The Learning & Development podcast is hosted by our Chief Learning Officer David James. Featuring L&D leaders from across the globe, each conversation focuses on hot topics in the profession. This transcript is from the conversation between David and Kimo Kippen on L&D leadership.
Listen to episode 55 of the Learning & Development podcast here.
Welcome to The Learning & Development Podcast. I'm David James from Looop, and each episode I chat with guests about what lights them up in the world of people development. This week, I'm speaking with Kimo Kippen, who was CLO for Hilton Hotels, and recognised by CLO Magazine as Chief Learning Officer of the Year for 2015, so he really knows what he's talking about. Before we get started, if you're enjoying this podcast, please do give us a rating on your podcast app of choice so that others can find us, and thank you to everybody who's done so already. Now, let's get into it.
David: Kimo, welcome to The Learning & Development Podcast.
Kimo Kippen: Thank you very much, David. It's so great to be here with you.
David: Now, Kimo, I often remark how different L&D is at a senior leadership level compared to on the ground. From conversations to expectations, what I learned in the classroom never prepared me for director level. Do you think this is because we get hooked on activities and products and not on what we're really in organisations to achieve?
Kimo: Yes. I think that's certainly part of it, but I think where I would want to focus is more on the positive and really where the focus starts with. I think the focus starts always with the business. By starting with the business, what I mean is from a learning perspective or shall I say from a functional perspective, first and foremost, I think we have to be great business colleagues and great business partners. Then from there, what that really means is knowledge, competence, everything about the business, how the business makes its money. What matters to the business? What's important to the business?
Then from a functional expertise or from a functional level, how do we enable or how do we support that, or how do we help to make that happen? I think to your point, if one were to get caught up in more of a programmatic response or a product response, that's where you tend to drop down and not be a strategic perhaps as you want to be, but I always try to be as strategic as possible, which means always being linked to the business at the most strategic level, obviously, with the people that are in those roles that make an impact to the business that have the need from a learning perspective.
Let's face it. Learning is at the core of what makes an organisation successful. Again, I don't think it should be relinquished into the bottom or to the drop-down into the organisation, but really talking about learning as a core capability for capacity building and for capability building for the future. Because when you think about-- again, from a learning perspective, how quickly is our organisation able to shift, move, adapt, adjust, evolve to the demands of business? That all is another way of saying agility, that is that we have to learn, in that essence, how we can be more agile as an organisation to adapt to the needs of the business and the marketplace, via whether in just a single town or from a global perspective, having that ability to adjust, adding flow to the business, it is really critical.
David: I know you've touched on a couple of areas already around strategy and enabling the business to perform. I wonder, Kimo, what did leadership at its fullest mean for you as CLO, say, of Hilton?
Kimo: Yes. For me, having the opportunity to serve as the Chief Learning Officer for Hilton, I think it was really that opportunity to be a great business partner. I pride myself for really having that working knowledge of the organisation in this industry, so I started in this business, the hospitality business, as a busboy or a bus person, shall I say, I worked my way up into the organisation.
That I think also helped me to gain further experience or further competence, and then that was complemented by the work or the expertise that I achieved or was able to obtain, specifically in the learning function, really, to, "How do we support the organisation or enable the organisation from a learning perspective?" That ultimately culminated into being the Chief Learning Officer, but again, I go back to-- it's really all about being a great business partner that's really enabling and helping the business to achieve its strategic goals. Again, learning was and is at the core of that, in this case for Hilton.
David: What I found, Kimo, when I was Director of Learning and Talent at Disney, is that I was exposed to conversations that I certainly wasn't exposed to when I was, say, serving my apprenticeship in the classroom. I think that you're quite right not to look at things negatively. Sometimes we’ve got to look at the hand that we've been dealt, and in the classroom we're generally delivering content, and I'll speak generally around isolated skill sets, whether that be for core skill development or whether it be manager development, and it's very much around the topic itself. When you are within the confines of the classroom, as a business partner, you're hearing what the needs are from clients.
