In this episode of Punk Rock HR, I’m joined by Sean Stowers, CEO and chief learning officer of WeLearn. Sean is a part of the creative team of learning professionals on a mission to build better humans through learning.
In this conversation, Sean and I discuss his belief in modernizing the learning experience to be more relevant, beautiful and engaging for all professionals. “I’m a great person to sit with and talk about the challenges that you’re trying to solve and to figure out, is learning really the right thing?” Sean shares. “And if it is the right thing, how do we go about solving that learning challenge in a really novel way?”
I thoroughly enjoyed this talk because if you’re learning, you’re growing, and if you’re growing, you’re thriving — and that’s what life is about.
Punk Rock HR is proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is a B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head over to thestarrconspiracy.com.
Blast From the Past
I’ve taken my fair share of training courses. In many of them, the backgrounds are brown and taupe, people are rocking the shoulder pads, and it just looks outdated. In reality, many of them are stuck in the ’90s, and while that was an iconic era, these training courses are lacking in their appearance.
My first thought was that training has a lack of funding, which is true, but Sean says that also it comes down to how things are done. “I think, number one, is there are a lot of organizations that are kind of stuck in doing things the way that they’ve always done it,” he says. “I do think that the past two years, two and a half years, is starting to break that up, and people are starting to go, ‘Wait, we can do things differently.’”
This change in mindset has led to a shift in funding, especially as more affordable options become available for recording trainings. While the financial aspect is improving, staying stuck in the past won’t help modernize learning in your workforce. That’s why Sean and his team are determined to help these companies break away from the mold.
“I just think a lot of organizations stay kind of stuck in their lane and aren’t always sure how to break out and try something new,” Sean says. “And what we’re trying to do and in our messaging is to find the people that are looking to break out of that, and they’re starting to find us, and we’re having great conversations.”
Bringing Learning Into the Now
WeLearn is a learning and workforce development company that is on a mission to modernize how we learn in the workplace. Remember, many internal training courses haven’t changed in years, which affects how employees retain information they’re being taught. Sean and his team are working to create better, more effective learning experiences.
“What we do is in creating really beautiful custom content experiences, predominantly that are digital. And so we believe that learning can be modern, beautiful, engaging and relevant,” he says. Sean and his team strive to make the content better and more beautiful to create a better experience.
“Beautiful in terms of its functions as the modern web experience function for you as a user, but actually also beautiful in terms of the art and the visuals and how that evokes emotion and tells a story,” he says.
Sean is working to create training videos that people will sit through without clicking ahead. “We often joke that we are on a mission to kill the ‘back’ and ‘next’ button. So we believe in using modern principles of modern web experience to bring learning to life,” he says.
Investing in the Future
All HR professionals must think differently about learning strategy and investment, including in aligning it with diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging efforts. Learning and DEIB budgets are often separated from each other, but Sean explains it’s essential to understand that both work together.
“When you do think about learning and development, we seek to make sure that the learning that we develop, the visuals that we develop, that every learner sees themselves in it,” he says. “So we work very hard to ensure visually that there is representation in the solutions that we develop for our clients. I think we can be that bridge.”
Sean and his team take the time to incorporate DEIB and learning principles when working with clients, but he also emphasizes the importance of investing in mental health and wellbeing with your learning strategy. Companies need to provide strong employee assistance programs, but they also need to provide a safe way into those offerings.
“I think the thing about investing in training in those ways makes it OK for the conversation to happen in the organization,” he says.
[bctt tweet=”‘What we do is in creating really beautiful custom content experiences, predominantly that are digital.’ ~ @seanstowers, CEO and chief learning officer at @WeLearnls. Listen in to the latest episode of #PunkRockHR to learn more!” via=”no”]
People in This Episode
Full Transcript
Laurie Ruettimann:
This episode of Punk Rock HR is sponsored by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is the B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head on over to thestarrconspiracy.com.
Hey, everybody. I’m Laurie Ruettimann. Welcome back to Punk Rock HR. My guest today is Sean Stowers. He’s the CEO and chief learning officer of WeLearn. He’s part of a creative team of learning professionals that are on a mission to build better humans through learning. In today’s conversation, I talked to Sean about how he believes that learning can be beautiful, relevant, engaging and modern. You know I love that because if you’re learning, you’re growing, and if you’re growing, you’re thriving — and that’s what life is all about. So join me today as I talk to Sean about learning and more on this week’s episode of Punk Rock HR.
Hey Sean, welcome to the podcast.
Sean Stowers:
Hey Laurie, thanks for having me.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Oh my God, no problem. I’m excited you’re here. Before we get started, why don’t you tell everybody who you are and what you’re all about?
Sean Stowers:
Sure. My name is Sean Stowers, and I am the CEO and founder of a company called WeLearn. We are a learning and workforce development company. And really what that means is I get up every day and go to work with a bunch of people that I love to work with and do really cool stuff. And all of that is in the service of building better humans through learning.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Oh, that’s awesome. Well, listen, I believe in continuous learning. I believe, as you know, when you’re learning, you’re growing and when you’re growing, you’re thriving, and that’s the point of life. But before we start talking about your platform, your organization, I know that you haven’t always felt like you were working at your best, you were learning. So what was your life like before you became a founder and a CEO?
