We want to wish all of you peace and love in the coming weeks! We are so grateful to all of you; our relationships with you bring so many blessings.
We’re thinking too of our colleagues who’ve lost loved ones or jobs this year, choosing to believe that joy and connection can provide glimmers of hope and comfort.
We recently had conversations with two of our L&D friends in manufacturing companies, who both expressed frustration over sales channel training (managing and delivering training through dealers and retailers).

This seemed like a potential topic for a small-group discussion. It turned out that quite a few other learning leaders agreed, so we held a virtual lunch & learn with 23 participants. The free-ranging conversation explored technologies, strategies, challenges, successes, and future plans. Some great insights were shared, and we hope the networking proved helpful too.

Fredrickson has held a few of these small-group events in the past; we find them to be a productive way to explore one topic in more depth. If you have a burning challenge or issue and would like to hear from some of your peers, let us know. We’re hoping that at some point soon we’ll be able to meet in person, so we can do some lunching along with the learning at these events!
For learning and development teams across the world, it's a time of change and innovation. The Roundtable for Learning Leaders saw how one organization, Allianz Life, is evolving its structure and anticipating new skills needs to meet the challenges of tomorrow. Thora Eriksmoen, Kim Johnson, Sara Olson, and Lori Soyring at Allianz shared their take on "The Structure and Skills of the L&D Team of the Future" by walking us through changes they are leading within their own organization.

Spurred by changes in technology, the needs of learning audiences are shifting. In order to match that shift, Kim and Thora shared how Allianz has gone about reviewing their current L&D roles, researching best practice trends in the industry, and identifying gaps in order to develop a new structure that continues to support their desire to be leaders in the industry. Seeing this new model spurred a lot of great conversation at this November session.

Lori and Sara went on to talk about how they are planning to equip their learning professionals with the skills they need not only to be relevant and competitive, but to advance the industry through innovation. Implementing change management, utilizing new platforms, earning buy-in from across the organization, and using outside-the-box solutions were just some of the topics Lori and Sara discussed.

This real-world information exchange is one of the things that makes this community great, and we thank the L&D team at Allianz for spending their time sharing this journey with us.
In early November, the Young Learning Leaders Forum was fortunate to hear a great presentation by eBay's Julie Stone, Senior Director of Learning and Performance Support. Julie reminded our young learning professionals that it is important to take a step back and reflect on how they are "Becoming a Trusted Advisor" within their organizations. It's a message that can be easy to forget during the day-to-day grind, but one that will help empower young learning leaders to become true partners who are recognized as experts and have earned a seat at the table.

Julie challenged this community to look outside of their own bubble and truly understand the entirety of the talent lifecycle at their organizations. Engaging in the full talent strategy and tying learning strategy to other steps of the talent value chain is one path towards becoming a trusted advisor. Understanding who within your organization can help lead you down this path, reaching out to those individuals to learn and grow, and keeping your eyes open for opportunities to contribute to broader strategic conversations with your own expertise are all things that need to be a priority.

Becoming a trusted advisor ensures that learning leaders have some control over their own destinies, that they are viewed as true stakeholders and business partners first, and that they can exert influence and utilize their expertise across the organization. Thank you Julie for sharing this message with our community.
Penny Springer, Anaplan's Global Director of Sales Enablement, shared her story on "How Anaplan Implemented a Value Selling Enablement Program" in early November. Speaking from a recent and tangible sales training implementation experience, Penny led an engaging session that was directly applicable to many in the Sales Excellence Circle community. She covered everything from the conceptualization and creation of the value selling program to their plan for analysis and evaluation, including metrics Anaplan has started to see during the rollout of the program.

Through sharing real-world case studies such as these that are both relevant and current, the entire community learns and grows. We are lucky to have presenters such as Penny willing to share their successes, setbacks, and growing pains, and hope to continue to grow Sales Enablement Circle membership in 2021 so that more may benefit from the community's collective experiences.
Join us as Rebecca Knutson and Amber Sopata of Aspirus, a non-profit health system, share their experiences and lessons learned from implementing rapid upskilling programs in response to multiple urgent learning needs in 2020. They'll discuss what infrastructures they put in place to rapidly produce training, as well as how they incorporated concepts of Agile and continuous improvement to turn work around quickly.

You'll gain valuable ideas, tips, and best practices for developing upskilling for multiple roles and learners, rethinking learning design and delivery in response to adverse external factors, and how to transition that process into a groundwork to impact long-term strategy. 

2020 has created amazing opportunities for innovation and rethinking old paradigms, and you won't want to miss learning about how the Aspirus team's experiences can help you reevaluate and enhance short and long-term upskilling strategies within your own organization.

Aspirus is a non-profit, community-directed health system based in Wausau, Wis. The system includes four hospitals in Michigan and six hospitals in Wisconsin, 50+ clinics, home health and hospice care, pharmacies, critical care and helicopter transport, medical goods, nursing homes, high-quality affiliated physicians and a health insurance company.