It's not necessarily in the broader context of what's important to the organisation. Now, when you are being told of existential threats to parts of the business that as a leadership group needs to be responding to. When you're talking about a deficit of skills, not necessarily from just a performance perspective, but around the-- what is critical to the growth of the organisation, it's in a very different context. I would say that it wasn't until I was sitting in on those conversations either, on the UK board or the European board, at that level that I realised the importance of learning and development. That reframed that for me. I don't know whether you had similar moments when you were climbing the ladder, and certainly, at the senior level.
Kimo: Yes. I think, David, it's right on, it's spot on in that being as-- I think of everything as in gaining the right to advance, so be it wherever you start in your career, if it's an entry-level position from a learning perspective and you're delivering a particular workshop or programme, what that then means is doing that really, really well- That's sort of step one.
Step two would be able to demonstrate what is the impact of that particular programme? What are the results? What are the results or the impact of the business? Then I think the third thing there is then being able to tell that story. How do you tell that story in a way that demonstrates value for the organisation, thereby giving you the greater right to advance, in this case with the senior business leader or to another function or to a more strategic or to another strategic part of the organisation?
The examples I can give you are many, probably similar to Disney. We had the opportunity to deliver one programme for revenue management, and for both Disney and for Hilton and Marriott, for example. Revenue management is at the core of what really makes the hospitality business work and function, but we were able to demonstrate a significant return on investment by a ratio of 10 to 1, that if you were to invest X number of dollars in tuition, that it would return X number of dollars in actual topline sales and revenue that had an impact to the business.
When we shared that type of impact, when we told that story to senior business leaders, they took off with it, they made it, they shared it with others, they insisted then that everyone attended, and it became very much a self-fulfilling prophecy and programme to that point of being very, very successful in the organisation, and that's something that again was then made scalable and repeatable to all parts of the organisation.
David: Now, Kimo, one element of leadership is vying for negotiating resources, certainly from learning and development. I think as a profession it is-- I think we are notorious for doing so much with so little, and I don't know too many large learning and development functions, and I have a question from a listener, Tom Bailey from Nestle, and he's asked, "What insights can you shed on the planning and budgeting processes along with all the politics that goes along with stakeholder management?"
Kimo: One of the things that I would do from a-- to respond to that of how do you advance when it comes to the budgeting process. Again, let's try to not make this a transactional process. Really, let's start way up strategically, well, much more upstream, to have a conversation around, again, what is your purpose as an organisation, the learning function within the organisation? What is your vision and your mission?
Once you've defined that, then I think there's a question around governance. How are you setting up governance within the learning function? I would then think about one of the key stakeholders that you're going to be working with and who are going to be your key sponsors? What I would say, basically, is that success for me was based on the ability to have these key stakeholders, these key senior sponsors being extremely supportive of the learning function in this case and it allowed us to do amazing things, whereby our budget just kept increasing and increasing and increasing.
The other thing that I would suggest avoiding is being an order taker. Not just order takers saying, "Yes, sir," or, "Yes, ma'am. Three bags full, we'll get that for you right now." It's really doing that important analysis, that good needs assessment upfront. Doing that work upfront to determine, first of all, is it really a learning issue or a training issue because many people will point to it, "Oh, we’ve got a training problem." When, in fact, it may not be a training problem at all. We have to really get under that a little bit to determine that and then to rightly scope it. To properly scope it and size it right. To make sure that we are getting the necessary resources in order to accomplish that.
The other thing I think is prioritisation. There needs to be the ability that there has to be a prioritisation process built into your budget process, so that thereby you are working with businesses to say-- as you look across the landscape, that you are again scoping these things appropriately, that you're determining what the resources that are going to be required, the timeframe in which to complete it, to the level of quality that's being requested and how we're going to be able to demonstrate results. Given all of those dimensions, then how would that get prioritised within the business?
