Malcolm Taylor on taking a human-focused approach to learning

[00:00:00] Sarah: Speak to the Human is a podcast that explores how we build connections with people in their professional work. It's about the human experience at work and about how to foster that connection and belonging to support people and their organizations to flourish. I'm your host, Sarah Abramson, and I'm looking forward to you joining me in hearing from our brilliant guest.

[00:00:25] In this episode, I'm joined by Malcolm Taylor, who is a brilliant, energetic and vibrant leader. He's head of capability at the UK Health Security Agency, having recently moved from a role as senior people development manager at the Met Office, which is the UK based leading organization in weather and climate science.

[00:00:44] Malcolm previously worked at Transport for London, including in employee relations as a trade union rep. Together we explore how organizational culture affects attitudes to learning and compliance, how to make a business case for change, the power of social learning, [00:01:00] as well as personal resilience. I.

[00:01:02] From his varied background, Malcolm really thinks differently and often disruptively about how to navigate corporate settings to deliver more effective human-focused approaches. I really hope you'll enjoy this conversation, and as always, I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions for future episodes.

[00:01:24] Hi Malcolm. Thanks for joining me today. It's great to have you here.

[00:01:28] Malcolm: Hi Sarah. And, uh, hi everyone. Yeah, thanks. Thanks very much for inviting me along today. It'd

[00:01:31] Sarah: be good to, um, talk a little bit about the Met Office itself, because I think that the stuff we're talking about is particularly, I. Interesting when you place people in the culture, the work, organizational culture that they exist in and the why they, they want to belong to that culture.

[00:01:49] Malcolm: Yeah, sure. So, um, so the Met office was actually established via the Royal Navy, and it stems from a guy called Fitzroy who was actually on the ship [00:02:00] with. Darwin when they sailed over to Australia. And, um, Fitzroy kind of established this, uh, uh, the Met office as a way of mainly for, for Naval fleets to be able to kind of sell safely.

[00:02:11] And it's evolved over the years. And my, my team that I led back in the Met office, um, actually stemmed from a, a met office college that was established about 80 years ago, which is why I say like there was a real entrenched traditional view to. Training in the organization. So where the Met Office is, the National Meteorological Organization, um, kind of used to provide lots of, uh, weather forecasting for tv, newspapers, shipping, and all that kind of stuff.

[00:02:40] And actually their remit now is, is massive. Like we. They deal in space weather. So looking at solar flares and the impact that has on GPS, you wouldn't believe it, but there's actually weather. There's weather systems under the sea as well. So looking at the kind of currents and kind of thermals and all of that sort of stuff.

[00:02:59] Um, and they [00:03:00] obviously operate massively in aviation and logistics, so a lot of our big retail arms and supermarket change will want to know when's the best day to, you know. Send all my lorries out to deliver to the things. It has a huge impact because there's like the, the costs are so marginal around fuel and all of that sort of stuff.

[00:03:18] So I think there was, I see some stats some time ago where the Met office contributes to something like 200 billion to the UK economy every year, which is massive. Right. That's incredible. And as an organization, culturally, it's a very interesting place. So we have a very strong scientific climate science part of the organization, which is very academic, very driven by world leading climate scientists, getting papers published, working in partnership with lots of top.

[00:03:54] Um, universities throughout the year, uh, throughout the world, alongside other meteorological [00:04:00] organizations. And alongside that, we've kind of got a bit of a marketing arm. So someone that's a, like an area about drumming up business. And so the Met Office was a trading fund of, of government, which is a bit of a weird setup.

[00:04:11] And then we've got our operational meteorologists. And I would say without being too disparaging, there's some interesting cultural. Aspects going on with the kind of interplay between, um, kind of industry and academia mm-hmm. And the corporate world and academia, um, even within the only organization in terms of how professions are seen.

[00:04:34] So some are seen as more valuable. There's a little bit of elitism go on. And so kind of navigating that landscape is, is it's, it's a fascinating place and mm-hmm.

[00:04:43] Sarah: You,

[00:04:43] Malcolm: and I'll talk a bit about my current job soon, I'm sure, but

[00:04:46] Sarah: mm-hmm.

[00:04:47] Malcolm: There's lots that resonates in in my new world because it's all about health research.

[00:04:51] So you've got loads of scientists, you've got operational, and you've also got this commercial arm as well. So actually it feels like a very familiar place, albeit under a different, a [00:05:00] different, a different banner. So yeah, so the Met Office has some interesting sites, but some. Very intelligent people. Um, I wouldn't even begin to try and understand some of the science that goes on and some of the training we provide, you know, in terms of content, I wouldn't have a clue.

[00:05:16] Um, so I really positioned my team as a bit more of a performance consultancy type approach to what's the business problem you're trying to fix? We are the experts in content delivery and content design. You are the experts in creating that content. So kind of really starting to take a bit more of a collaborative and co-design, co-create type approach to kind of people development.

[00:05:39] Um, and actually a real big shift away from formal formal learning. So really if we take the whole age old 70, 20 10 model, we really started to look at where could we exploit the whole experiential learning. So that 70 20 type area of, of learning and moving away from formal learning. So. Um, which, you know, again, academia, they love a formal training [00:06:00] course.

[00:06:00] So kind of navigating that was all, was also an interesting, an interesting challenge. And so that's kind of a bit of an overview of Met Office operating in about 60, 70 countries across the world. Um, I think there's a level of arrogance within the Met Office to be quite frank, in terms of, because they are kind of almost the original one.

