Month: September 2025

When Customer Confusion Leads to Churn

You can have the best, most feature-rich product out there, but if your customers do not know how to use it, they will churn.

I remember it well.  We had just implemented a massive infrastructure change in my organization years ago, and we were excited to see how it would help us build out convenience across multiple departments.  We rallied, issued training to the power users, and advertised with key stakeholders, and it looked like we had a winner on our hands!  And so, we went live.  

Then, things started running into trouble.  Departments didn’t conform to the processes we put in place, and tried to circumvent them because they didn’t follow their previous processes.  Our team would follow the processes as outlined, yet requests would go missing.  Incidents would get submitted, but not resolved.  The brilliance of our new infrastructure design was showing cracks. Sure, we had great tools, but we struggled with the results.  We needed a change.  Or, better yet, proper training.  

This same scenario has played out for several IT Management platforms I’ve worked on, and each one had similar results:  turn it on and hope that folks will just learn to use it.  Well, it doesn’t work that way, and more often than not, the contract would not get renewed, and we would go through the same process with another product in 3 years.  

The thing is, this could have easily been resolved if we received proper training as part of our Change Management process, which would have resolved our churn, and that of many other clients.  Let’s explore how that would work.  

Tools are Replaceable, and always misused

Until we finally understood the right process and workflow through a platform, that platform was, essentially, just a bunch of tools we could use on the job.  Tools, folks can understand and use, even if they use them incorrectly.  I admit it, I’ve used a crescent wrench as a hammer before, when I couldn’t find my hammer.  Did it work?  Sure.  Was it good for the wrench?  Nope.  I left nicks in the metal.  Still, I used the tool that was handy for the job I wanted to complete.  

This same principle happens when you use your fancy platform as “tools.”  Need to track IT requests?  Incident tickets are tools to do that.  Need to track changes to your infrastructure?  Change tickets will do that just fine.  Don’t quite know how Change Management works, but you need to track a Change request?  It’s tempting to use an Incident if that’s what you know.  Sure, you don’t have the same workflows, but at least you are tracking it, right?  

Eventually, you realize that your methods of doing things aren’t working, and the tools don’t seem to live up to their promises.  Where is the automation?  Where are the approvals?  How does it relate to devices in the CMDB?  So, you start asking yourself, why did we invest in this costly platform if it’s not doing what it promised to do?  So, you start looking for other solutions.  

The Data

In this hypothetical example, I’m using a vague IT Management platform.  You could replace this with any platform and any similar scenarios:  I’ve seen this play out with several digital platforms in the past.  If it’s not used properly, it feels “broken,” and you look for a replacement.  It’s a costly migration, lots of money spent, and yet the same problem will exist.  

The thing is, all this could be properly avoided if your user base were properly trained.  Training would give them the knowledge of how to use the platform, when it should be used, and why it works the way it does.  This means training on the platform and the new processes to as many people as you can.  How do I know this works?  Because I’ve been on the opposite end of it:  I’ve received the necessary training, I’ve delivered the necessary training, and I’ve planned the necessary training when implementing.  So let’s go through the data.  

01

End-User Skills Gap

When evaluating the problem areas in the platform, we often came to the same common issues:  End users were attempting to circumvent the new processes that the platform provided for what they used to do (email requests, no follow-up, no reviewing of the platform, and often ignoring the platform).  Users were struggling to get their requests and incidents addressed because they were reaching out to their “guy” in the department instead of going through the process.  

The Solution

We needed to better understand how customer workflows at the end-user level operated.  We met with customers, ran surveys, and analyzed the user data available to see what worked and what didn’t.  More often than not, the end users would use non-traditional methods to circumvent the new processes established by the platform because it’s “what they always did.”  

This was a clear indicator that end-users needed to be trained on the expected process they would take, and the benefits of the platform as it came to them as part of the Change Management process to the new platform.  This would easily be resolved by creating platform-specific, micro-training videos that walked end-users through how to submit their incidents, monitor progress, request updates, and educate them on the current processes.  

The Results

The results were dramatic.  End-users were more comfortable with the new incident process, which triggered proper requests to go through with monitoring and automations in place.  Incidents were automatically assigned to appropriate departments, and responses were swift as SLA counters and triggers would kick in.  

02

Power-Users and Broken Processes

The next common issue that came up was broken processes that were being built into the platform by power users.  The platform was designed for specific functions with pre-defined automations triggered as specific stages or assignments were made.  The Power Users, on the other hand, knew what their current processes were and built them into the new platform.  Did it work?  Well, as well as previous processes worked.  Was it faster?  How could it be?  Power users were using the same broken processes that would take just as much time as in their previous environment.  No benefit was being seen.  