The last thing I think we want to do is to become the channel or the funnel that gets plugged because of capacity. I think then we have to think about capability building and capacity building so that we're able to source these initiatives, be it internally or externally, to again meet the needs of the business. The other thing that I would also say not to be afraid of is saying no.
Listen to episode 55 of the Learning & Development podcast here.
There comes a point in time when there are going to have to be tradeoffs that are going to be made. When making those tradeoffs, I think it's a matter of going back to the business and, actually, trading off to the business to say, "We have this as a priority, we've now entered this as a priority as a second piece. In what case what would take greater priority for you, the business?" Then if they say, "Well, both are equally as important." Then I think it's on us to say, "Well, then, in order to achieve that given the timeframe or again the quality or how we choose to demonstrate impact, these are the additional resources or this is the additional change in staging that we're going to need to have to make in order to get that accomplished."
I do see it as a negotiation process. Usually, those things are led from a programme management office or from another part of the business that's leading that dance. For the budget process, obviously, I would start early, start soon. If you are budgeting on a calendar year, it's already by May, May and June that you're already talking about budgets for the year to come.
These things do take time. Obviously, they do change. They are dynamic, but I think it's incumbent upon us to get the necessary funding. Also to determine as a part of scope, is this something that's just a one-year scope? Is there a business case that's going to be required? That if we were doing major transformations, for example, digital transformation or a significant project that's going to require a platform change for example. That needs to be planned for and budgeted for accordingly where it could have anywhere from a three to a five-year lifespan in terms of the budget and the budgeting.
David: You've touched on some key elements there, Kimo. None more so than the not-- well, first of all, to say no and not being an order taker. It's an anxiety of modern learning and development right now. I think that we used to see alignment to the business by saying yes to requests. It was almost validation of our very being, but you're saying there not to take orders.
Also, I think it's important to stress what you'd said earlier about understanding your organisation's strategy and fundamental to what you're there to do. Understanding how different parts of your business or how parts of your business make money, or as Kevin M. Yates would describe, how your organisation defines winning. You're aligned to helping them achieve what is primary on their list of priorities and not creating some parallel universe where we've isolated skill sets and we measure ourselves on who's come along, who's finished it, and who's happy with what they experienced.
It is key and fundamental to what everybody in the organisation. Certainly, they're part of the organisation. It's there to achieve. Which leads me nicely onto my next question, because in your LinkedIn profile, I don't wish this to seem like an interrogation for which I've done a background check on you, Kimo. You mentioned that as well as transforming the learning and development culture, I think you meant at Hilton. You improved the company's guest scores, brand loyalty, and global market foothold. Yet, L&D are often reluctant to tie activities to organisational outcomes. Thinking that, the accountability lies with the leaders and the individuals themselves. Should this be the case?
Kimo: Yes, well, again I think it depends on really the scope and the nature of the project. What again is, how does the business define what success looks like? How the business would define success. To that point, if we need to be able to demonstrate impact, to what level do they want to show that? I mean it certainly is possible to do that all the way linking back-- so, for example, a guest service initiative or a guest training programme initiative, obviously with Disney, you're familiar with that as well. Being able to link that back to the team member, to the employee, to the associate, thereby linking that back to levels of engagement or levels of connecting that back to guest satisfaction. That can be linked to brand loyalty or that could be also linked to profitability.
All of that is certainly possible. To do that level of work that takes that all the way back to ROI, probably would take some work, it would also take time because you want to be able to demonstrate that over a period of time. It all is certainly possible, it's just that we need to plan for that. On the other side of this equation, or is it something that we just want to check the box on to say that we've done it? That we have our team members or employees acknowledging that they have had that particular awareness delivered through a training programme as a result of going through that particular programme. I think the answer is it depends. It's just a matter of questioning how we scope that and to what level of depth do we want to go to be able to demonstrate it?
David: We talked about strategy, an organisational strategy, Kimo, and I'd like to know where you stand on L&D strategy, because I have heard it said that L&D shouldn't have a strategy, but that the strategy is set by the organisation and that L&D's role is to support it. Whilst, on the other hand, some L&D functions have separate strategies for different approaches. For example, a digital learning strategy. Where do you stand on this?