[00:06:17] They do take or can be quite close-minded to learning from other operational meteorological organizations. They see themselves as very much the, the experts and, and, and the sage on the stage, um, organization. So, but I would say some of that had started to change some new faces and over the, over the last year or two, I was there, there was definitely some shifts in terms of they could see how they could learn from others, which I think is, uh, can only be a healthy place for them for the future.

[00:06:43] Sarah: So many interesting dynamics I think there in terms of, um, the mix of different types of people that you're trying to appeal to, uh, personality types, people that don't wanna be told presumably, but also the background of the Met Office with having been part of the [00:07:00] Ministry of Defense and the sort of civil service background.

[00:07:02] Um, I think it, is there a part of it that is. Interesting in how it manifests itself with resistance to change and how you need to present a case for doing things differently. And particularly if you're thinking actually, you know, we need to, we need to bear in mind these cultural aspects for making learning as effective as possible rather than a sort of traditional rollout, you know, a a, a standard compliance training program in the way that it always has looked.

[00:07:34] How do you think about that? How do you. Make the case for it or enable yourself to experiment. Yeah,

[00:07:42] Malcolm: yeah. With a great difficulty. Um, I think, you know, it goes back to, you know, you can really touched on it there actually about history of ministry of defense and civil service. It kind of lends itself to a real hierarchical organization, right?

[00:07:55] So it's the age old hippo stuff, the highest paid person in the room's [00:08:00] opinion. And you know, I said that I have often. Speak truth to authority. I've never been afraid to challenge that assumption because just because someone's the most. Highest ranked person in the room doesn't make him an expert in l and d.

[00:08:13] Mm-hmm. And I've always challenged that type of approach or, or an expert in any subject matter for that, for, for that, for that matter. And, um, so I think one, one of the, one of the things I try and I've tried and done in the past with regards to. Building cases, there's, there's two aspects really. For me, it's that return on investment.

[00:08:30] So what are we gonna get out of the thing we do, and then the cost of inaction. So what's gonna be the price if we just sit here and do nothing and continue as we are? And I think the cost of inaction can be a really powerful tool in the l and d. Well, because I think. Return on investment can be really difficult to measure with l and d.

[00:08:47] Um, unless you are kind of looking at a sale, a piece of sales development or something where you can quite easily see a quanti full figure of sales going up. Return on investment in standard training can be really, really, really [00:09:00] challenging. So focusing on that cost of inaction in terms of people being away from.

[00:09:05] From their day job for periods of time. If it's these lengthy training courses we put in on can be a really powerful tool, I think in, in convincing an influence in your C-suite to sign up to things.

[00:09:15] Sarah: I think that's awesome. I think, um. Yeah, so when we first met, I really remember meeting you, Malcolm. We were at a conference together and you kind of came bouncing over and, uh, excited about what you'd heard from my colleague Owen about our way of thinking about, um, engaging people.

[00:09:32] And at the time you were really thinking about how to introduce things a bit differently at the Met Office. Yeah. Um, it's that kind of energy of thinking about. Um, the humans at the heart of a program that you're trying to create in rollout. So whether that is people development or taking a different approach to compliance, um, it's sort of thinking a little bit differently and having the energy to, to put into that and to making a case for doing it differently.

[00:09:58] Um, so yeah, [00:10:00] how do you, what's your thinking? What's your philosophy? How do you kind of take hold of that and, um, make it work? Make it happen.

[00:10:07] Malcolm: Cool. Have a long, how long have you got Sarah? I think, um, yeah, I think actually a, a little bit of a use case, actually a bit of this case study from, from our work at the mid office, and you're right, I am someone that's full of, full of energy and I probably definitely did bound over to you at that, at that thing.

[00:10:23] And I think it was, it, it for me was about. Acting on often talk about speak to the human. It's very much kind of at the ethos of what you do. But for me it's also that opportunity to disrupt. You know, I've, I think, I think l and d is, is an interesting one in this country. The, the, the kind of pedagogy of how we teach people hasn't really changed since Victorian times.

[00:10:46] And when you think about the progress that we've made in society and lots of other areas. I don't think the way we kind of teach people has kind of kept pace with that change. And it's very much that sage on the stage approach. Right. And for me, [00:11:00] I've, I've always been someone that. Speaks up to kind of authority and challenges at the time.

[00:11:06] So probably why I was a trade union rep for as long as I was. Um, and I've always had that kind of mentality. Like when people say that's always, that's the way we've always done it. I will always challenge that. Then why? Let's try something different, try something new and you know, if it fails, great. We, we'll still learn from that.

[00:11:22] And so one of the things I looked at in the, in the Met office, and you kind of touched on it, was around the whole mandatory training, compliance training. Type, type thing we do. And I think just, just the language itself. Mandatory training is very much parent child, right. It's not talking to employees as equals, it's very much you will do this or, or else, um.

[00:11:42] An example is in the Met Office. It took me three papers to our board to change the terminology of mandatory training to corporate essentials. And I think that subtle change in language around it being essential stopped it being about my team, pushing content onto individuals, but [00:12:00] really reframing it as this is essential for your role and for you to be effective in your role.

[00:12:05] This is something like you might wanna pull towards you and have a look at. So that kind of starting point enabled us to really start to look at the whole portfolio. And I would suggest that the Met Office is quite a well established organization, quite traditional in many of its approaches, and so trying to shift some of our subject matter experts away from that formal sheep dip training approach was a big ask and took lots of kind of.

[00:12:33] Ego massaging, lots of arms, round, shoulders, please just trust me. It will kind of be fine, I promise you. And if it doesn't work out, we can revert back to what was. And that's kind of where we ended up doing a bit of work together. Um, in Met office in Axion, where we. Actually had a really kind of, I'd say, quite courageous legal team and quite often legal tend to be the most risk averse, but they were really onboarding, trying to do a different approach.

