Guest: Susan Teague

In this episode, Susan Teague shares her career journey in learning and development.

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Enjoy the Episode Transcript below:   

Robin Sargent  

Welcome to Become an IDOL. I'm Dr. Robin Sargent, owner of IDOL courses. This is the place where newbies come to learn and veteran share their knowledge.

Robin Sargent  

I have here with me today, Susan Teague. And I found Susan on well, you guessed it LinkedIn. She made an insightful comment on on one of my posts, and I just knew she'd be a great guest to have. And I'm sure she's going to make that very evident in just a moment. Susan is currently a freelance instructional designer, but she has a rich history and background. So Susan, would you please do a better job of introducing yourself and where you come from?

Susan Teague  

Okay. Well, hi, Robin. Thank you for having me. Hello, people, IDOL folks. Yes, I have a I have a long term background. I've been in learning and development for over 20 years. And yeah, and instructional design for at least 15 of that. And even before that I was doing instructional design, but I didn't know there was a formal process or you know, what the name was for that. So learning and development is my passion. I, from my mid 20s, working for AT&T, when they brought a trainer in to teach a class to us. And I was in Dallas, Texas. And they flew her in from from New Jersey. And I was watching her going, how does she get to do that? What is that? I want to do that? So I got in contact with her and ask her, how did you get to do that? And what is that and I found out that learning and development was a career. So that has been my story since then is I've moved forward in learning and development by deciding I want to do that. And, taking people's advice to go do the things that help you get there. And so I've been able to do that. And I first started working as a trainer at a software company for call center software. And so I did four day consulting projects with people who bought these big honkin call centers like Delta Airlines and insurance companies and places like that, and I learned how to teach the software. So I would consult with them and teach the software. And then we would go out on the customer site. And we would load everything in and test it and teach everybody on the customer side about the software. So that involves doing train the trainer. And it involves following a particular curriculum. And from there, I've branched off into being a customer trainer. We had our training office in Dallas and the customers came to me for training for system administrator training. And then we went into eLearning. And that was one of those jobs where I had heard they were thinking about having sales trainers. And I had heard they were thinking about having an eLearning group. And so when I heard that, everybody I talked to I said, Hey, if you hear anything about this eLearning group coming, keep me in mind, and let me know because I'm very curious about that. And I would love to learn about that. So I was hired as the first eLearning project manager at Aspect Communications. And then we built a team of five eLearning project managers across the country. And we all went to training at Langevin Learning Services, to learn Instructional Design to learn formal instructional design, and then also instructional design for the web. So we went through all that training and did that. And that was a great job. We partnered with a company that did all the setup of the web based training. And so we got to use our expertise in the product and in working with subject matter experts. And then they got to be the experts in the graphic design and interactivities. And so that was the beginning of it. And since then I went through some career swerves and but I always come back to learning and development. I always come back to, how can I help people learn? How can I help people, particularly what interests me is when I'm helping people in their career development, and whatever job I'm doing, I need to be involved in people's career development and in their human development, because that's just one of my passions. So yeah, most recently I was training manager at a hospitality company that owned 115 year old amusement park. Then we had 350 full time employees than hired 1500 seasonal employees per year. Yes, and for me for me the highlight of that part of my career was I got to become involved in leadership development. So I became certified in facilitating a leadership challenge, which is based on a wonderful book by Kouzes and Posner, about leadership development. It's a great book, The Leadership Challenge, and there's a whole curriculum around that. And also became involved in performance appraisal program that's based on coaching, is how do you teach managers how to coach folks to manage their careers, and to move forward in their careers. And so that's what I've been involved with lately. And I've also been involved with a group called CultureCon and Culture First, and also a company called Fearless Culture. And that's where I'm learning how to consult with folks who are company owners, and how to consult with folks about how to deliberately create a corporate environment and your corporate culture. So that people feel fulfilled, they feel accepted, they feel able to come and be themselves at work. And they feel like they are contributing at their highest level of contribution. And that helps people stay and helps keep a robust and powerful corporate environment so that you're attracting the right workers there. And also, you happen to do better in your business and your customers are more satisfied as you're doing that.