Kimo: I think maybe it's a little bit of semantics, David, where you're going with that. Obviously, first and foremost, it's always to be aligned to the business. What are the business needs? Then from a learning perspective, the question is how do you enable that? That becomes then partly your learning journey and I would say your roadmap. Then what are going to be, starting again with the strategy, what is going to be your strategy to support that? What's your organisational structure going to look like within the learning department?
When you think about structure, do you want it to be a centralised model, a decentralised model, or maybe more of a federated model, what is the model that's going to best meet the needs of the business? Then who are the players that you want to have into those positions? Then what are the systems’ platforms or tools that you want to have in place that support the people, that supports the structure, that supports the strategy?
Classic McKinsey, in terms of the model that I just described, but again, I think you do need to have that defined from a learning or training perspective within your organisation. Then I think you need to have people, clearly, that are in the learning team or the training team. They have a very, very clear understanding of what they're responsible for, what are their expectations in their particular role? What does success look like in their role, and again, now I'm looking more inwardly to the function itself into the people in the function, so that we can demonstrate that we too can tell that story from a learning or training perspective.
The other thing I also think about is for the internal career paths and/or career paths within the learning within the learning function, how that's integrated into the business? For example, I know some companies that are very intentional that before they move a person into a significant role, like a general manager or a managing director role, they have them spend time in the training or learning department. That's because when you think about the significance of learning and training and being able to identify, you understand the importance of learning to the organisation, and then the importance of succession planning, and the importance of preparing future leaders for tomorrow, your ability to do that is paramount to--
If you were to win the lottery, and you were to leave tomorrow, how are we going to fill that void? Having that learning and training understanding, and how that works within your organisation is really critical to the success, really, when we're thinking about it from both an operational perspective, being able to execute that globally around the world, and on how things get done, as well as from a strategic perspective around where are we going for the future, and how, again, being agile is at the core of our being able to grow our business for the future.
David: I mean, there's a great deal of critical analysis there to be done, as well as an understanding of the learning and development function within an organisation, which a lot of the time is beyond the maintenance and delivery of programmes, much more about plugging into existing and future needs of the organisation, which sometimes is beyond the remit of perhaps a learning and development manager or a more junior head of. You've clearly got a great deal of experience in considering that.
I want to talk about the profession a little, Kimo. It's been said on this podcast that in the face of so much disruption in business, L&D has largely remained the same. Whether it's in the delivery of programmes, whether it's the provision of online content, which is seen as supplementary to face-to-face content, measuring time away from work alongside satisfaction as being the key metrics.
Now, it's been said that for a department that advocates change and development, we're neglecting our own skillset, especially with regard to data analysis and digital, digital capability and digital content development, which I suppose can be-- An example of that is that so much technology is outsourced to single vendors. I wonder how you see the state of L&D today with regard to a gap in what's required and what exists as a skill set, and here's a $64,000 question, what do we need to do?
Kimo: I think about this question, often. Probably one of the most important questions and I would describe it as we in the learning and development function are probably the most, I would say, dynamic, and it's sort of our day in the sun. It's such an exciting time to be in learning and/or you might want to think of this, it's not just around learning, but it's also really around development. It's really the development of human capital, human potential, being all that it can be within the context of the organisation, and then that leading, obviously, to the success of the organisation. I think it's really a great time to be in the organisation, to be in the learning space.
I think what do we need to do is I think it's really then incumbent upon us to really, one, again, know the business, know what are the metrics that where which success is measured by, be competent about the business, but then also be very keen, or very aware of where the space is going. When I think about that, I think, really, it's about how do I continue to stay relevant in the space? What am I doing to think about the future of work? What do I think about when I think about a 100-year life? What does that mean? What does the future of work mean? How does learning play into the space of that?