The Solution

It was clear that power users needed to understand how the platform was designed, where the automations kicked in, what processes were built in for their benefit, and how to customize the process for optimization.  

We started with the research:  looking at what customers were doing and how they were approaching their problems.  Surveys revealed that customers were performing much the same steps within the process, with a lot of additional overhead that could be weeded out.  We then refined processes, workflows, and the platform UI to better support their goals as power users while highlighting the value the platform brought to the table.  

Now, we needed to communicate the new process and results:  This required multi-day power user bootcamp-style training, walking them through the platform, helping them understand how the platform was designed, and where the automations triggered.  We worked through the process steps, where customizations could and should be made, where the default process shone, and how it would apply in their own environment.  The goal was to help them reimagine their broken processes by following one that was already optimized by the platform.  

The Results

The classroom results were dramatic.  Several power users were blown away by the strength of the process that was built in, and understood where their existing processes were broken.  As we worked through each lab, they would stop, take notes, and often ask questions on how they could make this same process work in their own platform.  The change was dramatic:  They saw the platform as a platform, not a set of tools that they should use.  The change in perception made a huge difference, and the adoption of the baseline automations accelerated amongst multiple customers. 

 

Understanding the Solution

This was a mock evaluation loosely based on similar case studies I’ve completed in the past.  The process is pretty much the same for each one:

  • Identify the business outcome you want to achieve
  • Measure your baseline of success
  • Identify the gaps
  • Change those gaps into outcomes:  How do you know your steps you are taking are successful?
  • Deliver the Training and measure the outcomes

This might seem simple at first, but there’s a lot of work that goes into each stage, which is why an L&D leader, like a Fractional Chief Learning Officer, is so valuable.  If you have current issues and would like to talk strategy, let’s chat! 

An image of a CEO, frustrated that things aren't going according to plan.

 

 

I’m sure there are many of you who are like me: watching the news, horrified at the unimaginable acts of violence. Growing up, it was blamed on video games. Then, horror and gore on television. Then religion. Then a gun culture. Then, polarizing politics and “mental illness,” when you don’t know. This theory, penned by Alexios Arvanitis, I find interesting, and the arguments that link burnout to extremism are thought-provoking.

The Premise

Alexios starts with the emerging pattern of burnout sufferers feeling that corruption and greed are at the heart of the frustration and dissatisfaction felt, and highlights the manifesto of Luigi Mangione, who is currently on trial for the murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. Given that 41% of younger adults polled felt sympathy for Mangione, Alexios and team felt it was something to dig into and understand.

Following that thread, Alexios and team ran a study on 600 participants and found a worrying pipeline from burnout to expressions of violence, even extreme violence. Why? Well, he links this rise to three theories:

  1. General Strain Theory: The theory that links negative treatment from others to delinquency and crime because “the experience of strain or stress tends to generate negative emotions such as anger, frustration, depression, and despair.”

  2. Existential Burnout: The theory that highlights burnout as caused by failing to live up to the meaning one has for their life, and “the most emotionally demanding aspect of a work situation is its lack of existential significance.”

  3. Significance Quest Theory: The theory that links extremism as a vehicle to (re)gain significance in life through “a collective cause that can earn an individual the significance and meaning he or she desires, as well as an appropriate means with which to pursue that cause.”

The structure of the premise is compelling, and paints a roadmap for extremists to take matters into their own hands to feel like they matter. Suddenly, I feel a lot less safe, and more concerned about family and friends. All those previous “causes” of violence seem to make more sense: In a world where individual worth is predicated on limited criteria and not their own strengths, we have created an environment where burnout, particularly existential burnout, can happen, causing folks to find their quest for meaning in any way that matters.

What Can We Do?

So, how do we bypass the pipeline?

  1. Start at the beginning: fight burnout. Right now, at least in the US, over 59% of employees are in some level of burnout. 59%!! That’s a majority share, not an outlier. We need to fight burnout. We need to create a culture of care, compassion, inclusion, and safety that grounds employees to the valuable work they do.

  2. Encourage Balance between life and work. Work has been so much more integrated into our lives through mobile devices that we can literally be reached at any time of day, (almost) anywhere on Earth. Encourage balance by encouraging and celebrating those hobbies and causes that drive our employees outside of work and gives them meaning. Encourage service projects, value contributions that are positive that your employees make that may not directly impact the bottom line. Value your employees for who they are, not just how they contribute to the bottom line.

