Training Industry Magazine - September/October 2017 - 56

CLOSING
D E A L S

DEVELOPING A ONE-STOP SHOP FROM

CONTENT TO OUTCOMES
BY TARYN OESCH

About 15 years ago, FranklinCovey
embarked on a journey to transform
from a company focused on training
content to a company focused on
training results. That meant becoming
a one-stop shop for clients, providing
content but also, according to Adam
Merrill, executive vice president of
innovations, "connecting capability to
outcomes." This strategy has informed
recent acquisitions, including the May
acquisition of Robert Gregory Partners
and the July acquisition of Jhana.
"A lot of learning leaders have to act
like a general contractor," says Rob
Cahill, co-founder of Jhana and now
managing director of innovations for
FranklinCovey.
Managing
multiple
vendors can be time-consuming and
difficult, so FranklinCovey's goal with its
All Access Pass is to reduce the number
of vendors needed by one organization.
The All Access Pass provides unlimited
access to FranklinCovey content and,
importantly, is "modality-agnostic,"
so clients can use whatever platform
they need for the results they want.
FranklinCovey's acquisition of Robert
Gregory Partners expanded its offerings
to include add-on coaching services to
the All Access Pass, and its acquisition
of Jhana added microlearning for
managers to its portfolio.
Cahill founded Jhana six years ago to
provide the bite-sized, research-based
management content he felt was missing
when he became a manager. "The firstlevel manager is a linchpin," he says,
"and there's data [showing] that teams
of effective managers have 25 percent
higher performance and 40 percent

| 56

lower turnover." Such a critical position,
he feels, requires good preparation and
continuous learning. Jhana provides
a library of specific, practical articles,
videos and worksheets developed by
its in-house research and editorial team.
Cahill says that Jhana's learner adoption
rates are ten times higher than the
industry average.

customer loyalty per store across the
chain to see real business impact. For
manager training, according to Cahill,
organizations should measure not
only business outcomes, like increased
revenue, but also the impact on
learners. For example, has the training
increased new managers' confidence
and decreased their stress?

FranklinCovey serves two audiences:
learning leaders and business leaders.
According to research by LinkedIn,
those audiences tend to look at different
types of outcomes to measure training
results. While learning leaders measure
qualitative feedback from learners and

Poorly performing managers are
expensive.
According
to
Gallup,
"managers account for at least 70%
of variance in employee engagement
scores across business units" and, "when
companies can increase their number of
talented managers and double the rate
of engaged employees, they achieve, on
average, 147% higher earnings per share
than their competition."

POORLY
PERFORMING
MANAGERS ARE
EXPENSIVE.
their managers, business leaders look
at business impact and ROI. That said,
Training Industry research has found that
learning leaders are increasingly focused
on aligning training with business needs
and measuring the impact training has
on business results.
Merrill says that since FranklinCovey
clients are looking at outcomes through
both of these lenses, FranklinCovey
measures outcomes in both areas. For
example, customer loyalty training
for a retail chain not only measures
manager and learner feedback but also

Obviously, having good managers is
a significant business outcome, and
aligning training with that outcome is
important. Grovo research has found
that over half of surveyed managers
believe faster manager training would
help their organizations achieve
key business objectives and that
effective manager training includes
small pieces of information that are
reinforced over time.
By acquiring a company like Jhana that
provides microlearning for managers
and focusing on connecting training
to results that matter to both learning
leaders and business executives,
FranklinCovey is working to support
training alignment in a one-stop shop
for training organizations.
Taryn Oesch is an editor at Training Industry,
Inc. Email Taryn.

http://www.trainingindustry.com/leadership/press-releases/franklin-covey-co-acquires-robert-gregory-partners.aspx https://www.hbr.org/2014/03/why-good-managers-are-so-rare http://www.trainingindustry.com/leadership/press-releases/franklin-covey-co-acquires-robert-gregory-partners.aspx https://learning.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/learning/en-us/pdfs/lil-workplace-learning-report.pdf http://www.trainingindustry.com/leadership/press-releases/franklin-covey-co-acquires-jhana.aspx https://www.franklincovey.com/engage-with-us/all-access-pass.html https://www.grovo.com/resources/white-papers/good-manager-bad-manager-new-research-on-the-modern-management-deficit

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Magazine - September/October 2017