Robin Sargent  

So I mean, when I said rich history, that was, that was no joke. And I think Susan, a lot of people who are listening to this are usually brand new to the field. And I just love how part of your story was somebody came in to train you at AT&T. And instead of you thinking, oh, maybe that looks difficult, or whatever you said, that's for me. And you reached directly out to them and said, If she can have it, I can have it too. And then what did you do from there? So you reached out to her? What was the actual steps that you made to land that first official training position? That's what we want to know.

Susan Teague  

Yeah. The things she told me were, number one, go get experience teaching to a curriculum. And you can do that with volunteer work if you can't get it happening on your job. So at AT&T, I was working in administration at the time, and there was a lot of delineations between administration and anything else. So I couldn't get any opportunities to teach going on in that role. So I volunteered for an organization called LIFT, which was Literacy Instruction for Texas. I learned how to teach to a curriculum with that. And that was teaching adult learners how to read. And it was amazing. I did it with a friend. It was an amazing experience. We had an 11 step curriculum. So I did that. She said, get experience in public speaking, go to Toastmasters. I went to Toastmasters. I was highly involved in Toastmasters for this was actually a three year process. I was highly involved in Toastmasters for three years, and had a great time while I was doing it and won ribbons and got to go to contests and write creative speeches and meet cool people and stuff like that. So she said, those were two main things. And then the other thing at that time working for AT&T, she told me you can't get into a trainer role, like they typically won't promote someone from an admin role to a trainer role. So to work around that, you need to get into a role that's considered a manager position. And I was working for the national sales department at the time. And they were opening a new department. And I'm not a salesperson, I don't like being a salesperson. I don't ever want to be a salesperson. But they had these sales support roles that were manager level. And in the sales support role you would work with customers and work with the sales folks and learn everything about the customer and what their needs were and design a solution for them. Does that sound a little bit like instructional design? Design a solution for them, and then support the sales folks in presenting the solution and selling it? And so I went through the year and a half process of going through getting assessed for that role, like you have to let your brand managers know, apply. They flew me to Atlanta to go do this assessment, do five levels of interviews, all that stuff. And I got the role. And so like, Yes, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. And I did that role for about a year. And I started interviewing for training jobs at AT&T. And they had a call quality assurance trainer position open. And I was in the middle of interviewing for that. And they told me it came down to two of us as the final candidates. And then AT&T had a hiring freeze. Oh, and that meant people couldn't move. You know, which is corporate, that happens. And so I started looking outside of AT&T. I was like, well, okay, I've done the deal. I've done the steps that she told me to do. And it got me started in that direction. I got the interview and it almost got the job as far as I know. So it to me, that's one of those. Okay, that's disappointing. But so what, what next?

Robin Sargent  

Yeah. 

Susan Teague  

Let me go do the next thing. And so the next thing was to look outside of AT&T and I ended up in, the trainer job I got, to me was a dream job. I traveled all over the country, I got to go to London and teach. The company's headquartered in San Jose, I got to come out to the Bay Area, which is where I live now. To the San Francisco Bay area all the time. For meetings and training. I met customers all over the place who became friends. It just, yeah, I was so glad I did what she told me to do in my own way, because it led to a blossoming of my career. And yeah, and I've been in love with learning and development ever since.

Robin Sargent  

So when you were a trainer, Susan, did you always follow a curriculum that was already set out? Or did you ever adjust your curriculum? Right? Or start writing your own?