  3. Provide support for your employees, specifically emotional and psychological support. When someone is struggling, they need help, not a heavy hand. Provide care, compassion, and respect anonymity when necessary. We need to break down stereotypes and stigmas that still linger around psychological struggles. Be the change.

I’m sure many of you can add additional tools, and I’d love to hear them!

Will It Change?

This was the question I had after reading the article. Businesses are shutting down their inclusion and belonging programs for various reasons. Burnout is at an all-time high. Economic pressures, both real and imagined, are driving anxiety in the workforce. We are having more and more shootings with manifestos, so targeted, cause-driven violence. Can we really make a difference? It’s a question I think we need to ask ourselves in all seriousness. Perhaps it’s a good quest to join: fighting extremism through corporate cultural shifts.

Ai-Generated image of a boat maker building a sailboat.

I’ve worked at several organizations with varying degrees of cultural health. Some have been extremely toxic, others have been very inclusive and rewarding. Most have been a mix: Some teams are inclusive, others are toxic. Looking back, I struggle to find one particular reason for the cultural environment. Was it leadership that drove the culture? Peers that reflected it? How did one team become inclusive while the other was toxic? Could a team drift from one to the other? And, like everything else in life, there wasn’t one simple answer. There were three, at least that I identified. Can you identify the root cause? Yes. Can it be fixed? Of course, with effort. Let’s dive in.

Understanding the Drivers of Culture

It’s been commented on LinkedIn so many times it’s threatening to become clichè, but culture really isn’t what’s documented on your web page, what you put in your job descriptions, or what you say in your all-hands meetings. It’s what you, your leaders, and your people do daily. It’s how you treat your customers, your partners, and your employees. It’s the difference between “Garfield Mondays” and excitement for the challenge. In short, it’s how your company works in unison to meet your collective vision. It encompasses a lot: ethics, compassion, work ethic, respect, honesty, etc. It’s how you prepare your folks for their jobs, keep them skilled and motivated, and handle scale. Culture is how your teams succeed, not why your teams succeed.

Let me explain that last statement really quickly. I’ve worked for some companies that were ethically questionable in how they treated their customers and employees, yet they were still successful companies (at least in the short term). Whether it was because of short-term gaps they filled, or price ranges that appealed to customers even if the experience was questionable, they managed to succeed with a toxic culture. That culture was perpetuated from every level, often because those who were good were driven off by the culture, causing a feedback that only attracted those of like minds. So the company didn’t succeed because of their culture, but despite it, though “success” should be qualified: They were in business and made a profit, but struggled to grow in market share. They remained niche, and often were perfectly happy to be there as long as the money kept coming.

So, if bad culture succeeds (in a fashion), why worry about having good culture? Let me answer that with one of the best success stories of my long career: ServiceNow. When I started at ServiceNow, I was employee 3336. The company culture, for the most part, was very positive, inclusive, and willing to accommodate those who needed accommodation as long as they could perform their duties, which they did once they could feel comfortable doing so. That was over 11 years ago, and the company now has over 100,000 employees, is a powerhouse in B2B, and continues to have, overall, an excellent culture. They strive for inclusion, and it shows. Now, they succeed because they have an excellent product that continues to get better through driven employees who want the company to succeed. The culture drives that desire for excellence, and it shows. It’s how they succeed.

So what drives culture? I mentioned three drivers, so let’s break them down:

  1. Senior Leadership Behavior: Senior Leadership behavior has a huge impact on the culture of the rest of the company. When C-Suite leaders not only talk about inclusion but actively live it in their day-to-day behaviors, it sets the tone for the rest of the company. Investments in Employee Resource Groups, training, discussions, ethical principles of behavior, and outright kindness and understanding go a long way in driving company culture. If your C-Suite team is dedicated to a healthy, inclusive culture, employees take notice. So do the next group.

  2. Management: VPs, Directors, Managers, and Supervisors all take the vision of the C-Suite and translate it into action. At each level, culture is interpreted and passed on. One bad manager or one indifferent director can derail a team’s culture from the main company, turning it toxic. Conversely, one really good manager or director can buck the toxic trend within an organization. They have just as much scrutiny as C-Suite from their directs, and drive the culture within their respective spheres of influence. I’ve seen new leaders come in and demolish culture within an org to such a degree that other departments were thrilled to see them leave. I’ve also seen leaders drive such a culture of compassion and inclusion that employees across the company would line up to join the team when an opening was made available. How can you find them? Employee Voice surveys. One thing I was most proud of during my tenure at ServiceNow: my Employee Voice surveys from my team were the highest of any other team at the company.