I think what you'll find is that it all points the learning is at the center, the epicenter of all of that. Again, it's a very, very exciting time, but what are you doing, what are we doing to stay relevant? I do think this whole notion around digital transformation, obviously, is sort of leading that way when it comes to machine learning, artificial intelligence, quantum physics and quantum theory, that these things can be taking place in parallel universes literally, and what that means to the business.
In terms of how business, you think of blockchain and how that's all evolving, and again, these large-scale platforms that are being used, how are we staying in front of that, again, to lead that way for the organisation? I do think that then, we really talk about transformation and where are you in playing a role in that level of transformation?
Listen to episode 55 of the Learning & Development podcast here.
What I find interesting, and I think it's going to shift over time, is that where learning reports to in the organisation, and I would be more of a proponent that learning should not really-- I mean, I guess, to look at this within the context of each organisation, but where I'm seeing a lot of change happening, is in those organisations where learning does not report into human resources, it reports directly into the business or directly into strategy.
If it's reporting into strategy, you're then talking about learning as a core key capability from a capacity perspective. From a capacity and capability perspective, that's going to prepare the organisation for its next wave of growth. You have to think of this like in terms of a growth curve, how are we always sort of at that leading edge, bleeding edge, preparing for that next wave? There's a lot of work that's being done around this research I was just recently reading by Rita McGrath, and she talks about what's around the corner.
Are you aware of like, it's that notion of Wayne Gretzky, like where-- It's not where the hockey puck's been, but it's where it's going to go? Where the organisation is going to go and can you anticipate if you think about a constant growth curve model of where things are already happening, where there should be signals to you that the business evolving is businesses changing, that means you already start preparing for that next wave and/or that next cycle of growth, rather than staying back and the one that you're focused on focusing executing on that you have to have, you have to allow for capacity and capability to be prepared for what's coming.
My guiding principle would try to see if we could have somewhere about 20% of that capacity within your organisation, from a learning perspective, be prepared for or preparing for that next wave of growth that's going to take place in the organisation.
David: That's interesting. I've seen learning development functions now reporting into Operations, which is an interesting development, certainly for them, because, of course, it's a very different dynamic to be in part of HR. You're talking about strategy there, my mind went to workforce planning. If workforce planning is being informed from the strategy, where does L&D fit into there? Does it go through the buffer of HR or does it work directly with strategy and workforce planning? You get very different outputs or experiences as a result of either of those.
Kimo: I think it goes back, David, to how do you gain the right to advance? I'm working with some other organisations. They were a manufacturing company, and clearly, the way to advance in this particular company was through Operations and as a result, in this case, this business leader was able to really demonstrate the impact the learning had on the organisation, and how much time she was able to save with helping people get to the level of readiness to be able to perform their jobs.
Being able to clearly articulate the time that was saved in order to do that, she just gained a tremendous amount of credibility, and therefore was constantly being like, "Okay, so what can we do next? Where are we going to go next? How do we bring that level of expertise to another part of our business, or in this case, another part of manufacturing?" That was all gaining the right to advance.
David: You call that the right to advance, I call that currency. It's intangible. You can't see it. Until you can actually describe it and you acknowledge that it exists and that it's important to you, I feel that, as a leader, you can be impotent. The recognition that you need to develop the currency, and I talk with new heads of and L&D managers about this a lot, you develop the currency just as much by saying yes to stuff that you don't fully believe in to get people on your side.
Once you've got currency, you can spend that elsewhere, but what you're describing there is, as I've interpreted, after demonstrating business value to your stakeholders, and this is what Tracy Waters at Sky does, operating replace of truth with data, then you gain enormous currency. Of course, it's then what you choose to do with that, once you've had that currency, that can really make the shift. It sounds as if what you're describing is somebody who has made a demonstrable difference and whose currency has increased incredibly for them to do what they want to do.
Kimo: To your point, I do agree, it's that notion of currency and once you have that level of credibility within the organisation. I think what we're talking at the end of the day about is the ability to develop relationships, the ability to collaborate and, ultimately, to create greater trust. With those leaders, with that level of trust in the organisation, you together will be able to accomplish great things with the business.