[00:12:57] And you know, we took what was [00:13:00] fundamentally a really dull, beige piece of GDPR training, which was taking MO on average about an hour and a half for most staff. Anyone with Neurodiverse needs were kind of feeding back that it was taking them two, possibly three hours to complete. We re we really looked at that.

[00:13:15] You know, I'm gonna sound like I'm plugging ion's work here, but the whole kind of moments that matter. So what, that haven't

[00:13:20] Sarah: set you up to do this.

[00:13:22] Malcolm: No, I know you. I'm not. I'm getting paid, so that's great. But it just shows to me the work you do is so simplistic. So simplistic that it really lands with me and it really resonated from that day I come to see you, which is why we've done work later on together.

[00:13:33] And so we took. That concept of what do people really need to know and do as a result of the content that we've given them? And we condensed all of that kind of hour and a half e-learning package into a 15 minute core module that we then supported through comms without the without throughout the course of the year.

[00:13:51] And you know, not only was it so successful in terms of it being a really engaging piece of content. Really valuable in terms of it gave people exactly [00:14:00] what they needed to know because they don't need to know about the legislation. They don't really need to know about that. They just need to know that the actions they do are compliant to that.

[00:14:08] Um, but for me as an individual, what that enabled me to do is actually show that we save something like 3000 hours in staff time per annum. That we could put a figure to, and the money we invested with yourselves, we recuperated within inside 10 months of launching that new approach. And then the savings were then year on year.

[00:14:27] And, you know, we, we, we were close to six figures in terms of the money we were saving every year. And as an l and d professional, that becomes a really compelling argument when I'm going back to my C-suite and the rest of those ses to say, look. This is what we've done here. This is what you could be rewarded.

[00:14:43] And you know, the ex, the estimated figures, I think once we rolled it out across the rest of the portfolio is close to a quarter of a million. A year, which is not small, small change. Right?

[00:14:52] Sarah: Absolutely. Yeah. And it's great when you can get hold, when you can get your hands on that kind of data and you can really demonstrate it.

[00:14:57] And do you find that hard to get hold of and [00:15:00] quantify? I mean, how, how do you go about kind of putting numbers to that? I mean, you mentioned one there, which is time away from desk, but Yeah, presumably there's quite a few different ways of motivating.

[00:15:10] Malcolm: Yeah, yeah, I think, I think, I think so. So when I, when I work.

[00:15:13] With, well, when I've worked with SMEs in the past, I often try to understand what are their, what are their daily pain points, right? So what are the things they wake up in the morning, open up their inbox and say, oh, not again. And I, and because, and I said about shifting towards more performance consultancy rather than learning and development.

[00:15:30] And I think for me. I don't wanna have a transactional team that just takes orders for l and d courses. I want be actually in there understanding root course analysis as to what's going on. And I think when you work with SMEs. Question about what is the thing that most bugs them? And I, you know, when we touched on the GDPR thing, they were getting high volumes of emails in, of people trying to do the right thing, reporting breaches, but actually these weren't breaches 'cause people [00:16:00] just didn't understand it.

[00:16:01] And actually they, every email takes time to respond to, and you can start actually saying, well, taking a different approach, I could potentially save you two hours a day. And, you know, time's a commodity that many of us don't have. And I think once you can start. Getting that influence of individual subject matter experts on board, it then doesn't become about me trying to convince the C-suite.

[00:16:22] I've got a whole army of SME saying, look, we could really reduce time here, um, in various things. We can actually have better audit trails. We can actually. Um, you know, reduce our email intake, reduce our kind of near misses, whether it's health and safety or whatever. And I think you can then start to really work together.

[00:16:39] And I say, you know, I think working together on this stuff, co-creation has to be the way forward on this because, um. Like I say, I'm an ex, I may be an expert in content delivery, but I'm not an expert in kind of health and safety and all that sort of stuff. And I think when you start working with people in that respect and get 'em on board, it becomes about multiple voices trying to influence upwards rather than [00:17:00] just that lone voice.

[00:17:00] And I think that becomes a very powerful tool.

[00:17:03] Sarah: That's super interesting. So sort of coming to your current role, I know you've touched on this earlier, but you've kind of been thinking about how to do things differently at the mm-hmm. U-K-H-S-A and I guess drawing on. A lot of the learnings that you've had from definitely, definitely from that office.

[00:17:17] Um, yeah. Do you, do you wanna talk about that a little bit and what you're trying to do and the approach that you're taking?

[00:17:23] Malcolm: Yeah, so I think understanding the U-K-H-S-A is a really important aspect of this answer. So, public Health England was, uh, a national health service body, um, which is kind of slightly separate from civil service and test and trace is basically a.

[00:17:42] A startup, it was a, it was a startup in response to the pandemic that saw it go from zero employees to almost 30,000 employees in the side a couple of months. And as with all startups, you can imagine governance wasn't their primary aspects and primary focus. It [00:18:00] was about, you know, responding to a crisis and getting stuff done.

[00:18:04] So you've taken an organization that. It's this huge start. An organization that's really well established with some really great governance and some really great work, great ways are working and they were brought together post pandemic and say, right, you, you are now this new organization. Get on with it.

[00:18:19] And the legacy. Issues and the legacy baggage that that brings in terms of lack of governance has caused some friction. And I think, you know, private sector has some great things to offer civil service. And likewise, I think there's some lessons to be learned. So I came into an organization with this backdrop of quite a lot of friction, quite a not.