Susan Teague  

It was a little bit of both. Yeah, yeah. So when I was teaching the four day class, that was a very delineated curriculum. But then again, as always, things would come up based on that particular customer, that were an exception to the curriculum. So then I had to go off and do research and talk with experienced folks and figure out, okay, here's how we're going to do this, and on the fly, teach it to people. So that was involved with that. But then when I had the classroom in Dallas, that was definitely following curriculum, but what I would do is take this dry technology curriculum, and make it learner centered. And so I'm a huge fan of participant centered learning. And in fact, I saw on one of your things you said, in the IDOL courses that you spend more time actively doing than passively watching. To me that is so important for any kind of training. And when you're teaching software, that can be very much passively watching, while you're showing people how it's done. And so I took the existing curriculum, and found places where I could make it more interactive in it. So I would go in and create my own exercises and ways to test out the theories that we were talking about. So we could actually load it into the system in the training room and go, okay, now, what happens if you do this, and then we can actually send a phone call to phones in the training room. These days, it would be computers. But we could actually, you know, test out, here's what we're doing. And I found that to be a hugely important skill, to be able to both design things in advance, because you learn from teaching, okay, here's where people are gonna get confused. Here's where people start zoning out. Here's where people start asking questions like, but wait, what do you mean by blah, blah, blah, and that kind of thing. And so having the experience of teaching it. I think it's important to be able to go into your course and go, okay, here's where I'm going to beef this up here. Make this explanation clearer here. Maybe have them talk to each other about it here to make sure that they all understand it, and build in some interactivities here so that it's less passive. I think it's important to be able to do that. And it's also important to be able to kind of think through on the fly when things come up. To go, hmm. There's a concept called concretizing which is like taking an idea and making it physical, making it like concrete. It's like, okay, how can I take this idea and make it physical? And it's a skill that you can develop as you're training to be able to on the fly design an interactivity that helps make a point that comes up during the class. And to me, that's so fun.

Robin Sargent  

Yeah, no, I'm with you 100%. I mean, I think we could probably talk about deliberate practice and problem centered instruction, I think I would just describe it in a different way. But we are saying the same thing, right? Like give them whole tasks to complete for the software, right? You don't want to create software that's like, open the file and then start a new project. No, you need to have a project. And then what are you going to do? What are going to be the things that you actually need to use the software for? Right, you need to actually handle customer complaints. So let's walk through how the software helps you handle software complaints. And so I just love this, how we're on the on the same page about this important... I think it's really interesting, Susan, how you went from a trainer, and there is something that's special and unique about being in a live classroom and being able to adjust on the fly. Whereas when you went to that eLearning part, you have to think through from the beginning to the end of your solution with... I mean, yes, you can kind of get feedback along the way, but really have to think through it all the way throughout the end, without it being... you know, getting to see people's faces glaze over, or certain things like that. And so I imagine that all that teaching experience, actually translated very well to thinking through the whole thing, and remembering the different places that students lost their way or got confused and things like that. So all that to say is, you've been from training to instructional designer, eLearning development, project manager. And here you are a champion for professional development, right, just look at all the skills that you've even built yourself along the way that have added up to where you are today. And I would love to hear you talk more about how you help companies specifically think about professional development.

