Ugly Babies and Godzilla Moments: Transforming L&D Through Performance Consulting

Creating an L&D function that genuinely moves the needle on business performance is easier said than done. And it’s a particularly daunting challenge as you move into a new role or organization. 

For Julianne Gill, Director of Learning & Development at Smile Brands, this has been her mission throughout a 13-year L&D career. Julianne has pioneered the concept of performance consulting, which requires us to challenge stakeholders to think about the outcomes they want to see, rather than orders they want delivered. 

In a recent conversation, Julianne shared her career journey, the transformation of L&D at Smile Brands, and what it truly takes to design learning experiences that drive measurable outcomes.

Keep reading for five key highlights from our conversation, or listen to the whole podcast here: 

Listen now: Live from New York: Leading L&D for Impact with Julianne Gill

Making an impact on your own L&D team

When Julianne arrived at Smile Brands, the first step was determining the biggest needs in her own department. And most crucially, what was holding it back. “We were providing good compliance training, but only providing pockets of other support. It wasn’t consistent and we weren’t providing support across the organization. 

“I had to talk to the [L&D] team about their knowledge and their skills. You assess the gaps, and then you start filling them. This is often quite exciting, especially if they’re new to learning and development. But seasoned professionals can often present more resistance. Nobody likes to be told that their baby is ugly. 

“You do have to have tough conversations. You have to help them understand how their customers see them. You can come in feeling like Godzilla in somebody else’s city. It doesn’t always feel nice, but it needs to be done.

“But it all clicks when you’re facing internal customers, and they give feedback to instructional designers and trainers about how much better the product is. Team members get that good feeling from their customer base.”

Making impactful change and battling resistance

Coming into any new organization, you have to find your feet as an L&D leader. You can’t simply reuse the same playbook for success over and over—the strategy needs to fit the structures and challenges you arrive in. 

And it needs to happen quickly. “As a new leader, you have a six-month expiration date as an outside expert. After six months, you’re one of us, and you don’t know anything.”

Arriving at Smile Brands, it was clear to Julianne that L&D wasn’t visible enough within the organization. And the team didn’t understand what others really needed from them. “We weren’t providing what they needed, and we needed them to know that we were there. 

“You get a lot of resistance any time you’re making change in an organization. There’s resistance as far as changing how things have always been done. So it takes time, and you need conversations to explain how you can really support them in their goals. And asking hard questions about what they really want from training. 

“It takes an enormous amount of time, work, begging, and pleading to attend meetings, and then them letting you help.”

The value of just one win

Don’t fall into the trap of trying to make broad, sweeping changes all at once. If you don’t have the credibility and track record within an organization, you’re only met with more resistance. 

Instead, deal with individual leaders first, and try to understand their biggest needs from your team. “Meet them where they’re at. Meeting the CFO, you’re going to be talking money and outcomes. That’s what they’re paid to do. With an operations executive, you’re talking about how they can do things safer and faster.” 

Change in L&D doesn’t start with a big announcement. It takes a lot of experimentation and communication to convince the organization of your work. And it typically works best to focus on one clear, discreet win. 

“Once you’ve had a few of those wins,” says Julianne, “you can start having deeper conversations.”

Saying “no” to simply filling orders

It’s a classic L&D conundrum: do you simply deliver what’s asked, or push back if you don’t see the value in a particular request? And what if the request doesn’t actually fix the real issue?

“We get requests for communication training to help teams talk together better. But if you do a performance analysis, you find that they don’t have a communication problem, they have process problems.” 

Done well, a little pushback is often in everyone’s best interests. “You can help the team solve that issue without taking up staff time. That’s a win, because the one thing that managers always tell us: ‘my people don’t have time to come to training.’”

In many cases, the most compelling arguments are financial. “Training is literally the most expensive way to solve a problem. I’ve asked executives, ‘is this a $50,000 problem?’ Because that’s how much it’s going to cost to take all these people away from their jobs and pay them overtime. It’s actually a $500 problem, let’s talk about a tips sheet. Or a team meeting with some talking points for managers.”

Engaging subject-matter experts

When it’s time to deliver great course material, there’s almost no resource more valuable than subject-matter experts (SMEs). “When you partner with subject-matter experts, and other people know that you did, it makes it better on many levels. They know that we don’t know everything. But if that person is involved, it’s worth their time.”

Having the right partners shows learners that you’ve thought carefully about this training, and brought in the big guns. Of course, subject-matter experts are some of the most in-demand people in our organizations. 

But we’re not asking them to create learning content from scratch. In fact, says Julianne, “even if you haven’t worked on a particular subject area before, you’ll find that someone somewhere has already made a Powerpoint on it. SMEs are usually all too excited to share those documents they created in the past. 

“Yes, they may break every rule of Powerpoint and be terrible to look at. But they also let you get straight to the heart of the matter. You can then go back to the SME and show how you took what they gave you—and your conversations about what’s most important—and created something new.”

The crucial thing is to respect their time and make each partnership as easy as possible. 

“When I talk to managers of SMEs, I’ll always estimate how much time I need. One hour a week for six weeks will get me here. Half the time is face-to-face, and the other half is work they can do on their own time. That shows that we’re respecting their time. And then we alter the request if it’s not doable.”

Listen to our full conversation: Live from New York: Leading L&D for Impact with Julianne Gill

About Julianne

Julianne Gill is an innovative Learning, Development, Talent Acquisition, & Knowledge Management leader with a track record of success in leading complex initiatives. Julianne has deep expertise in training design & strategy, performance improvement, business planning, talent acquisition, employee engagement, operational efficiencies, leadership development, and change management with a proven history of building and leading high performing teams. 

Through leadership and collaboration, Julianne has successfully developed and executed programs and improved operational workflows that lead to performance improvement and achievement of strategic goals.