[00:18:42] Very few established good ways of working or best practice around this stuff. Um, whether that's through procuring or just general ways of working, you know, in terms of conduct and stuff like that. So there's a lot of, lot of stuff going on and I think I walked into the organization and I kind of remember, I've been [00:19:00] here about four or five weeks and just had my head in my hands thinking, what have I done?

[00:19:04] You know. Possibly a good place for me to get to. You know, quite often I, I remember reading this thing called the, I think it's called the Beta Region Paradox.

[00:19:14] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:15] Malcolm: And what it says is, um, that this, this paradox talks about most human people. And I think this, this can be applied to organizations too.

[00:19:23] Actually, most human beings, when things are going well, you don't look to change your environment or change your circumstances 'cause everything's going well. Right? Why are you, why would you be motivated to change? I think when things are just, when things are a bit bad, we kind of suffer it. And even if they discontinue getting a bit bad because we are used to it and it's gradual, we kind of just put up with stuff.

[00:19:48] What the paradox talks about is things have to really hit a rock bottom for us to really be motivated to change our environment and change our circumstances. And I think the organization that I joined in January was [00:20:00] probably at that point of hitting a rock bottom in many areas. It now feels like there's a really good willingness right across the organization.

[00:20:08] People are putting down some of their personal feelings in order for the greater good of the organization and the future of the organization, and I'm seeing a lot. Really great motivation and real willingness to actually change and try and do things differently. And you know, I think this, as an organization, it's really exciting to be at because there's so many opportunities for people to not just make a name for themselves, but people are able to spot something and you are like, you are given the back in there.

[00:20:35] Give it a go. Like it sounds great, give it a go. And actually having those real open doors. Especially in my world is really exciting for me because as you know, Sarah, I'm someone that really likes to be innovative. Yes, I really like to try new things and you know, I've made managed to, you know, we introduced a thing that's, um, been sponsored by our executive called Building a Learning Culture and it's got a number of work streams around professions, [00:21:00] total reward, kind of performance management, all of that sort of stuff, and the future of l and d where it's all been.

[00:21:07] Really, really well sponsored by our executive. We kind of, it's all over our intranet. Um, and for me it's really given me that agency to really kind of push my teams and push the areas. 'cause I've got, I've got the agency to walk into areas now and kind of say to kind of deputy directors, look, this is part of this work.

[00:21:24] Jump on board. This is what's gonna happen. This is gonna be really great. And got a, we've got a program of learning for leadership called Fed Future Engaged Deliver. And I'm, I'm very, very clear on the future I wanna create. So for me at the moment, I'm very much in that engagement process across the organization.

[00:21:39] It seems to be going down really, really well because people can see the benefit it can have for individuals. You know, I often, I'm excited about this stuff, so, no, it's cool. It's cool. Carry on. But I, uh, I really love, I team, my team probably bored of me saying it. The what's in it for me piece. Hmm. Wanna launch anything?

[00:21:58] I think about the [00:22:00] individuals, and it probably goes back to my time in a, as a trade union rep, whereby. On the receiving end of those conversations of, and decisions of what organizations were trying to do. And my role then was about actually what's the people impact? I don't really care about the business to, to, to some degree what's, what's, what's gonna be the benefit for, for the people that I'm representing in my trade union.

[00:22:22] Right. For me, that mentality has kind of stayed with me all through my career, albeit I'm on now the other side of the table and I'm the one potentially making some of these business decisions, but I always have the people at the heart of it. So what's the, what's gonna be the benefit for the individuals?

[00:22:36] Because if it's not there, then I'm not gonna try and sell it. You know? That's not, that's not who I am. And I think that's really enabling me to get that engagement piece with that, that vision that I'm trying to create with, with the organization.

[00:22:47] Sarah: That's fantastic and I think to me, really speaks to sort of how you approach change resistance, both on an individual level, but also on an organization and on a leadership level with change resistance.

[00:22:59] If [00:23:00] people understand why they're being asked to do something differently and they can relate it to the things that matter to them as individuals that they can relate to for their team, that they can understand that. Is also why they work in the organization, the things that they care about. And it really relates to that culture and value and the, the reasons that people want to be in their job, assuming that most people do wanna be in their job.

[00:23:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, you know, it just becomes a Cuban on a different level, doesn't it? It's relevant, it's meaningful. It speaks to you as an individual about the things that matter to you, but also it's really interesting what you were saying about that kind of leadership. Sponsorship of what you're doing, and I guess when you've got to a point where things are quite bad Yeah, that perhaps there's just a slightly greater tolerance for taking a risk and a willingness to give you the leeway to to do things.

[00:23:57] Yeah. Do you feel that you have permission to get things [00:24:00] wrong? If you try something and it doesn't work,

[00:24:03] Malcolm: I would say yes. Um, you know, I, again, it's something I've probably developed over my career is if you're gonna fail to sell fast, it's kind of that lean management stuff, isn't it? And I, I've got a, I've got my current chief people officer, I heard a, i, I joined a team event last year before I actually joined the company.

[00:24:21] I was in the process of getting job offers and stuff and, um, event and remember hearing speak. She was someone I, I just thought I wanna work for her. And I think having people like that, that have faith and trust in your ability to do something, and if things fail, it's not because you are incompetent, it's just because either the organization wasn't right for it, or it probably just wasn't the right particular thing.

[00:24:46] And potentially you might just need to change your thing to get it to land properly. But I think having that, having that senior sponsorship from my CPO, that she's, you know, it's a bit of a double-edged sword though, right? Go off and do what you wanna do, you become front and [00:25:00] center and kneel all our eyes on you.