  3. Peers: I was going to say Employees, but I think peers are the best way to highlight this last group. How your teammates treat each other has a direct impact on the team. Generally, this is tied directly to the leadership of the team, but it shouldn’t always be that way. A toxic employee can rapidly drag a team down if not kept in check. I’ve seen it before where a good manager can manage a toxic employee within his sphere of influence, but once they leave, they revert to their toxic behaviors. Cliques within teams often lead to toxicity, as they become exclusive to others, putting up barriers that stifle inclusion. On the flip side, I’ve seen teams who, understanding that team members are struggling, will reach out and actively help, coach, encourage, and support their teammates so everyone wins. Peers have a huge amount of influence on the health and well-being of the team culture.

Prepping for the Journey: Getting the Foundations of Culture In Place

So, we know where culture is driven; how do we drive it in the right way? It’s a good question, and it really comes down to who wants to drive the culture and how ingrained that culture is. Not because it’s impossible to fix a toxic culture, but because it takes a long time to rebuild trust in teams, and the more pervasive the toxicity of the culture, the longer it will take.

First, you need C-Suite dedication to inclusion and understanding. This means proper training, coaching, and mentoring. As a leader, you need to watch your own behaviors and approach to your culture. Inclusion, particularly neuroinclusion, is a good bellwether measurement for your culture: if you are neuroinclusive (welcoming of ADHD, autism, dyslexia, etc. as well as the neurotypical), then you are likely, culturally inclusive (racially, ethnically, religiously, etc.), though it should be mentioned that it’s not exclusively 1:1. As a side note: I focus primarily in neuroinclusion, though many of these same suggestions will work with other inclusive steps to strengthen your culture.

Once your C-Suite is in place, you need to properly train your leaders. Shockingly, 66% of managers are not trained to be managers until they have been on the job at least 10 years. Train your managers, and if I can recommend any type of training, I would recommend a situational approach to leadership (and if you need someone to conduct the training, I know a guy!). I would also recommend regular presentations from neurodivergent presenters, specialists, and other speakers who can put perspectives on what it’s like from the neurodivergent point of view. Need more guidance? There are organizations out there, like Aubilities, that can give you the perspectives you need to better understand how inclusion can happen.

For your peers and your employees, you need support. Employee Resource Groups are a great way to build and maintain an inclusive culture, and as an estimated 20% of your workforce is neurodivergent, you should have a resource group in place! Training and support systems are also valuable, and Aubilities or Auticate can give you resources for your employees and peers to better understand their own diagnoses, as well as their peers’.

Setting Sail: Building Your Culture of Inclusion

You have the tools in place now, you’ve prepped for the journey, it’s time to get started. As Bill McDermott is fond of saying, “Trust is earned in drops, and lost in buckets.” If you really want to change your culture, you need to start as soon as possible and keep right on at it. You won’t see changes immediately overnight (without firing a whole lot of people at once, and that’s not good for the company!), and it will take time for each group to change, learn to trust, and earn that trust. Be patient, settle in for the long haul if you need to, and know that the long-term growth and scale of your company depend on your patience.

 

Intentional, or Accidental?

Early in my career, I worked as the systems administrator for a very early startup, with only 10 of us, many family members of the founder.  It was wild, and we were running on a shoestring.  We brought on some folks to the tech support team.  This was my first introduction to employee enablement:  I developed the training for our tech support.  It was wild, it was ad hoc, barely structured, but it did the job for those who had some basic experience.  Those who did not, they really struggled. We had heavy turnover, with many sticking around for no more than 90 days.  

You see, if you don’t properly train your folks, they will leave as they do not have the adequate resources or experience to succeed.  No one likes feeling like they are failing.  

And yet, in many early startups, one in three employees considers leaving within the first 90 days due to poor onboarding.  Think about that for a minute:  All the cost you put into recruiting, interviewing, finding a good candidate, and getting them started.  All lost, because they didn’t have the tools they needed to do the job.  They didn’t know where to go, what was expected of them, how their success was measured, or how to do key parts of the job.  

Now, once they leave, you have to start all over again, often spending up to 2x of their salary just to get a replacement.  As a startup, you can’t afford that.  You also can’t afford the lost momentum those hires would have brought, the bottlenecks that will result due to unfulfilled roles, and the days, weeks, months, or even quarters where you just can’t find the right person who will do the job without needing onboarding.  Hint:  you can’t.  Everyone needs to be onboarded. 

