Special guest Ashley Carvalho, VP of Programs at Lift, joins Doug and Jess to discuss the role of learning and development (L&D) in revenue operations and sales performance. You can expect to learn about L&D frameworks like Bloom’s Taxonomy and tips for applying L&D concepts as a sales manager.
Audio:
Video:
Additional Resources:
- [RevOps Show] Episode 52: Performance Management - The Reasons Not to Use Coaching, Managing & Training Interchangeably
- [RevOps Show] Episode 70: The OODA Loop Explained - How It Can Help You Make Better, Faster Decisions
- [Blog] What Is L&D and Why Should Sales Managers Care?
- [Book Page] The Revenue Acceleration Framework
Show Notes:
Note: If you haven't yet, purchase The Revenue Acceleration Framework on Amazon or preview the first three chapters for free before purchasing the book.
Pre-Show Banter:
- We have a guest on the show today and both Doug and Jess don’t know how to act!
- Ash felt weird by Jess called her Ashley. It’s the same thing when Jess is called Jessica or Jessie
- People accidentally call Doug by the name of David
- Doug is called out for and made fun of for calling Jess, Jeff in a previous team meeting
Today we are welcoming our very own VP of Programs, Ashley (Ash) Carvalho to the show. If you want to connect with her, you can find her here on LinkedIn.
Ash specializes on our learning and development programs, developing those both internally and for our clients. She would want to be in a foxhole with her dog, Beemo. Her favorite movie of all time is Elizabethtown followed by The Princess Bride. She is on chapter 43 of Dust.
What is Learning and Development (L&D)?
By strict definition L&D is ongoing professional development. There are things like training programs, coaching, and ongoing support. It’s this umbrella term that encompasses all the different ways that people and staff learn and develop at a company. It’s not just training. Training is not the only way people learn.
L&D is thinking holistically about people:
- How they process information
- How they gather information
- How they apply that information
There are many things that can be taught or can’t be taught but can be learned. How does that play into L&D?
Taking information and then applying it to your role is going to depend greatly on the person. Some people can take information, apply it to the role, and then continue to develop and grow their skills. Others take the information and try to check off boxes and just do the steps. Ash thinks about what are available to help folks apply whatever information is being shared to help push the envelope.
Where does learning occur?
Learning is always occurring. Learning can always be happening especially if you have people who have a learning mindset and that’s how they approach their role.
Ash is a big believer that learning happens when someone is in the job or on the job; when they’re actually doing the thing.
Does learning actually occur in a classroom/training environment?
That depends on what level of learning is being talked about.
There’s a model called Bloom’s Taxonomy that talks about the six levels of knowledge and learning. It helps identify and understand what level of learning someone is at when they’re trying to learn a new skill, taking in information, etc.
- Knowledge or remembering
- Comprehension or understanding
- Application - being able to implement what you know
- Analysis - evaluating information
- Synthesis or creating
- Evaluating - understanding the effectiveness of something you’re doing
This model is used across learning and development for a few reasons:
- To gauge the type of content you may want to create
- To understand how you want to deliver information
- To determine the type of workshop you want to run
How would you apply Bloom’s outside of learning design? Why would a sales manager use this?
As a sales manager, when you have a rep or a couple of reps who can’t seem to make an adjustment or take feedback to improve their skills, this is when Bloom’s can come into play. Having the taxonomy as a baseline knowledge gives sales manager a language to use when it comes to diagnosing the challenges that their reps are facing.
If the rep is somewhere in levels 1, 2, or maybe 3, that’s when they get hung up on what they know. It’s when you get to levels 4, 5, and 6 that innovation happens.
What level does the classroom end at?
When you hit level 3, that’s when you have to invest in yourself. You have to take the lead there.
As a RevOps Team or a sales manager, how do you make that transformation?
This is an onion and has a lot of layers. There are many different avenues you can take with it. The first thing to consider is who is the leader. Are they adapting to their environment? Step one is taking stock of where you’re at as a leader and how you come off to the team. The second piece is getting creative or innovating around the block. How can you get under those blocks or fears?
What are some common mistakes that you see with coaching or training sales reps?
One of the biggest ones is confusing coaching and training direction with one another.
Doug’s takeaway here is “Direction bad, coaching good.”
No. there is a time and place for both. Sometimes coaching is bad and direction is good. Sometimes you mean to be giving direction but instead, you’re using coaching and vice versa. It’s important for a sales manager to pick up where the rep is at on the specific topic to figure out whether clear direction or coaching will be the best for them.
Earlier in the episode Ash makes a comment that if it were up to her, no learning would take place in a classroom. Doug disagrees. At this point, they get into it.
What Ash means by this statement is that we rely too much on a classroom setting and put big expectations on people who have exclusively experienced the classroom setting before they’ve had the opportunity to go and apply that learning. If she had it her way, she would get rid of the walls and would create environments that are conducive to multiple levels of learning or understanding.
Doug thinks that we’re over-reliant and we overuse classrooms, but having classrooms is great for level 1 of learning. It’s great for exposure.
Jess’s Takeaways:
- Bloom’s Taxonomy gives its managers a language to apply learning to. For Jess, she felt cut a little bit by the individual contributor moving up to manager because she struggled with that for a long time. Looking at Level 6 has helped to anchor her in her role.
- Levels 4, 5, and 6 of the taxonomy are more questions. As you move up, you’re questioning more versus the first three levels which are doing the stuff.
Next Steps:
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Check out Let's Play RevOps on Twitch for more commentary on RevOps
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Coming Soon: Episode 95!