Susan Teague  

So the common thought, you know, of professional development, is you get a new hire, you send them through their new hire training, you have them do their job. And then the best ones filter to the top and they get promoted. And that's an interesting concept. What I found in working in one of my roles as an instructional designer, we were writing, new hire training for folks. And we had a learning and development department that was part of people services, which was HR. And so as instructional designers, we had a team of seven instructional designers. And we were responsible for working with the departments to help design their training, and a lot focused on new hire, training. And what we discovered as we were working with those is there was always someone in each department who loved teaching other people. There was always someone in each department who loved taking care of the social side of what the team needed. There was always someone in the department who could be your tech go to for the department, that those were the tech folks. But then there were also these quiet folks who given the opportunity could shine. And if you ask them specifically, what interests you, what are your passion projects? If you could do something other than what you're doing now? Or what's next for you? What would that be? They'll have an answer for you. But they won't say it unless you ask them. And so that becomes something that to me is involved in training your leaders and that is training... is having your leaders committed to professional development for all their folks. And it's not just you pay the most attention to the squeaky wheel. That holds, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and that's what a lot of you know a lot of older style management and people who have enough on their plates. You know, we've talked about like sometimes being the leader you get to do everything And so you have enough on your plates. And so it's yay, somebody wants to do this, let's let them do it. Where as what's being taught now, in professional development is, know everyone. Know where everyone is in their career. Are they happy being where they are? Working in place, while they're working on their master's degree? Great, support them in that. And then they're going to be on to whatever it is, that's next for them in that degree field. Great, support them in that because they're going to be a nice four to six year employee for you. While they're doing that, and support them in doing that. Are they someone who sees what's next for them, and they want your support and moving to another department? Hey, you know what, you've done your job in your department and they're going to contribute what they can contribute while they're there. But support them in whatever is next for them. And so that requires something more than a... there is the career roadmap that people need, and some curriculum to follow with that, that they can do self paced on their own. But you have to, as a manager, managers have to make sure that the workload is such that people have time for professional development. That's a key. And managers need to know that, that the professional development, it is such a key component and employee satisfaction, and people having the flexibility, and the tools available for their professional development. That becomes a key element of being a great manager and of and of having satisfied employees. And so then the training piece of that becomes, how do we educate leaders about how to do that? About how to get out of the weeds of the doing long enough, you know, to have ongoing conversations every other week, if you possibly can about career development. And how can you support folks in doing that. And it's not just training, its can I get you involved in a cross functional team, so that you're involved in this project that is developing... they're developing a software program that will check for quality. They're checking for errors on orders that we're placing, and because of your experience and taking orders, could you get involved in that project? And by doing that, they're getting exposed to other jobs, other people, other managers, and so that people can expand their knowledge and expand their, their scope of influence across the company. And then the other thing is as big projects are coming through, and let's say you're installing new software, you're opening a new department, you're doing all this kind of stuff, you need folks who are change management champions. And so those are the squeaky wheel people, usually. You need folks who can socialize the change and be excited about the change with other people. And so there's actually a whole process of training leaders on how to recognize those change agents and support those folks. And what did they need to be able to have that scope of influence in their jobs? Because it's also a point of satisfaction for them. They're the influencer, if you will. And so they really like that. They like that social aspect and being an influencer. So it's much like knowing your learner. 

Robin Sargent  

Yeah. 

Susan Teague  

It's much like knowing all the various types of learners and what helps them stay engaged and keep going. It's the same thing and leadership development is, how do you know your team? And how do you know what keeps them going? And, one of the things we ran across as we're implementing this performance appraisal program that was based on coaching. So it's not just you get a 10 in this and an eight in that a seven in that it's we literally have conversations at least once a quarter and look at goals and where are we going and where do you want to be? And how can I support you in that? And one of the things we ran across is there were some folks who were like, I don't want to be anywhere I want to do what I'm doing, do it the best I can. It's like great, okay, then we'll do our best to support you in that. Now, there may be things that come along that we're gonna want you to learn, newer stuff as things change. And we want you to be committed to that and responsible to that, but I'm not going to be looking to put your name in the pot. As an opportunity to test out a new product comes along. So, you just need to know, how do you help yourself have enough time and commitment to know your team. And, and support their professional development, with training, as well as with projects and social opportunities and other opportunities like that.

Robin Sargent  

How do you calm the fears of the leaders who think, well, if I train them out of their roles, then I'm not going to have a team anymore? I'm gonna gonna have to go hire new people. And those kinds of things. I'm sure you get those objections?

Susan Teague  

Yeah, I definitely get those objections? Well, you know... So, I haven't looked at it in the last year or so. But I read about a year ago, that three years is a long time at a company for an employee 

Robin Sargent  

These days, right? 

Susan Teague  

These days, yeah. Three years is a long time. So they're going to move on whether you're supporting them in it or not. So part of the discussion about that, and this is supported by Harvard Business Review, and Forbes magazine and articles that support that is, do you want to employ who's just there? Just doing the deal daily, but not really contributing any life to their work or any life to the workplace? And, yeah, you can do that, but they're gonna move on one way or the other? 