An image that displays the chaos of multiple LMS systems

You are training your people, whether it’s intended or not.  The only question is, are you intentional, or is it accidental?

The Myth:  “We’ll Figure It Out Later”

But you are a busy guy!  Leading an early start-up, you are busy with Sales crushing deals, evangelizing your product to everyone and anyone that will listen, and looking to build your market share.  It’s why you hire!  You need people to take aspects of the business you don’t have time to do yourself.  So, you figure you can hire experienced folks from other similar companies and they will just “figure it out” as they go along.  So, you step back, take your role under Product or Sales, and just let onboarding happen.  

The belief, or the myth, is that smart people will just figure it out.  They’ve worked in their industries before in similar roles; they can just make that happen.  So, you turn them loose onto your fledgling company with little direction and hope for the best.  The anecdotal evidence that feeds the myth is that, often, people make it work.  They bring their experience from their previous companies, build their own fiefdom with their own policies and operational roles, such as IT and HR just have to figure things out as each department runs on its own rules and policies.  It’s inefficient, often expensive, and feeds silos where collaboration should exist.  

At the employee level, this feeds controlled chaos, areas where people become “indispensable” because they hold all the tribal knowledge for their department.  If they go, the department is thrown into disarray and confusion as co-workers immediately update their LinkedIn profiles and resumes.  Employees become disengaged because they don’t have a firm foundation of policy and procedure: It all comes down to the memory of their co-workers and shadow support processes that develop in response to the vacuum.  How can they make a decision when it’s immediately undermined by a more experienced co-worker? 

Finally, there is a more operational hit.  As teams realize their need for training, they will start training internally, their own training, their own takes on policy and procedure, their own LMS.  I’ve walked into companies that had 5 different learning management systems, and new employees were expected to use every single one of them as part of their onboarding process, as dictated by a wiki page or Word doc that was constantly out of date.  License costs were crazy, and those expenses could have been better applied to hiring new people.  

The Hidden Costs of Poor Onboarding

So, you figure, “well, it’s just the cost of business, right?” And as your teams start to build their own programs, their own policies, their own mini-companies in your company, the one you have poured your heart and soul into, you carry on, hoping things will work out on their own.  So, what exactly are the “costs of doing business” when you come right down to it?

01

Lost Productivity

Poor onboarding means it takes longer for employees to get up to speed.  Most organizations will have a 30-60-90 day plan, which, if you don’t prepare your employees properly, will extend for weeks, months, or even quarters as they “Try to figure it out themselves.”  Eventually, of course, they do, but you have wasted months of productivity while senior staff are constantly pulled in to shadow new employees, dealing with missed KPIs and increased training needs.  It’s inefficient, it’s costly, and it’s leeching momentum from your growth.  

02

Higher Turnover

When there is a lack of clarity, a lack of direction, or a lack of support, employees become continually frustrated.  Many try to contain this frustration internally, which feeds into poor mental, emotional, and physical health.  Eventually, the work of catching up becomes too much, and the calculations start:  How much more frustrating is it to try and meet unknown, vague, and/or inconsistent requirements than to try and find another job?  It may take 90 days, 5 months, or even 1 year, but that calculation is constantly running in your employee’s head.  

Now, you need to hire someone to replace them.  The cost of replacing an employee can run as high as twice the compensation of the employee who left.  It’s like hiring three people to keep one.  Is that efficient?  Is that economical?  Is that good for business?  Now, couple that turnover with the costs of delays, bottlenecks, and stalled growth.  

03

Cultural Drift

When teams are left to fend for themselves, they develop their own culture, policies, processes, and expectations.  If your company doesn’t structure onboarding, it’s happening by accident.  You may be the most employee-first, diversity-minded, and ethically-driven leader, yet your ideals and values are not the ones being perpetrated.  The culture that is perpetuated is dictated by your early employees, or those who remain.  Those who are dealing with their own frustrations, those jaded by their own poor onboarding experience. That will be the culture of your company, that will be your legacy, until you decide to fix it, and fixing a culture is extremely torturous and expensive. 