David: Which leads me on then, Kimo, thinking about the modern CLO, I'm assuming that you still have your network connections and those you work with. What keeps the modern CLO awake at night?
Kimo: I think the space that keeps the modern CLO awake at night, and I think the space is under a great deal of change and disruption. I think the title as we know it is probably going to shift. Last week, I was in the States and it was interesting. The person that I was with, their title was Chief Employability Officer, which again, I see that as a very progressive title, right? Because when you think about organisations and the way they're shifting and changing, you hear, "Think about the future work and 100-year life," that it's really not about jobs for the future, although it certainly is about jobs, but it's really about skills.
What are the skills that we are going to need for the future? How do we help people to stay evergreen and think about it from an employability perspective, that I would have a portfolio of skills that are demonstrated through the experiences where I've had the ability to execute those skills that lead to great impact, would ensure that I would be engaged for, yet, again, another opportunity.
It's thinking of it differently, like I'm not just in a job, but I am demonstrating the skills that are going to be useful, and necessary for the future. Therefore, my need to stay evergreen and to stay upskilled and just to continue to be, in this case, upskilled, is really paramount. That then requires that we're always learning, that leads to this notion of lifelong learning.
I really think the goal is more than just lifelong learning, it's about lifelong employability. That's why there's this conversation around employability and what are the skills? What are the portfolio of experiences that are able to reflect those achieved skills, and you being able to, again, demonstrate and create value? That's where I think the shift is really taking place in the space, and again, that's what I think makes it such an interesting time.
David: Yes, I agree. I've seen the shift as well, as much as I'm seeing the conversation changing on social media, from learning to performance, what you're saying there from CLO, the shift. I have experienced and know somebody who took the learning out of the Chief Learning Officer and wanted to focus on organisational effectiveness, which they felt was more aligned to what they were in the organisation to do. I like employability. I worked with a client who changed their career management efforts to employability, recognising the role of the individual in that, and the partnership of the HR and learning and development function, but the onus being on the individual. It's interesting how--
Kimo: --David, the shift that you're mentioning, the shift to the individual. If you notice, if you just say employability, that already implies a shift to the individual or to the employee. Or, as we're talking about ever so much today, the contingent workforce, and the gig workforce. Again, being able to have those skills at your fingertips, both internally or as a gigger, or in the gig economy, but again, people are shifting and moving away from resumes, really, to more of a portfolio. Think about it as an internal process as well as external in being able to reflect your core skills and capabilities.
David: Now, Kimo, I'd like you to put on your hiring manager hat for a moment and talk about careers in L&D today, because there'll be plenty of listeners who want to advance in our profession. Now, first of all, as we do, what skills and capabilities would you be looking for in a modern L&D professional, were you hiring today, and representing the in-house CLO?
Kimo: Again, when I think about a team, obviously, what are we looking for within the team to be able to round that out in terms of what we're looking for within the organisation. I call these power skills, but I go back to all the things that are more invisible in terms of my skills. I think, again, at a more junior level, I would want to know that they have the necessary skills, whether it be to design, develop, deliver, whatever mode, medium, or whatever it may be. Again, as they move further up into the organisational perspective, it's those power skills that I really want to focus around, which would be around integrity, and reliability, dependability, honesty, trustworthiness.
These are skills that I think go both all the way up and down in terms of the organisation. Particularly from a hierarchy perspective, those are critical skills. Obviously, business thinking skills as well. Leading to being able to be a great partner to the business is what I'm going to look for demonstrated capability in, and then being able to really deliver on that, to deliver on the results.
However one may think about being able to tell that story, but the most common approach that I think about, from an interviewing perspective, is using this STAR approach, which would be Situation, Task, Action and Result. When asked a question in a job interview, for example, would be always to start with, when asked, "Can you tell me a time that was the most difficult that you had to deal with, was the most challenging?" You would be able to cite a particular situation. What was the task that needed to be accomplished? What was the action that you took to accomplish that task? What was the result or what was the impact of that? That's, in a nutshell, what I look for in terms of great answers to any question.