[00:25:01] So you have to deliver against that, and you have to have confidence in your own ability. But having that real faith from, from someone quite senior is, is. Very important to me, and I do definitely have that feeling that I'm going back to that whole Lencioni model of the five dysfunctions of a team. I really do feel trusted.

[00:25:18] I feel that I'm able to have that open and honest conversation with those around me and those senior leaderships around me. And it's not taken personally. It is very much professionally taken as feedback and through that. But I feel like we're all committed to the vision that I'm trying to do. I feel like my chief people officer kind of talks about.

[00:25:37] What I'm trying to do quite a lot across the organization when they're engaging in wider kind of team briefs and stuff. So yeah, I think definitely feel like I've got a lot of psychological safety around the things I'm trying to do and, you know, if things fail, I do believe I've got that back and it's all right and we'll learn from it.

[00:25:53] Sarah: That's fantastic. Um, just bring to life a little bit for us. You were talking about [00:26:00] that idea of what's in it for me. Do you have some examples of what that actually looks like when you are kind of. Rolling out a piece or you're trying to engage people with something, how, how might you do that with a, in a real example to put you on the spot?

[00:26:15] Malcolm: Yeah, no, that's fine. Um, uh, I think it'd probably be an example from, from the Met office and, and it ended up as a piece of work that got us, um, people development partner state with partner status with the CIPD, which is the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development for, for those overseas, um.

[00:26:32] Taking that profession's work. So I think the organization could really understand how the, what's in it bit for me, the organization was, it will help us with our recruitment and retention, it will help with future demand management, all of that sort of stuff. But for individuals, what I kind of wanted to show is that there's lots of research over the last kind of 20, 30 years around.

[00:26:56] The particular workforce demographic, what's motivating them in the workplace? [00:27:00] Right. So when we think about Gen Z, a lot of it, which is becoming quite a huge part of our workforce, will be kind of 50% of the workforce fairly soon as we all kind of as, as we all age and leave, leave employment. A lot of it is around empowering them to own careers and the ability to kind of map out a career within their organization.

[00:27:19] And I think what I've seen is. It's a bit of a cliche, right? You, you train people and you develop people well enough so that they can leave, but you treat 'em well enough so that they stay. It's a bit of an old, old thing, but it's, I, I, I, I stand by that. I think there's a lot of truth in that. So for me, when we started to do our develop our professions piece, I was very much one eye on that's all great for the organization, but what does that mean for our employee value proposition in terms of what are we doing for our employees?

[00:27:47] So we actually used our learning management system. All of these brilliant external competency frameworks. We basically, quite crudely done a big cut and paste job into our LMS and we [00:28:00] created a, uh, self-assessment tool. So for every single job in the organization, we mapped them across to the relevant role in the profession that they had.

[00:28:08] So everyone had access to their own personal competency profile, and this competency profile basically showed them. All of the skills that they needed to be effective in their jobs to be at the level of the role demanded. Um, and at the level and kind of loads of other information, it linked off to specific bits of learning if you were falling short.

[00:28:30] But it gave them an access to a self-assessment tool so it could start to empower people to own more of their own development. So no, no longer were development conversations at the start of every year about a manager saying, right, what course do you wanna do? Them saying I wanna do a prince two or whatever, and it not really been linked to anything of value development conversations become a lot more meaningful around, well, these future skills that the organization needs.

[00:28:56] There's some learning here, but does that support your own future career development as [00:29:00] well? Yes, it does a bit, but I also wanna do this because this is something I wanna do in the future. So we started to really see people owning their own development more, and those development conversations start to start to become much more rich and valued and linked and aligned to business objectives as well.

[00:29:18] Um, and that was all reflective in our kind of annual people survey. We started to see scores. Up creek uptaking them. And so that one is what's in it for me. Story is really about let's empower you and empower you as, as individuals to really own your development. And that was probably wasn't the original driver, but it was a real happy consequence and an outcome of that work.

[00:29:40] And uh, I think that that is something that I'm trying to replicate in my current role, but better.

[00:29:45] Sarah: Fantastic. Super interesting stuff. And, um, I wonder if related to that, you, you talk about. Community based learning. Do you wanna Yeah. Sort of explain what you mean by that and, and how that relates to what you, you were just talking about that kind of focus on Yeah.

[00:29:59] So I,

[00:29:59] Malcolm: [00:30:00] IMI remember reading, um, a book by et venga many years ago, situational learning where, uh, the term, um, community of practice was actually first coined. And, um. ET talks a lot about learning is, um, really impactful when it's undertaken. I'm paraphrasing here, but as near to the point of application of that theory as possible.

[00:30:24] So quite often we will undertake formal training in a classroom a million miles away from the workplace. By the time you get into the workplace and have a, an opportunity to apply that theory of the training course you'd done three weeks ago, you've probably forgotten 60, 70% of it. Again, a bit of research ebbing, house forgetting curve shows that over a 90 day period you'll kind of lose about not a hundred percent of the learning.

[00:30:51] So that kind of got me thinking around the whole 70 20 10 model. And you know, I don't wanna get caught up in the, the figures of 20 70, 20 10 because I think the [00:31:00] research that that originated from has some question marks over it around kind of validity of it. But what I do think is 70 20 10 does is provide a really useful tool to kind of show people there are other ways of learning outside that formal training course that potentially.

[00:31:18] Is greater, so just turning up for work. On any given day, generally we learn something new just from being giving things a go or from people around us. You know, slightly more formal stuff around coaching and mentoring. It's also another way that kind of, we learn through experiential stuff rather than kind of a formal, formal training course.