04

Customer Impact

“Still,” you think, “that’s a problem for another day.  Our customers can’t wait, and I don’t have time to dedicate to proper onboarding right now.”  Imagine for a moment, you walk into a hospital for a routine bypass surgery.  Your doctor finds out that the surgeon slated for your procedure has left, frustrated with the hospital policies that constantly change on a whim.  So, as your doctor, they are asked to do the surgery.  Leadership thinks, “You’ve been to medical school, right?  You can do this.”  The doctor, your family doctor, one who does stitches or the occasional hernia check, is expected to expertly cut into your chest and perform a bypass.  As a patient, would you go back to the hospital?  Would your doctor?  

Customers can tell when their Sales, Customer Success, and Support teams are poorly trained or supported.  They know, because they’ve seen it in their own companies.  Your customers lose trust in the company and are now doing the calculation:  Do you bring enough value to warrant the frustration they get from poorly trained contacts?  Once the calculation has started, it’s difficult to reverse it.  It’s difficult to rebuild trust once it’s lost.  That means churn.

05

Leadership Burnout

“But,” you say to yourself, “I hired leaders to take care of this.  If they can’t do it, I’ll get someone else who can.”  Sure, you can blame your leaders for your lack of dedication to proper onboarding for your company.  So you start to churn through leaders, because they are getting burned out trying to make onboarding happen in a structured way.  Blame is thrown about, and good, talented leaders, left to their own devices, start looking elsewhere.  

I’ve been on both sides:  Leaders leaving because they just can’t get anywhere with senior leadership, and as a leader, struggling to make things work in a culture of vague direction, promises, and poor onboarding.  Onboarding can make or break whole teams.  

An image of a CEO, frustrated that things aren't going according to plan.

Why Early-Stage Startups Are Hit Hardest

When you are just starting, you need every headcount you can get.  You need folks who can hit the ground as quickly as possible, keep on message, and grow the company.  Sales for new logos, Customer Success, Product, and Support for retention.  You need to build a structure quickly and efficiently.  Every weak ramp-up process derails progress and delays growth.  

“Well,” you might think, “Perhaps I just don’t need the headcount.  My team is small, but they can make it happen.”  They can, now.  But can they, when one person is hit by the lottery (because it’s nicer than being hit by a bus)?  Perhaps they leave for a better opportunity elsewhere, or start their own business?  Do you have the redundancy necessary to cover for those who are temporarily or permanently out of the office?  And what about mistakes made by the team, without help?  Newly onboarded employees will make mistakes.  Poorly onboarded employees make serious mistakes.  Mentors can help mitigate the impact, but not if you are short-handed.  

What then does your budget allow?  Frequent turnover is costly, not just in lost sales or lost customers, but in real dollars.  Limited budgets can’t afford high turnover because of poor or non-existent onboarding.  

Small teams are hit worse by less redundancy and more mistakes.

Signs Your Startup Has an Onboarding Problem

“Yeah, sure, what you are saying makes sense,” you are thinking to yourself, “but I don’t have a problem!”  Perhaps, though, you pause.  Then think, “How would I know?”  That’s a much better response:  How do you know you have a problem with onboarding?  What are your indicators?

The first sign would be that your new hires are asking the same questions again and again.  And again.  They ask for a momentary response or solve the immediate problem, and the answer is pushed out by the next crisis.  Answers are not internalized, skills are not developed, and learning isn’t happening.  This is, quite often, the case when you rely too heavily on mentors and on-the-job training.  Don’t get me wrong, both are valuable to the onboarding process!  But your new-hires need a strong foundation of information and skills from which to draw, so the practice can apply. 

This leads to our next indicator:  your teams rely too heavily on shadowing and mentor leadership instead of structured training.  Mentors provide guidance and knowledge checks, but shouldn’t be there to teach.  They don’t have time; they have their own jobs to do!  Structured learning provides that necessary foundation that Mentors can place into context, showing the value of mentorship.  

Next, we have inconsistent performance across hires in the same role.  Some folks do really well in the chaos, quickly acclimatizing themselves and running with it.  Others struggle.  Inconsistency in onboarding is a sign that something is wrong, and it’s not your new hires.  One constant is true with hiring:  Those who are hired generally want the job.  Maybe not because they are motivated by your Mission, or even by the team they are on, but ultimately, they want to work (or they wouldn’t have applied).  Onboarding should provide a baseline of performance from which everyone can work.  Mentorship places the training into context, and everyone should have the same opportunity to succeed.  Even if you follow the standard Bell curve, at least 75% of your team members should meet their KPIs within a reasonable amount of time (generally 1.5 to 2 months).  If you aren’t seeing that baseline result, there is definitely something wrong with your onboarding process.  