Robin Sargent  

Yeah, I was just reading something today, Susan, that said, 80%... I think it linked it to generational thing, like 80% of millennials or whatever, need and require professional development as a part of their job in order to stick with the company and find or even accept the role, is that it has to be a part of their perks, if you will, is that professional development is included.

Susan Teague  Yeah. And then another way to address that fear is to also make sure that you have people cross training other folks. And that does take some convincing, because there's the idea that this is taking time away from the job. But part of the job is succession planning. As a manager, part of the job is succession planning. So it's making sure you've got people in the pipeline for when people move on. And that you're keeping those balls in the air as well.

Robin Sargent  

Yeah, well, I would imagine just, you know, running my own business, I would rather bring someone up who's already been baked in to IDOL courses, and has like a knowledge base of who we are and what we do and who we serve. I'd rather bring that person up to a manager role than have to train somebody who's been a manager with all of this knowledge about the business. And I imagine that's part of the conversation as well.

Susan Teague  

That is part of the conversation is, yes. How much easier is it to take someone with knowledge of the company, the product, the customers, all that, and move them into another role. And then it's easier to train someone in this more entry level role or less experienced role.

Robin Sargent  

And I would imagine that your passion for leadership development, and there must be something about all the people that are currently managers or leaders in the company are getting to a certain age, and they're retiring. And there's going to be a huge gap in the type of leaders that these companies have, right?

Susan Teague  

The companies have, yeah. And so that's part of the conversation in succession planning is legacy. So let's say you have people who have reached the point in their career where they're, there's nowhere else for me to go. I'm doing what I'm doing and any professional development I do is because I like it. And I want to. And so there's nowhere else for me to go. And that's when you start having legacy conversations about, okay, so number one, thank you. You've been here, you've contributed what you've contributed here. And you're continuing to have a vibrant organization that you're running. And given that what's next for you over the next three to five years is moving along from here. What is the legacy you want to leave? How do you want to leave your department when you leave it? And how skilled do you want folks to be? What visions do you have for the company that could go on after you leave? And who are the folks that you really want to influence and have impact on? And so that can help engage folks who might not be at a very engaged space in their careers as well.

Robin Sargent  

I was thinking about when you are talking to these leaders, and you are coming up with these certain things, it sounds like there's a lot of different methods, right? We've got legacy planning, we've got, talk to each of your employees and find out what their professional development is. And I just wonder, like, do you have examples or stories to share? Or something around this, how you are producing leaders? And how you go into an organization and kind of start this process? Right? Because I imagine like, alright, so the first one, you need succession planning? Well, so is that just a conversation between you and the leader? Or is there some type of training? Or is there some type of... Is it a book that they read? Is it guided activities? What are these things that you do to to roll out this leadership development? What does that look like?