[00:31:38] But this comm idea of communities of practice I kind of latched onto and kind of gonna name drop another person here, Andy Lancaster, former head of CIPD, wrote a book a few years ago called Driving Performance Through Learning. And um, he touches on community based learning in there and actually he's just released another book on organizational learning around, um, community based stuff as well.[00:32:00]

[00:32:00] And I really loved this. Taking that thing of civil service professions, I started to look at, well, how can we can create communities of practice around our professions? So the technical skills, and not necessarily just being about professions, but also how can we create specialist interest groups to do some action set learning?

[00:32:19] How can we create kind of. Virtual coffee clubs to talk about things and kind of really, really showing that how we could learn together as an organization. And I think one of the things that I started to see is. Learning is all about knowledge, right? It's all about knowledge retention and knowledge sharing.

[00:32:36] And so I started to look at a lot of organizations will have these really experienced people within them that are the go-to guy, right? Or the go-to woman. So you know, Janet's great on Excel. Let's all go to Janet and she'll teach us how to kind of create a pivot table or what. And every organization's got their Janets or Johns right.

[00:32:58] Quite often, we all [00:33:00] know who they are, but we never take an opportunity to capture what they know about the organization, to be able to reshare across the organization. So when they retire or they leave for whatever reason, that knowledge drifts away from them. And I really started to see how community-based learning could be kind of a tool to start to capture that stuff, you know?

[00:33:21] Invariably, in my experience, most people love talking about their ability to do a job well. They'll happily share that with anyone, you know, whether that's through one-to-one conversations or community-based learning. So we started to create an environment where people could start to share that stuff.

[00:33:36] You know, lunch and learn sessions. Just opportunity for people just to come together in both a synchronous and an asynchronous environment to kind of learn and problem solve, you know, the greater minds of many are better than one in terms of solving that stuff. So we, we started to really see great engagement across the, the organization.

[00:33:55] We, we start to establish these, uh, communities of practice and specialist interest groups. And again, [00:34:00] it's something that I've. I see for very little effort by individuals. The collective reward is huge in organizations and it doesn't take a huge amount of investment given the technology that can enable this stuff today.

[00:34:13] So, and in the Met office, what we started to actually see was through our learning management system, we provided some tools around, um, creating and curating. Learning resources that were quite consumable. So not formal training that we need to kind of be really good for years to come, but the ability just to share a webinar or share a PDF or an infograph or whatever.

[00:34:36] And we started to see lots of this sharing taking place and it was just, um, I just found it a fascinating place to, to, to, to thrive and grow as, as individuals is awesome.

[00:34:46] Sarah: It's really interesting, isn't it? Because I think it taps into that kind of, um, social learning and um, social proof we talk about.

[00:34:52] Yeah, yeah. Quite a lot. But the, the world that we live in where, you know, we are on social media and in different forms and we are quite used to [00:35:00] that way of sharing insights. Comments, you know, and hopefully doing it more positively than often exists on social media. Yeah. Because you're doing it around a shared interest where you've kind of consciously come together around in probably a fairly small environment.

[00:35:17] Um, I'm interested to what extent you sort of, um, organized those. You seeded them deliberately. Yourself kind of centrally. Yeah. And created them, uh, to what extent they started to become self prop propagating from that.

[00:35:31] Malcolm: I think, I think when you, when establishing communities of practice, you know, I think there's a, there's a few things and Andy Lancaster actually needs book, has got this seven Cs model, um, which kind of, which looks at how you establish.

[00:35:46] Grow and then sustain communities of practice. And at the heart of it is a cause, right? So having that common cause or common purpose for bringing people together, whether that's a subject, whether that's a particular [00:36:00] um, topic or whatever it may be. Um, and then on the back of that, how do you build cadence, your content?

[00:36:08] The reward and credit of of people. So how do you recognize people's contributions? And so in terms of a structure, we actually developed a community of practice charter because one of the things you wanna avoid within communities of practice is going back to my previous organization, is the, the danger of kind of group.

[00:36:25] Think if you've got senior people saying a particular thing in the community, certain people may jump on that and it become very difficult to kind of create. A really open and kind of critical thinking, curiosity. Curiosity place for people to learn. So this community of Practice charter really set out ways for a community to agree, a set of terms and conditions for the community to exist.

[00:36:47] So the rotation of roles, some annual purpose, manual goals that you might wanna set. So there's. Drivers and some destinations that people were heading towards. Um, and we found [00:37:00] that kind of more formalized structure sitting underneath it, a little bit of governance really helped them kind of really, really be sustainable.

[00:37:07] Um, and again, it's something that I would always recommend that things can grow organically, but having that little bit of. Almost like a, a safety net just to keep returning to are we holding ourselves to account on the things that we said we was gonna do when we when we started this out has really helped kind of things grow organically and, but also recognizing when things aren't working, let 'em die.

[00:37:28] Yeah. I think you start putting lots of effort in something. If it's not, if it's not working, it's not working, that's fine. Yeah, you kind of, you don't get things right all the time. And so, yeah. So some of that common structure is really important.

[00:37:37] Sarah: Sounds really interesting actually. So you've kind of given people some principles of well established, I guess, good practice and kind of framework, but then it sounds like then they can take ownership of it and drive it themselves and take responsibility for making it work through.

[00:37:55] It feels positive. This is helping, this is good. And the ones that. [00:38:00] Don't have that feel to them. Well, that's fine. They'll kind of naturally fizzle out and, and that's okay. That's the kind of evolution of them. Yeah. Is that, is that how it happened? Oh yeah.

