnering with the

strategic win, and then being able to

speak to how you hit those three realms,

human, brand, and strategic. It's a

dance.

>> What's on your bookshelf in terms of

books or resources that you would

recommend to people within the industry?

Yeah, there are three books that I often

recommend, especially for those that are

really just getting started with L & D.

The first is The Accidental

Instructional Designer by Cammy Bean.

It's just got really great basic

instructional design technique and

really great foundational content. The

next is The Surprising Power of

Liberating Structure, which is a really

delicious book of like 40 different

types of modules that you can piece

together to create really engaging

learning experiences. And the third one

I recommend is called Map It by Kathy

Moore. And it's a way to really partner

with your subject matter experts and

really help them solve the problems that

they are trying to without necessarily

creating full-blown training, really

meeting the training need to solve the

problem. And and I think it's a really

great way to help your subject matter

experts really get clear on what it is

they're trying to impact and what would

be the the best remedy to solve their

woes.

>> Dwayne, what is the best piece of

leadership advice that you have ever

received?

>> Master and revisit the basics. And for

me that is really mastering the skills

around empathy, creating psychological

safety and being of service to your

team. Leaders need to be able to create

strategic visions and they need to have

business acumen for sure. But then they

also need to meet the individuals and

the teams and the people that make up

the organizations to really get enrolled

in those visions. And so that I think is

the core skill set that I think every

leader should really double down on and

even revisit later in their career and

bring all of that great experience back

and really recheck in and relearn or

even in some cases unlearn the basics.

>> As always, thank you so much for

listening. For more from Dwayne, check

out the show notes where we've linked

his website and his LinkedIn. For more

from How to Make a Leader, please

subscribe so you never miss an episode.

We'll be back next month and every month

with more insights from another L & D

leader. We'll catch you next time as we

learn how to make a leader.

[Music]

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