Susan Teague  

So that part is the work I want to do. The stuff I've studied about it and the folks that I've that I've spoken with who are doing that work, it's a whole combination. I mean, that is actually... if a company decides we're really going to take a look at this, like you said, it's several things. It's career roadmapping. It is succession planning, it is leadership development, it is looking at what is our leadership development? Do our leaders agree on our mission? What is our mission? Do we agree on what's most important in our company and our most important customers? And do we have agreements about that? And so that's all involved in corporate culture. And so if a company wanted to say, let's say, a hospitality company, okay, since that's my most recent experience, decided, hey, you know, we've been in business a good 30 years. And we've acquired some properties. And we have the properties that we started with. And we want to make sure we're all aligned with this whole training, career progression and leadership development thing. So what could we do about this? Well, there are consultants who can talk with you about that. And it could be... that's a multi year process. So that's like probably a three to five year process. And my most recent exposure has been a company called Fearless Culture that I did training through them about. There's this whole thing called a culture map tool. And it's literally a map in Canva. And it has several tabs to it, where you go in as a consultant and have conversations with leadership groups, with employee focus groups, with the different departments. You look... if you're not already doing employee engagement surveys, you start doing employee engagement surveys. And because you have to listen to every... there's a whole listening process, you know, you have to go in and do these employee engagement surveys and really notice, where are we performing well, according to our staff, and where are we not performing well? And take a look at those and prioritize what are the things we want to address? What do we think is having the most positive impact? Let's keep doing that. What do we think is having the negative impact, okay, let's really look into that and dig into that. And here's... have some conversations with folks about that, and, and design a solution together about how we're going to create that. So that's one thing. One of the companies we brought in with... when I was working for the hospitality company, is called Engergage. And their performance appraisal program is called Catalytic Coaching. And so as part of the training for Catalytic Coaching, you're training everyone in the company at all levels of the company, about, here's this approach. It's based on professional development and coaching. It's based on helping you be satisfied where you're working or where you want to go. And doing your job while you're figuring out where you want to go and getting ready for that. And everybody goes through that training. And so there's training for all employees from the perspective of I'm someone who is receiving coaching, and then there's training for the folks who who are now coaches, who will be giving the feedback and having the conversations about performance and development. So that was a whole year process to get started on that. That was to get started. And then you have the process of everyone adopting the program. And that takes another year, year and a half to get everybody to adopt the program and get some momentum going with that. So you bring that in, then if you're looking at what is our new hire training? How do people become excellent on the job? What resources do we have available for folks to have their basic skills that they need to do the job... basic company knowledge, knowledge about our customers, all that kind of stuff. So that's a whole different thing where you have a learning and development team, we're looking at that. So it is multi layer multi year.

Robin Sargent  

Well, I love that you brought this up too Susan because I think a lot of times when you are new to instructional design, you may not be familiar with the fact that some of these projects can be years. They can take years to develop. It takes multiple touchpoints. It's not just a course, it could include training people to be coaches and a mentorship program. Or it could be an apprenticeship program. Or it could be even not a knowledge base. Or it could be all of the above, just kind of like what you've laid out. And I think it's interesting how you talk about leadership development, because it also points to probably something that you've learned a lot along the way. I wonder... It sounds like you've been pretty intentional in your own professional development, is the business acumen you need to have, in order to Yes, be a good instructional designer, but even to be where you are to look at leadership development. And I just wonder like, how important is picking up different business systems and processes and how they work and all that type of knowledge and skills? How important has that been for you?

Susan Teague  

That's been huge. And the thing I'm always grateful for is, even though I wasn't that crazy about sales, or being part of the sales department, when I got the opportunity to get that sales support job, I got some high quality, consultative selling training from AT&T. And that was based on that was based on the DISC, DISC assessment. So it's about paying attention to the people that you're consulting with. And to me, an instructional designer is very much a consultant. So paying attention to the people that you are consulting with. How do they prefer to communicate? And how do they receive information? And what's the best way to communicate with them? As well as consulting training about knowing their withem? What is their, what's in it for me? So and then the consulting piece of understanding their business, of being able to ask questions, so that you understand the folks that you're consulting with to write a course for, you understand their department. Where is their department in the company? What is that departments influence in the company? What comes into that department? And what goes out of that department? And what does inefficiency impact within that department? And what is the business problem they're trying to solve with the training? Because training is not just you need to know this. Okay, it is, what do you need to do to solve this business problem? And how do... you know the whole assessment phase of... A lot of times I've had people come to me in various roles and in my freelance and say, we need a training about this. Okay. So tell me, how do you know you need a training about that? Well, we're having a problem with none of our people know the right thing to say to our patients, when they call in and they're trying to fill prescriptions, and they're asking about Medicare, how to pay for these prescriptions with Medicare. And you ask five different people in our departments, and you get five different answers. Okay. So could that be solved with an email? So there's that assessment piece and that being able to ask questions about the business, and you learn about the business by asking questions about the business. And to me, one of the favorite things about being an instructional designer is... and the thing about when I was particularly as a call center consultant, trainer, was I got to learn about all these different businesses. And what are the commonalities between businesses? Of their pain points. How they keep quality going? What's difficult for them? What are their challenges and how they overcome those challenges? By having a broad understanding of the company, and then really narrowing in on the department and on the business problem they're trying to solve with training, then you can really develop that consulting relationship with the departments so that the next time something comes up and they go, Wow, we're noticing, well, a, we're noticing some attrition going on that we're curious about what's going on with that. And b, we're noticing that this department over here that we impact is suddenly having a lot more errors. So what's going on with that? And so you can ask questions, and help them dig into business problems. And so that way, if you come up with a course that solves something, you come up with a video and they shoot it out to people, and whataever you do that is training to resolve their business problem, they're gonna think of you the next time something comes up. They're gonna think of learning and development and go, you know, we worked on this quality issue, I wonder if this is something we could look at with learning and development? And is there some performance improvement things that we can do with them? That might help us out. And that stuff is exciting to me.