[00:38:07] Malcolm: De definitely. I think, you know, you, you made the point about social media, right?

[00:38:11] So within, within the community practice we had previously this, this content curation and creation. We had functionality around the whole likes, comments, and shares on those articles and, and, and, and a really nice bit of kind of AI that we had in our system at the time would elevate. Bits of content based on engagement.

[00:38:31] So you could actually be at the office for a couple of weeks when you come back into the teams environment, uh, Microsoft teams where a lot of these communities were operating. You would come back in and, and the content would then be recommended back to you. So Sarah, lots of your colleagues have been looking at this over the last few weeks.

[00:38:49] It's now elevated as a, like the algorithm is showing that this is a bit of content that might be of interest to you. And so what we started to see is that real kind of social learning. Social [00:39:00] media type approach to recognition and encouraging others to be involved because we all get that. We all get that shot of dopamine, don't we?

[00:39:07] When someone likes a comment or, or comments on an article bus. But that then actually does really encourage and kind of motivate people to either keep coming back, um. Or new people to get involved. And, and I think something I also notice within the community, we call them lurkers, you get lots of people that sit on the periphery.

[00:39:27] They don't like, they don't comment, but you know, they're engaging and they're reading that comment and they're engaging and that's totally fine as well. Right. And I think it's kind of just making sure that you remember the audience is probably much larger than the ones that you are constantly engaging with.

[00:39:41] And, um, you know, and we, we got, we got. We used to do run poll surveys and stuff like that. So I'm very aware of the kind of numbers of people kind of accessing this stuff. Um, so yeah, just kind of, I think the more you encourage people to get involved and having some senior people given some of that kind of recognition of those that do get [00:40:00] involved, you know, because again, if you've got someone quite senior in the organization saying, job well done, or, I really like this article again, it's kind of really nice reward, isn't it?

[00:40:09] So, um, yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:10] Sarah: I'm a massive fan of communities in all sorts of different ways, and I think, you know, there's so much power in people coming together and connecting. Um, and that can look quite different in different capacities. I know, um, Joe Glover, who set up the marketing meetup is. Brilliant on this stuff because he's built this community from scratch.

[00:40:30] That started as a small Cambridge group that was meeting in, in an office and getting interesting thoughts shared about marketing and has grown into this kind of international, you know, webinars and in-person networks. And he's really interesting on building communities. But I think communities can just take so many different forms and can be valuable in different ways.

[00:40:51] And um, uh. I, it might be an interesting time for us to sort of talk about stuff that's beyond our professional roles. Yeah. Which I really would like to talk [00:41:00] to you about because, um, we are both into running and I think the com community around running is really fascinating. And, um, I'm, as a coach myself, I see the power of just bringing people together to train together.

[00:41:15] It's immense and it's kind of, it, in many ways, it's a more powerful, I call it coaching by stealth than that kind of, um, almost slightly parental role between a coach and an athlete where you're kind of, you're trying to guide them and you're trying to empower them and you're trying to give them control and understanding over their own training.

[00:41:34] But nevertheless, there's a slightly. Slight imbalance in the relationship in the way that a, a teacher pupil would, would be A little bit, yeah. Yeah. I tried to get away from it, but it's true. Whereas I think if you bring people together who, uh, have a really healthy competitive edge from training together, they see somebody running well and they're like, oh, I'm a, I can at my game and run that.

[00:41:56] Pace or you know, they just, um, have a [00:42:00] positivity from coming together and they get that in different ways. I think that that is more powerful than anything else you could, you could give them. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, I dunno. So do you, well, we'll come to your stuff outside of work in a moment, but do you see that sort of power of communities in other ways beyond work yourself?

[00:42:18] Malcolm: Absolute. Absolutely. I think, you know, any, anyone listening today, the question I'd ask is think back to the last thing you learned. I would guarantee it was part of some community based learning, from learning from others. I doubt very much the last thing you learn is a training course, right? Or a bit of e-learning.

[00:42:34] Um, and so beyond, beyond the work environment, exactly what you've just been mentioning, I, you know, I think sport is. All sports actually. I think there's so many lessons that are applicable within the work space and even just down to things like resilience and wellbeing. I know for me that my own personal running, whether I'm running with people by myself, is absolutely fundamental to my [00:43:00] mental health.

[00:43:00] You know, I think there's an element of mindfulness about running, especially the sorts of running I do. So I'm a real big trail runner, so I do very run. Very rarely do I run on roads. And, you know, if I'm not very conscious and in the moment of where I'm putting my feet quite easily, I can injure myself.

[00:43:19] And it's happened right where I've kind of been absent minded and I've gone over and fallen over trees and bushes and God knows what. Um, so yeah. And I think it's fundamental to that for me. Um, and I think, you know, I, I, a little anecdote is I, I've got a, a, a friend that I run with now, quite a senior executive, uh, in, in a, in a, in a completely different industry to myself.

[00:43:38] He, um, he had a stroke about three years ago. Kind of overweight. Um. Really bad stroke, actually quite kind of paralyzed down one side of his body and kind of started to look at his health and kind of really started to questioning kind of life choices and all that sort of stuff. And we started walking together.

[00:43:56] Um, he got a dog. I have a dog, so we kind of started walking [00:44:00] dogs together. I got to a point over a couple of months, I was like fancy trying to jog. So we started off doing little short jogs and there was something about the conversations that we'd have on a daily basis as well. And some of it would be moaning about our wives and jobs and god knows what, but just kind of, you know, just having that environment where you could just express things.

