5 Questions - Laurence Giggacher, L&D Consultant

As a change of pace I decided to interview a friend and fellow graduate from UTS. Laurence also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Organisational Learning (BAOL) and has recently been hired by Stockland as a L&D Consultant.


I want to thank Laurence for kindly answering the following questions.

1. In a few words could you explain a little about Stockland and what attracted you to it?
Stockland is a diversifed Property Investment Group, speacilising in Commercial, Residential, Industrial and Retirement Living. They have offices all around Australia and in the UK located in London & Glasgow.They're also ASX listed and one of the Top Fortune 500 companies in Investment. There are roughly about 1500 employees working within Australia and use many training programs and professional excellence systems within Learning & Development to reach desired organisational performance in maintaining engagement. What attracted me to Stockland is their approach to ehancing employee engagement and giving the employee more freedom to explore their own career development and not just focusing on reaching company targets. Stockland provides me the chance to develop my professional skills , also learn about training whilst faciliating staff by understanding their career needs and personal progression. I thought this would be a great company to be apart of and how they focus on their people as important assets all working in a holistic function towards a common goal.


2. What you find was your greatest asset when selling yourself as a graduate?
I would have to say it was an amalgamation of my work experience & BAOL that helped me get this position.The BAOL enhanced their expectations of my skills and how I learnt about Human Resources in theoritical ways and were eager to see if I could apply them pratically in a business environment within the industry. Determination, ambition and the right attitude contributes to the level of potentail a candidate can deliver to the company. That's how I presented myself as a confident graduate willing to learn about HR and take on a challenge. If you approach a job interview with relevant knowledge,some experience and eager attitude it will enhance the chance of getting the position.

3. Were there any particularly notable challenges you had to overcome when breaking into the profession?
There weren't may notable challenges that i had to overcome once I moved into a professional environment. Stockland helped me fit straight into place by implementing their orientation program and provided a fellow colleague as a mentor. Some of the systems were hard to get used too but once the instructions were clearly provided it become quite easy to adapt.Organisational Hierarchy also was a slight notable challenge whilst addressing fellow colleagues but a good way to learn about professional acumen. At first the transition into professional work can be a little bit scary but after you meet all the staff, toured the office and learnt the daily protocol, you will feel at home. The best thing to do is ask a lot of questions and record the answers so it becomes easier for you in your daily operations.

4. Have you found your perceptions of what L&D or HR is from university differ at all form your workplace context?
I only found that L&D differed from a university sense because what we learnt was being used theoritically instead of a practical approach describing the notions of HR. L&D is what I did percieve in Uni, in terms of its fundamental strategical element of training and designing programs for staff. L&D is all about enhancing productivity through training and developing new skills within the organisation. In a working context L&D does reach those aspects that we discussed in Uni. For example, at Uni we discussed the theory of TMS and 360 degree feedback and in the working context I currently use these 2 systems to monitor the level of engagement in Management and feedback based on these models. So to summarise BAOL really does focus on the fundamental notions of HR and provides a great introductory base for future career & industry knowledge.


5. How well have you felt your degree prepared you for the 9 to 5 of being in L&D?
To some degree I believe that the BAOL has given me insight to prepare for the 9 to 5 job each day. There may be some areas in which were not covered in the degree but that's the joy of learning on the job. Even though I had learnt much jargon, methods, theories and read numerous case studies in the degree, not all have been relevant to the working context of L&D. Although the relevant material that was used has been able to help me understand some modules and protocol that were easily recognised from previous class activites. My perception of the BAOL is that this degree will most likely be the best preparation for this industry and explores the core aspects of HR, so students can know what to expect when finishing uni. The workplacements within the degree also provide a lot of insight into the professional world.


For more information about the Bachelor of Arts in Organisational Learning see:


http://www.handbook.uts.edu.au/courses/c10231.html


Or for more information on Stockland visit:


http://www.stockland.com.au

Games for innovation

Recently ABC Radio National Future tense had a fascinating interview with Dr Robert Dew. Robert is a games facilitator who specialises in innovation and Future Tense asked Robert a few questions about his thoughts on facilitating innovaiton.

In this particular game, participants act within a make-believe scenario. The participants are broken into four groups each playing a part of a HR department. The game itself runs for about two hours.

Here is an extract from the interview however the whole transcript and audio can be found from the ABC Radio National Website (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/futuretense/stories/2009/2769322.htm). It is certainly worth a look at and is particularly relevant in the current climate where there can be little room for failed innovation investment attempts.

Robert Dew: Adults are different to children when they learn in that they have a basis of experience that they need to connect to, so what they're learning needs to be relevant. They come in with some transferable competency, and so they undertake meaning making in a very different way. In the area of innovation, it's really challenging to get people to give up linear thinking if you don't activate the child within, so to speak. So playing a game gives the ability to make a model of the world, and it also gives a way of activating people's sort of play-like sense, and that means that they're better at making connections.

In this particular game, what we want to show is how industry dynamics work, and so because we set up technically what's called a multi-round, multi-player, prisoner's dilemma, with incomplete information. We can predict very clearly what the emergent behaviours will be, and everyone goes, 'Ah, that's what happens', so it's really kind of that learning by experience concept.

Antony Funnell: And what are you hoping that they will take away from this, in terms of innovation?

Robert Dew: So I'm hoping that people understand that just because I'm faced with a contradiction, in this case a contradiction between the problem of competing and collaborating. I want to do both of those things, and I can't. I either compete or collaborate, I can't do both. With linear thinking what you do is you end up with some kind of compromise, where I compete a bit, then I collaborate a bit, and I'm not doing either very well.

To innovate you need to get to a higher ground, which is that I'm going to compete and collaborate at the same time, and so the game shows them how that's systematically constructible. So that's really what I'm trying to achieve.

Robert also interestingly spoke of evolutionary theory and how he was particularly inspired by Richard Dawkins' book The Blind Watchmaker. I confess I haven't read The Blind Watchmaker, however I have read his 30th anniversary edition of The Selfish Gene and completely understand where Robert is coming from. (See http://richarddawkins.net/RDbooks for more information if you're interested.)

Essentially evolution is an answer for a non-linear, problem-solving algorithm where you need to essentially evaluate strategies on incomplete information in a dynamic world. Robert sees a clear connection with the strict biological problem and the problem of innovation in business today.

Robert also speaks of the power of games in an unfreezing process. Especially in adult learning where you easily have a room full of people each with decades of experience. I find games excellent for these reason also however that topic may be for another blog post.