Robin Sargent  

What would you say, Susan, to a new instructional designer who... a lot of them come from a teaching background, or they've never worked in a corporate space. What would you say is like one of the best ways to go start learning about a business? Like how works and the kinds of challenges that they face.

Susan Teague  

Okay, so let's say I'm in a role as a new instructional designer. So I did this at, I had a contract gig for, oh, they kept they kept changing their name as a mortgage company. So I had a contract gig. And it was to... they were writing new software to process credit reports. And so my job was to create this... This was classroom training. These days, it would be web based, I feel old saying these days, these days, back in my day.

Susan Teague  

Here to learn from the veterans, so keep going.

Susan Teague  

So anyhow, that particular one was classroom training, but they were in the middle of writing this software. And it was my job to write the training as they were writing this software. That's always fun.

Robin Sargent  

Yeah, that's not going to change at all while you're writing it.

Susan Teague  

Not going to change at all, Yeah. And so I'm like, Okay, well, I know nothing about mortgage companies. I know, some about credit reports, because of my own but I don't know what these people in this department do. Who are going to use this software, and what are they doing now? And what's going to change about this software? So first thing I would do is get with the department head and say, Can you have someone help orient me to your department? Okay, can you have them describe to me what it is your department does? Describe to me, what is success like in your department? And what are the challenges in your department? Introduce me to all the managers and some of the frontline folks. Can I follow someone who's on the phones? Or who's processing these credit reports? Can I sit with them for a day or two, and pay attention to what they're doing? We called it job shadowing. Let me job shadow with them. Okay, and can you define someone as my main point of contact when I need to dig into questions about the company and about the department? Who is my main point of contact on that? And spend time job shadowing at many different levels in the department and in the company. Ask if you can attend some team meetings so that you hear what's going on about the team meetings. If there are company and department newsletters, read those, learn about those, peruse their websites, go in and take a look at their websites. And look up any articles about the company and read about the company. And so that's a good start.

Robin Sargent  

That's a great start. And I love how this is all could just be wrapped up in like, be curious.

Susan Teague  

Be curious! Yep.

Robin Sargent  

Be Curious, right? 

Susan Teague  

And you never know the thing about that level of curiosity is you never know what will help you as you're creating your course. You never know. Phrases. You'll you'll hear repetitive phrases and you'll go Ah, okay, that's something that people used as a phrase. Now one of the things when I worked for DaVita... I worked for 2 top 100 companies to work for, by the way, was awesome. And DeVita is one of those. They loved saying get stuff done, get stuff done, was a thing. They loved saying that! And so those kinds of phrases you'll run across in talking to people that invoke a particular feeling within the company and as part of the company culture. And so you'll run across those. And if you use those in your training, it invokes that within your courses.