[00:44:19] And I think men are terrible for expression, emotion. So. And we kind of got this thing about where he started getting into running. I noticed that he'd start looking at kind of YouTube videos. He started doing lots of research and he'd become obsessed. Sarah, absolutely obsessed. And so I said, well, I do this event every set, every September, which is across Dartmore.

[00:44:38] We do DARTMORE a day, which is a 50 K. So bear in mind, this guy's never run in his life, right? This was the November. And I said, well, I'm signing up for this next year. How about having a target to aim for? And it kind of goes back to your thing about kind of goal setting and kind of working towards things.

[00:44:54] And again, these principles I think are very, very relevant in the workplace [00:45:00] too, about having goals that you work to work towards. 'cause you've got no direction or nothing working for, you're not gonna be motivated to continue. Right. So anyway, we started working and he, he signed up.

[00:45:11] On the day we went to run it, he, he did invite another friend along who's someone who's very egotistical, very, very competitive, and, um. This guy went off at a million miles an hour.

[00:45:24] Sarah: Of course he did. That's what I was waiting for. Yeah.

[00:45:26] Malcolm: My mate tried keeping up with him and kind of after about 25, 30 k, he's done like ramping out really?

[00:45:34] In a bad way physically, and I'm like, you sure? I don't wanna carry on. He is like, no. So I said, no, I'll leave. I'll leave you then. Anyway, I ended up catching up to the guy that run off, which was really. Kind of quite good for me. I said, ah, Phil, Phil's not gonna make it. He's tapped out. And he said, no, no, he's just messaged me.

[00:45:49] He's gonna carry on. So someone had give him a salt tablet. Anyway, he ended up doing like 50 K in about nine hours there. But. Absolutely broke down at the end tears, but [00:46:00] because of that journey you've been on, and I think that sort of stuff around just seeing people accomplish things. Yeah.

[00:46:06] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:46:06] Malcolm: Is why I ended up in people development.

[00:46:08] Actually, it's why I ended up in learning. I'm not a trade union rep anymore. You know, I used to see the worst of people back then, and I think developing people and seeing people grow professionally. Seen people grow in their personal lives. It's just so rewarding. And I kind of, that little anecdote just says it all for me, you know?

[00:46:25] Yeah. In terms of what's, what's achievable by having goals and kind of trying to build in a community and learn from others in kind of whatever environment you do. And I just think it's it. It's just really lovely and it's something that drives me. It's something why I'm so passionate about

[00:46:38] Sarah: what I do.

[00:46:38] Absolutely. What an inspiring story. Thank you for sharing that. Nice. Um, well, I guess you, you've been very generous with your time. Thank you. Worries. And we kind of need to wrap things up, but I've got one last question for you, which is kind of speaking to you as a human. Yeah. What are you, what's, what's next on your agenda?

[00:46:55] What are you looking forward to? Um, what kind of, what [00:47:00] motivates you and what are you enjoying most at the moment?

[00:47:03] Malcolm: Uh, I think there's probably two things. So work-wise, definitely the challenge, I think. What's happening in the wider world with ai? No one really knows what the future holds. 'cause just the pace of change at the moment is just massive.

[00:47:19] And I think we touched on it earlier. For me it's just about being ready for whatever comes my way. I think trying to train up on what the art that possible is ridiculous. I'm just trying to make sure I'm resilient and I'm agile enough to respond. So the challenge at work for me is. There's so much to do, so much to fix.

[00:47:37] But I have this future vision of I know how good it can be, and that's kind of what's driving me. And I, I love that and I love being stretched, and I love being personally challenged. Personally. I've got, uh, a few unfinished businesses with a few bits of a few ultra marathons. Excellent. Um, I've got 120 miler.

[00:47:58] Next year that back up [00:48:00] for it. I got, I got to about a hundred miles last time out and I ended up crashing out. And psychologically I'd done myself, I took myself out of it, which I'm kicking myself, so I'm giving that another go next year. Um, so I've got a few 50 k, where's that one? It's the Jurassic Extinction.

[00:48:14] So it, it starts at Paul on the south coast of. Dset, um, and pretty much does the whole dset Devon coast down to xmo. And I think you end up doing something like the height of Everest over 120 miles. Oh my, it's brew, it's brutal. And people say you do this stuff for fun. Right? I really don't know. But so that's, that's, that's my personal challenge over, over the next year.

[00:48:38] But um, yeah, just kind of just. Staying, staying involved, Sarah being current and just kind of being open to what, what's what's happening in the wider world and just trying to be, you know, just trying to question things. You know, staying curious. I think that's my, that's my biggest challenge. Just keep, keep giving things a go.

[00:48:57] There's a, there's a famous quote, and I'll [00:49:00] finish on this. I can't remember who the guy is now, but it, it's, it's about, there is a. There is a, there is a state that will keep manning everlasting ignorance. And that state is content contempt prior to investigation. And for me, the day I stop doing things because I don't wanna do it, I've already prejudged it is the day I'm gonna kind of retire.

[00:49:20] But um, yeah, it's about being open-minded and challenging life, I think.

[00:49:24] Sarah: Perfect. That's really thought provoking quote to end on. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's been so interesting talking through these different strands and ideas and the stuff that you're working on, and I love all everything that you said around community and the thoughtfulness of, um, engaging people, the explaining the relevance of what's in it for me and, um, the, the energy that you've put into successfully building.

[00:49:50] Business cases, bringing leaders on board. And um, I'm excited for you about the challenges ahead. Thank you. So thank you so much Malcolm. Thank you very much for your time. [00:50:00] Um, so that's it for this episode. I'll speak to the human. Bye for now.