Finally, your managers, or you as the founder, need to constantly re-explain “how we do things.”  Culture is critical to a company, but if you constantly have to remind your employees of how things are done, something’s wrong.  Now, I’m not talking about basic compliance training, which is required by law.  I mean explaining your culture:  How the company does business, why people do the things they do, and what’s important for your business outcomes.  This goes beyond compliance; this is the heart and soul of who you are as a company, your brand.  

Employee working from home

The ROI of Getting Onboarding Right

“Okay, okay,” I can hear you say, “but how do I know onboarding is going to be worth it, and not just another expense you are trying to sell me?”  A good question.  Onboarding is much like a service:  If it works, you don’t know it’s there.  When it doesn’t work, everything is in chaos.  Let’s break down the real benefits of good onboarding.  

First, you have a faster ramp-up process for new hires.  They are ready in weeks, not months.  Skills are taught at an accelerated rate because you aren’t relying on the live environment to give you all the experience someone needs:  You have it set up in a controlled, curated setup that covers almost everything.  This translates into real business growth and bandwidth because hiring bottlenecks are removed. 

You have reduced turnover and, therefore, fewer recruiting costs.  Your new hires are more comfortable, more prepared, and feel ready to go faster and without much mentor intervention.  They ask fewer questions, they contribute faster, and the business is better placed to grow.  Without increased recruitment costs and lost experience from high employee turnover.  

Your culture is stronger, the vision of every employee is aligned with the founder’s, and employees feel connected to the company’s purpose.  Employees know what you want, they know what drives you, and they understand why.  

Your onboarding process can scale with your hiring needs.  Onboarding playbooks prepare you for rapid growth, setting well-established processes in place with regular reviews for updates.  It doesn’t have to be complex, it doesn’t have to be all video, and it doesn’t have to be difficult to set up.  You just need to be organized, have an easy method of tracking progress, and measure the success.  

Proper onboarding means real returns on your investment: productivity, time-to-value, and significantly reduced recruiting costs.

Practical Steps for Startups

So where do you start?  Once you know you have a need, you need to get the plan in place.  

Start with a “Day 1–30 Roadmap” for each role.  Your HR team, ideally, should have skill requirements and job analyses for every role.  Chances are, though, the HR team for a startup doesn’t.  It’s a large task, and you likely have a small team that handles onboarding.  Often, this task is delegated to the hiring manager.  Then, build out a 30-day onboarding roadmap that level-sets job requirements and skills, familiarizes the learner with the processes for the role, and sets milestones for success.

You can then document those processes somewhere they’re easily accessible.  Start with docs (Google Docs, SharePoint, Notion, Confluence, etc) and make sure everyone has the access they need.  Create learning paths that are user-specific in your LMS (preferably only one for your org), and assign the learning they need.  This should be role-specific, with knowledge checks.  The training doesn’t have to be complicated or completely built out by hand.  If you have a Large Learning Library (LinkedIn Learning, Skillsoft, etc), then use the training that is available there for generic role skill sets.  Be creative, and you can make it happen with the resources you already have.

Then, assign your onboarding buddies/mentors as guides.  They can track the onboarding process, verify that the learner is meeting their milestones, and provide context for the training.  You can use your training platform as a way to measure progress, communicate milestones, and provide guidance for your managers as they follow up on development.  

Finally, treat your onboarding as a strategic investment, not an afterthought.  The success of your onboarding means success for your new hires.  The success of your new hires means the success of your company as it scales.  

Captain working on his navigation plan.

Poor onboarding drains start-ups, keeping them from scaling successfully.  By investing in onboarding, you are not investing in overhead.  It’s acceleration fuel for scale.  Treat it as the valuable asset it is.  

If your team is growing and you’re concerned about onboarding gaps, a fractional CLO can help design a scalable onboarding framework without the cost of a full-time exec. Let’s talk.

Two versions of the same person representing the two processes of the brain: Experiential Response and Reasoned Exploration.

 

Owning Your Learning Success in the Age of AI

 

 

Growing up, we spent a lot of time camping. While camping, we would occasionally need to wash clothes, and as it happened, my parents owned a washboard and taught us how to use it when cleaning clothes in the creek. It was very rustic, and a lot of fun for little kids who were learning something new.

Now, I’m sure many of you out there have no idea what a washboard is, since the washing machine has been around for over 100 years. Knowing how to use one isn’t common knowledge. Everyone from CEOs to janitors has gotten along just fine without needing to know how to scrub clothing on the board to get the dirt out. It’s a lost skill, replaced by modern technology, and only picked up as a novelty skill. Much like celestial navigation and sailors, since GPS has become so ubiquitous, or from-scratch cooking since fast food and ready meals are so common. It takes extra, conscious effort to acquire these skills that were replaced by modern technology or conveniences. Now, we have AI.