Robin Sargent  

Yeah, and also even just tie back to now you're a freelancer. Imagine all the relationships you have built by being curious and learning and doing your own professional development and also, of course, informing your training analysis. But you networked with people across all different positions across the company. And I'm sure that that network at at some point, especially as a freelancer or self employed person has contributed to your career in some way. I know for me, that was how I started my company was because I met all these people working in corporate and then they gave me business. You know like by subject matter experts, gave me business outside. And I just wonder if that was a similar experience for you?

Susan Teague  

Yeah, that's true. And you know, that's a good reminder, too, because people are happy to share. There are some you run across that if you don't ask the question the right way they won't answer it. There are those you run across, but then you even learn how to work with those people, and even come to have like, a particular kind of affection for working with those. But yeah, that's a good reminder. Because it's true. I have... Yeah, like one of the jobs with the top 100 company was someone I worked with at the mortgage company, saw that I was posting some things on LinkedIn about looking for a position. And he said, Hey, Susan, I just saw from this lady Erica, that I used to work with that she's hiring an instructional designer. I think you two would get along. You should contact her.

Robin Sargent  

Yeah, yeah. So not only do you build your business acumen, you build your knowledge for your analysis, but you also build your personal brand and network. I know for me personally, they called me the funny training lady. 

Susan Teague  

That's great. 

Robin Sargent  

So you know, it worked out. Right? So then like, when I left that company, I started my own business. They're like, Oh, Robin, the funny trading lady. Yeah, I have a friend with another business that needs training.

Susan Teague  

That does make me think of... since my passion is career development, I have had people at the companies I worked at as an employee, say, I hear you have some dissatisfaction in your job, why don't you go talk to Susan, she might have some ideas for you, about what to do next, or what would be good for you. And that just filled my heart for people to do that. And for me to have the opportunity to coach folks outside of whatever my job was, at the time, I get to do that.

Robin Sargent  

I find that that's one of the things that a lot of... I've met a lot of instructional designers over the years, especially doing the podcast, and having the students and so on. The majority of instructional designers have the heart of a teacher. Doesn't matter if they actually came from a background of a teacher or not, but like, we really do have a soft spot for people and helping them reach whatever that next goal is. And so of course, I've found that with you to Susan, so in your heart of a teacher, and since this is a podcast, for those that are looking to start or grow their career in instructional design, what is your best and final advice for those who want to become an IDOL?

Susan Teague  

You know, there's that quote, and I'll probably get it wrong. I think it's, "leap and the net will appear." Put the energy into the change, don't hold back. If this is something you want to do, you absolutely can do it. I actually recently hired two former teachers to do a job that we called a guest service coach. And it was literally one on one coaching with employees about how to be great with guests. How to provide great guest service or customer service. And we were thrilled, absolutely thrilled to hire teachers to do this. Because of the level of dedication, the level of understanding about teaching and of working with the age group that we were working with. We were thrilled, absolutely thrilled to have teachers show up for those roles. And those roles... I was having conversations with one of the people about instructional design, and about, oh with the skills that you have, could so easily transfer into instructional design. You just haven't heard the term instructional design, but you're doing it. So people will be thrilled to work with you. So don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to reach out. Don't be afraid to have conversations. And it doesn't have to be the perfect interview, or the perfect role or any of that. Any of those contexts and experiences will build momentum toward where you're going. And they're all valuable experiences. So put the energy into it and go for it.

Robin Sargent  

Yeah, where your focus goes, your energy flows. And so that's such a great advice. Susan, I really, really appreciate you coming on and speaking with us today about some myriad of things. And thank you again for being our guest. 

Susan Teague  

Thank you. 

Robin Sargent  

Thank you so much for listening. You can find the show notes for this episode at idolcourses.com. If you liked this podcast and you want to become an instructional designer, an online learning developer, join me in the IDOL courses Academy where you'll learn to build all the assets you need to land your first instructional design job, early access to this podcast, tutorials for how to use the eLearning authoring tools, templates for everything course building and paid instructional design experience opportunities, go to idolcourses.com/academy and enroll or get on the waitlist. Now get out there and build transcendent courses.

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