A well-trained staff is priceless

Rebecca Ray, senior vice president of global talent management and development for MasterCard’s global human resources, shares with Lee Xieli her thoughts on leadership development, her current learning and development challenges, as well as, how she keeps her L&D team lean and effective in the downturn.

How has leadership development programmes evolved over the years?

Everyone learns differently. Some people are much more comfortable in a traditional lecture or facilitation style. Some people are more comfortable learning online or being self-directed on how to explore [learning] on their own. But I would say leadership development is largely in the application of things.

Leadership is a very active sport. It is difficult to learn to lead without actually learning from leading. You have to take what you think are core skills or key concepts and try them out. See how they work and learn what motivates, inspires and empowers others. If you find something that doesn’t work as well as you would have like, you reflect on it, then try doing differently again.

It is the work of the [L&D] team to provide quality education for all, whether for employees at the front line or those who are in leadership, rather than management, positions because I like to argue that we are all leaders. There are elements of leadership that all of us should embrace and it’s up to leaders to continue practicing those core fundamental skills about being a leader and continue their learning and development.

Why is it important to have senior leaders send a strong message on learning and development to the lower tiers?

First of all, everyone takes great notice in what leaders do. When you have a CEO who very publicly talks about his own development journey and the need for all of us to continue the acquired skills – to be more competitive in the marketplace, to be thoughtful in the way we serve our customers and support them – that’s a very important message for employees to hear. When you see the leaders at the top involved in this [message], you say “This matters. They [leaders] are working on their own development, I should be thinking on my own development too. I should be thinking about the quality of the work that I do.” Because any leader who doesn’t do what they ask others to do, it becomes a different message.

What are your current learning and development challenges in MasterCard?

The pace of the business is so fast that it’s finding time to step away to think consciously about how you are doing something. That’s a challenge but we have the same challenges as every company. I am very conscious about cost and about how much time a programme or an online experience might last because I am very aware that people are working very hard to support their customers and help drive business. I’m very concerned about the hour I am asking them to go online to take a programme – if it’s going to be a quality experience for them and if it is going to mean something. Or if I ask them to take a day out of the field to come to [training], is it going to be beneficial at the end of it. We have always done that but there is a little bit more attentiveness to making sure it counts.

How does MasterCard’s L&D team help the business achieve its goals?

All our programmes need to be able to help drive business results and to help reinforce our leadership model. For example, a lot of our leadership programmes talk about teamwork, integration and inclusion so MasterCard’s global view and its global customer base is reflected in the ways in which we attract quality employees around the world and the way we hope to make this a terrific place for all employees to come and add value for MasterCard and also for individuals to be successful as well.

When we build programmes, we know how people learn, what needs to be learned, and we also do a framework of what’s important to MasterCard – its values and leadership model. We make sure everything we do ties back to that. There are very few times when we have a programme that’s just a “nice-to-have”. These are tough times. Sometimes there are programmes that don’t necessarily help drive business or help support our customers. If you are going to carve out a day or a few days devoting to [a learning programme], it ought to either help you move forward in your career or help MasterCard succeed or in some way, help the collective journey.

What are some innovative learning solutions you have employed for MasterCard?

We bring thought leaders to MasterCard and we have captured their remarks and they are now online and available. For example, Daniel Goleman came and spoke to us about emotional intelligence. We have the world’s authority on scenario planning Peter Schwartz, world expert on change John Kotter and Peyton Manning, a very popular American football quarterback and Super Bowl winning champion, speak about coaching. We have had a senior leader hosting a book discussion for about 1,500 people at same time around the world discussing The Medici Effect.

We like to have quality and a rare [learning] experience for everyone. We are trying to look for a variety of ways to deliver same kind of content so it doesn’t have to be face-to-face and people can find the information they need in a hurry. So what other options could we give people so it [training] could be online, face-to-face, in a structured learning classroom or self-study? For example, we have face-to-face courses and support tools for a programme on effective writing skills so they can download and self-study.

How can the L&D function be more conscious of its spending?

Everything is a value choice. We don’t do this [engage prominent authors] often, but when we do, we have them speak to many folks. We have them [recorded] online so we will always have the ability to make that on demand and we use clips of their remarks in a variety of ways. Trust me when I tell you there are eight places where pieces of that presentation are going to go, otherwise it just isn’t a wise business decision.

We have online and on-demand video presentations of our CEO, CFO or other senior leaders talking about our results and people development. We have many of our internal leaders talk about their role in leading their function. I have folks internally who build the websites and the e-learning modules and I partner with a lot of friends in communications. So when I do a global broadcast, I will ask them to put it in a digitised content and get it online. Curriculums are built up that way as well.

We are very cost-conscious. There are not many [L&D] teams that are as lean as mine because I am very aware that we are going to be very good stewards of the money we are given. Are there a couple of options we can explore so it is relatively good value for the money spent? That’s my responsibility as an officer of the firm.