Profile: Barry Rogers
Executive educator whose doctoral research explores how workplace learning programmes can make a lasting difference, even when they come up against the reality of people's busy working lives
After working for years as a social psychologist and executive educator, Barry Rogers decided to undertake an EdD at the Faculty of Education to explore a pressing question: how can we better implement the knowledge and skills that we acquire from workplace learning programmes? He discovered that the answer has a lot to do with time: how we use it, how we visualise it, and how it is shaped by our professional networks.
I originally did a business and sociology degree and worked as an investment banker.
Starting in the mid-1980s I worked in various roles, mostly trading government debt and derivatives. In my 30s I felt the need to do something different. I went to the London School of Economics, did a Masters and became a social psychologist, specialising in organisations. Alongside this I got involved with customised executive education.
For the last two decades, I’ve taught Masters students at LSE while also designing and delivering customised, high-end leadership programmes for various organisations. Since 2007, one of my main clients has been a leading European multinational, who at the time needed support for a significant change exercise. My role was to design and deliver programmes for its top dealmakers and to support the accompanying culture-shift within the company.
The programmes have been hugely successful, but I gradually became concerned with whether they really changed anything?
I created and ran a four-day programme with a strong experiential focus. This was really well-received, but over the years I began to wonder about what happened after the participants finished? Their feedback made it clear that they were committed to changing their professional practice based on what they had learned, but I had a hunch that the ‘action, traction and distraction’ of everyday working life trumped that commitment.
This issue – ‘transfer of training’ – is the subject of considerable academic research. Most of it is very psychologically-focused, examining the individual, the course, its content – in other words, the intervention itself. What people are just starting to realise is that we also need to focus on the contextual setting: the workplace people go back into.
"All sorts of non-linear aspects of time never get captured in your diary. Your phone is constantly pinging, emails are landing in your inbox, colleagues are tapping you on the shoulder."
One thing that we often overlook in this area of research is time.
Our relationship with time has always fascinated me, and I think our limited way of thinking about it affects how we implement learning in the workplace. Many people will recognise the experience of going back into the office after a week on a course and having piled-up work, back-to-back meetings and so on. In many cases, by the middle of the following week, all those good intentions have evaporated because the ‘real-life’ world of work has got in the way. On top of that, you have all these non-linear aspects of time that never get captured in your actual diary. Your phone is constantly pinging, emails are landing in your inbox, colleagues are tapping you on the shoulder. We rarely acknowledge these non-linear aspects of time, but we do experience them viscerally.
The starting point for my research was asking whether we could make this problem visible? The idea would be to use any such visualisation as the basis for having a meaningful conversation with people about how to put their learning into practice in a sustainable way.
I decided to study this at Cambridge, because it gave me the space I needed to roam intellectually
After years of wondering, I eventually started hunting for academics who could support research investigating these themes, and found Ros McLellan (University Lecturer in Teacher Education and Development and Pedagogical Innovation) at Cambridge. In 2012, I wrote to Ros on spec. She got back to me the same afternoon. That really started the ball rolling.
I remember her telling me: “For someone like you, the challenge is going to be how to get the most out of Cambridge”. It spoke to exactly what I wanted to do, which was to explore the issue as widely as I needed. For my research, I didn’t just stay in the Faculty – I knocked on doors all over Cambridge. For example, when I realised that I needed to develop a technological solution to the visualisation challenge, I found myself in the Computer Lab talking to colleagues there. That access to wider academic expertise is one of the great advantages of the EdD course at Cambridge.
"You are what you do; what you do is how you spend your time; your time indicates what you value."
Through the research, I developed a calendar-based tool which provides users with a picture of what’s actually happening to time in their work setting
I knew that anything I developed had to be a genuinely supportive tool, which ruled out traditional technology options like building an app. It became clear that the best approach would be to use some form of tool to work with participants over a period of time after the original session. Through these additional sessions, we would explore how to fit their commitment to change into their working world
The model I developed allowed me to visualise how they were spending their time. I started by asking them what percentage of their week was taken up with meetings. Invariably, the answer was 60-80%. Importantly, their remaining ‘free’ space often wasn’t free at all, because other people could put meetings into their diary. Then we looked at questions like how many emails they received a day (usually 70-80), or how many times an hour they were being interrupted, which was often once every two minutes. At this point, the visualisation I developed would often look like an enormous sprawl on the screen. It was clear there was little chance of their commitment to change taking hold in that workplace setting, especially since these ‘times’ had fundamental identity implications for the learner. The question then became, how do we solve this?
Sample of the calendar-based tool developed for the research.
Sample of the calendar-based tool developed for the research.
A perspective change, but also an acceptance that this was not just about individuals, were both part of the solution.
One of the things people said when confronted with this image was that they simply didn’t have room to reflect on their learning. I ended up developing this mantra: You are what you do; what you do is how you spend your time; your time indicates what you value. In other words, if you can’t make time for reflection, what you’re really saying is you don’t value doing so. That perspective-shift was often persuasive in getting people to agree to isolate pockets of time when they would analyse and reflect on their working practices.
The visualisations also showed me that this was not just about the individual: it was about managers and direct reports as well, because it was their expectations that often created demands on the learners’ time. In response, we found ways to kick-start meaningful conversations with these wider networks of co-workers. Rather than focusing solely on the individual, starting to build a culture of support and a sense of group commitment extended the educational experience more broadly into the workplace.
Not only were the results highly encouraging; they ended up winning an award
The participation rate in these follow-up sessions was impressive. After two months it was 92% - typically the expectation was about 30%. On average, the participants’ satisfaction score was 4.7 out of 5. I was also able to present various success stories that evidenced how, through this follow-up programme, individuals had changed their workplace practice and contributed to results and outcomes. Eventually, the company submitted this for a 2019 Brandon Hall Group Human Capital Award for Excellence. It won a gold award, which was real validation for the work.
Barry with his 2019 Brandon Hall Group Human Capital Award for Excellence.
Barry with his 2019 Brandon Hall Group Human Capital Award for Excellence.
The EdD at Cambridge proved a crucial route to pursuing my original research question and bringing these ideas to life
There will always be a space in education for teachers, but for those of us outside ‘traditional’ learning spaces like universities and schools, the EdD route is vital in helping to explore professional interests in a research-informed setting. For me, the EdD programme gives you a real edge – it is about the understanding of use as well as the use of understanding.
When I first thought about how to transfer learning more effectively, I could have commissioned some half-baked consultancy exercise. Instead, the EdD gave me the opportunity to undertake a deep, rigorous study that led to meaningful change. It may take time to develop the work further, but eventually I hope that it will form the basis of a tool that people can use in organisations to ensure that the very best learning is embedded effectively in work settings, even when it comes up against the reality of people’s working lives.
For more information about the EdD programme at Cambridge visit the Faculty website.
Find out more about Barry's work at: BarryRogers.com
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