I can say, in the US perspective, from the federal government, they used an approach that’s similar, it's called CCAR. It was, what is the Context, C. The next C, which would stand for Challenge, the A would be again for Action and the R would be for Result. Being able to tell that story in an interview, and being able to answer any question that you may be given, and be able to tell that story. At the end of the day, I would say to answer your question, it would really be around your ability for great leadership. What I'm always thinking about-- when I'm thinking about people in their potential, I'm always thinking about what is their potential, not for the job that they're going to have today or tomorrow, but what is it about the job that they're going to have the day after tomorrow, and for the future?
I go back to, also then that links to pipeline, what are we doing to create the pipeline for the future, because what ends up happening sometimes is by putting someone in a position that maybe is not movable, for whatever reason, you are thereby blocking that pipeline and, therefore, what you end up doing is you just block that whole channel. That makes it very, very tough to be able to correct it. It creates stagnation in organisations and that's not good either.
An example that I can share with you is I'm aware of some organisations that require that you can't work there more than five years. You actually have to leave and you actually have to go away. What they're looking for is, again, they don't want people to rest too much on their laurels, they want your laurels. They want you to move on. You're welcome to come back, but you need to leave. Again, what they're trying to do is they're trying to shift the organisation to, again, keep it as agile and as nimble as they possibly can for the future.
David: That is interesting. Now, Kimo, my final question. I'd like you to take off your hiring manager hat and pop on your mentor hat and answer, what does it take to move from management into senior leadership in L&D today? What could people be working on to develop themselves to be ready?
Kimo: I think the ability to always move up is, again, is being able to demonstrate in a positive way that’s having a great impact on the business. Again, everything I think we've talked about, being able to be a great business partner, being a great internal consultant. Again, I also say one of the things probably not to use is what I call mumbo jumbo.
The organisation or the business really doesn't care that you know about the name of the model. They don't really necessarily care that you know about these particular models, what they do care about is that you know the business and that you care about the business and you care about them. You have got to be able to demonstrate all the time, rather than saying, "Oh, well, we're going to do a level four and level five evaluation." Who even knows what you're talking about, or do I care? I think it's about always keeping it real, keeping it realistic, practical. The ability to execute, get things done, and demonstrating results is really what I think business is looking for today.
David: Wonderful. Kimo, this has been a hugely enlightening conversation. If people want to connect with you and follow your work now, how can they do so?
Kimo: I'm on LinkedIn, or they're always happy to check out my website as well, alohalearningadvisors.com. Feel free also, of course, David, to share my email address with them, which is aloha@pobox.com or kimokippen@gmail.com. I’m happy to help in any way. Again, I would just want to conclude by saying, one, thank you to you, David, for the invitation. Number two, this is probably our day in the sun. This is probably one of the greatest times to be, I think, in the learning space, particularly with all the advancements in technology, creating greater capacity and capability, and how we can captivate on that and to be a positive force to support that in our world today.
David: Wonderful. Thank you, Kimo. Thank you for being a guest on The Learning and Development Podcast.
Kimo: Absolutely, anytime.
David: It's clear that Kimo is a heavyweight in our profession, and it was an honour to hear his stories and benefit from his vast experience. If you'd like to get in touch with me, perhaps to suggest topics you'd like to hear discussed, you can tweet me at DavidInLearning, or connect on LinkedIn or Facebook, for which you'll find the links in the show notes. Goodbye for now.
Listen to episode 55 of the Learning & Development podcast here or book a free demo to find out more about L&D leadership.
Kimo Kippen is a thought leader, speaker and advocate for life-long learning and talent development. A native of Hawaii, Kimo was Chief Learning Officer at Hilton, recognised by CLO Magazine as Chief Learning Officer of the year - 2015, and former VP of HR at Marriott International.
Connect with Kimo on LinkedIn
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