I’ve been spending a lot of time researching Artificial Intelligence, as I’m sure the rest of you have been as well. I’ve worked through the early Turing days, different Machine Learning models, and spent time learning about LLMs and Agentic AI. Each time I look at what it can bring, I keep thinking about how it will impact Learning.

Perhaps I’m dating myself, but I was there when personal computers in the classroom were a novelty (we had Atari 2600s in my 6th-grade classroom). I saw how computers could help kids engage in learning through gamification. It was supposed to be the next revolution in education, yet we still have instructors in a classroom. I was there when we first started doing remote learning at my local Community College, and even helped provide video discs for learners (because video streaming was murder in dial-up speeds). And I was there when MOOCs were becoming a thing, and Apple was courting Universities to post recorded class sessions to iTunes U (now defunct). At each stage, there was supposed to be a revolution: a change in how we teach, and yet, we still have instructors and teachers in front of classrooms (or on Zoom).

But now. Now, we have AI. We have ChatGPT, Gemini, or Anthropic, which can answer questions for you when asked. They seem to have all the answers and can confidently respond without hesitation (right or wrong). They can rewrite your scribblings into a coherent, structured paper or article. Why practice sentence structure or the art of essay writing when an LLM can do it for you? It seemed so revolutionary that some companies have, reportedly and anecdotally (not confirmed), fired their L&D teams and given every employee a ChatGPT license as their source of learning. The reported results (again, not confirmed) were a disaster. Skill gaps widened instead of narrowing. Why? Why would skill gaps widen when answers were right there?

Well, to address that particular question, I would recommend an excellent video on AI and Learning called Effort is the Algorithm. The video pointed out that there are two processes our brains use: One is fast and uses the available knowledge and experience we already possess. Think of it as the computer hitting RAM for cached information. This process uses all the knowledge and experience you gained from years of learning, trying, failing, trying again, failing, trying again, and finally succeeding. You’ve lived it, you know it, you have put it to the test, and you can confidently respond without having to think too much about the answer.

The other process is slower, more methodical, and used when learning something new. This process is engaged when you are working through a problem, failing, trying again with a new approach, and repeating until you achieve success. This is learning. You listen, you watch, you try, and see results. Your mind engages, building Neuron connections with each practice (the general magical number is 7 for long-term retention), and you have banked a block of knowledge/skill/behaviors that can be utilized by Process 1.

So, what happens when you offload your learning practice to AI? Process 2 is happy to offload anything that takes extra effort/energy/resources, and Process 1 simply regurgitates the short-term information it has and purges that info. This is why skill gaps happen when you rely on AI as your Process 2: you are not building blocks of knowledge/skills/behaviors that you can call upon when pressed. There’s no effort in learning key information points because you are relying on external sources.

Now, is it really a bad thing? The same could be said of that washboard use, right? The general population doesn’t know how to use one; they offloaded that knowledge to the washing machine, and the world still turns just fine. So the question you should be asking yourself is: How important is the information/skill/behavior you are getting from AI to know when doing your activity?

Let’s put this in context. You are in Sales, and you are raving about the benefits of your company’s product or service. AI can give you all the talking points, highlight the key benefits for the customer, and might even be able to give you some customer insight ahead of time. What a great way to prep! Then, you are in the pitch meeting, and someone asks a question about how the product/service works. If you have to stop and ask AI, does that show confidence in your knowledge?

Let me put it another way. You are in the hospital for heart surgery, and your surgeon comes in for your consultation. You have, understandably, some concerns about the surgery procedure and need some clarification. You ask, and the surgeon turns to the computer and asks ChatGPT how the procedure should be performed. Would you keep him as your surgeon?

Now, I’m not saying AI doesn’t have its benefits in learning: It does! You can do amazing things with AI both before and during instruction. But as a learner, you can’t offload the learning process to AI. It doesn’t build your knowledge base, skill sets, and behavior guidance you need to be successful in your job. It’s your responsibility as a learner to put the effort in, try, fail, and keep trying until you succeed. That is learning, that is success, and that is what will ultimately differentiate you in the industry. Make the effort, and you will see amazing results.

 

You can’t offload your learning to AI to be successful.  You need to use AI to learn, try, fail, and try again until you succeed.  That’s learning, that’s succeeding.