Marketing departments are used to pivoting quickly. Kraft Heinz recently did so with a new Memorial Day campaign with their Oscar Mayer brand. But how does this relate to corporate Learning and Development?
For Learning professionals, I encourage you to consider how narrowly they defined their objective, how they committed to SHORT, and how the visuals communicated hope.
[Original video has been removed - a variation of it can be found here]
An 11 second video?! Would you ever dare any microlearning so...micro? The creators of this effort were so disciplined to strip out anything which wasn't necessary. They didn't insult the viewers, they assumed knowledge, and sparked creativity in the viewers of how they could apply this themselves. The brand didn't get bogged down in details, lists, or instructions. They simply presented a vision, an idea - added a value-add benefit (the donation piece) and empowered people to make this their own. It inspires people to be change makers in their own communities.
In the midst of so many transitions right now, are we empowering our people and acting as change agents, or are we, in fear, wanting to control how people behave more than ever? Do we see ourselves as the primary ones who can train and empower others, or are we shifting our effort toward reinforcing in our remaining teams the confidence that they have the ability to teach and lead - that the Learning department is here to support them.
Trust is huge during this time. Sadly, many have more trust in their direct managers than they do in the Learning department. So let's focus on enabling and coaching those managers on how to be the trainers, rather than scramble to develop more content no one really wants. Train the trainers, turn SMEs into learning leaders - shift the model. Now is the time. We have no choice.