Sean Stowers:
I’ve been in the learning space since the late ‘90s, and I started at IBM. And, at that time when IBM was making their pivot into services, I actually often say, I learned everything I could learn about selling services at IBM. And from there, I went to work for a global publishing company. I liken it to working for the evil empire, except I was with the Rebel Alliance on Endor with the Ewoks. And you know what? I think, to be honest, I had both some of the best professional development, professional experiences there, and honestly, some of my worst. I liken some of my time there to kind of watching what happens when a star dies inside of an organization, which is kind of crazy. But [I] certainly recognize that I wasn’t probably my best self at certain times there and, certainly towards the end of my tenure there, recognized that yeah, you know what? There had to be a better world.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, I love the story because there’s humility in there, there’s a recognition that you learned things the hard way. Your passion is learning. And so all of us in this world who want to help people learn often focus on opportunities and professional development, but I’m struck by how the most impactful moments of learning for me have been through the school of hard knocks. Like, I learn things the hard way. So before we talk about the future of learning, talk to me about learning through failure, because really, I don’t know if there’s another way.
Sean Stowers:
Yeah. You know what? I love that question. And I will share one of the learning through failure that I had, and I think it was one of the first times I was given the responsibility of interviewing candidates to come in and join our organization. And we were interviewing candidates, and we were working in an organization where it was all hands on deck. Everyone kind of pitched in to do the work. And the feedback came back to me where I was told I couldn’t interview candidates anymore because I was stressing the candidates out because I was portraying a lack of work-life balance. And my response was, “But I’m only telling them what it takes to do the job that I’m doing every day.” But it was like this interesting moment where you kind of are getting this feedback going, “Hey, you’re not portraying what we want you to tell people the job is.” And so I think it was then I began to realize that honesty is sometimes not always valued, and you have to be aware of that.
The other kind of point of failure that I learned from pretty early in my career was the nebulous “you have communication issues” during performance evaluations. And having three years in a row of that and kind of asking questions about that and not getting any sort of great feedback on what that meant other than, there’s someone in the company that doesn’t like you who’s being very vocal about it, which is kind of an interesting point. So those are two places where, I think, failure and having negative feedback really set me out to kind of go, how do I do this differently? How do I show up differently? How do I make sure that I’m communicating effectively?
Laurie Ruettimann:
You know, it’s so funny that you talked about communication issues because, who is born a natural communicator, right? And I also have been told that I’m not the greatest conversationalist. A couple years ago, I heard that, which prompted me to want to get better at it, which is why I started this podcast. I wanted to get curious, ask better questions, learn how to talk to people. But I also realize that sometimes feedback is terrible, and feedback comes with an agenda, right? So you don’t always learn from that negative feedback that you get at work.
Sean Stowers:
I will share with you, when I was going through my transformation from being an employee of someone else to being founder, I had a great opportunity to go through coaching with a former client of mine. One of the things that she really encouraged me to do was go out and talk to people that worked with me, that were working for me, about who I was as a leader. It was really interesting because I had to sit in my discomfort of feedback and intimate feedback before I went and had those conversations. And I had to go out, and I selected three people — and people who had both really great working experiences with me, but also knew me when I wasn’t necessarily my best — and had to ask for very specific feedback about who I was as a leader.
And it was very interesting because I had to sit in my discomfort for what that act of asking for feedback was and saying to my friends and my colleagues like, “Hey, I need you to be really honest with me because this is part of who I need to become as a leader moving forward.” And thankfully, it was approached with a ton of love and trust and honesty, but it was also a lesson of sitting in your discomfort with something, which sometimes is really that reflection — that sitting in your discomfort is really important to learning and making it stick.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Oh, for sure. You know, I think about the journey from working for other people to working for yourself, and I think it’s smart that you went out and got a ton of feedback to make that entrepreneurial journey, but why you? Why did you think that you could start a learning company?
Sean Stowers:
Because there’s a ridiculously low barrier of entry to do it. Let’s just be honest, there’s a ridiculously —
Laurie Ruettimann:
Why not you? I guess, is the answer.
Sean Stowers:
Yeah. There’s a ridiculously low barrier of entry to do it. You know what? When I was in high school, I thought I was going to be a politician. I thought I was going to run for office. And you know what I love about learning and what I do is I get to help people, and that’s the foundation of this. And you know what? I’m a student of this profession. I love everything about it. Most of my career has been spent on the business development side.
Sean Stowers:
I often joke, I am not an instructional designer, but I play one on TV. I think I am a great learning strategist. I’m a great person to sit with and talk about the challenges that you’re trying to solve and to figure out, is learning really the right thing? And if it is the right thing, how do we go about solving that learning challenge in a really novel way? I think I’m super-great at that. And I say that as someone who, by the way, doesn’t have a college degree, but has spent the better part of my career doing exactly this. And so I think that’s “why me?” But again, there’s a ridiculously low barrier of entry to do this. There’s that, too.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Same thing to being a podcaster. Come on, you know it’s not all that hard. Well, let’s talk a little bit about WeLearn. Tell me what it is and what problem it’s trying to solve.
Sean Stowers:
So we’re a learning and workforce development company, and really the heart and soul of what we do is in creating really beautiful custom content experiences, predominantly that are digital. And so we believe that learning can be modern, beautiful, engaging and relevant. And I think a lot of times as employees, we know when we show up to that course, we know the course that’s developed internally, we know the course that’s developed by the vendor. Typically, the difference is you get a little better stock art from the vendor than you do in the internal course. And you know what? I think we set out to say, “that experience has got to be so much better than that.” And so we often joke that we are on a mission to kill the ‘back’ and ‘next’ button. So we believe in using modern principles of modern web experience to bring learning to life.
Laurie Ruettimann:
So is that what you mean by beautiful? Because you’re right. I mean, when I think about a training course, I do think of “back” and “next.”
Sean Stowers:
Uh-huh.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah.
Sean Stowers:
So beautiful, yes, beautiful in terms of it functions as the modern web experience function for you as a user, but actually also beautiful in terms of the art and the visuals and how that evokes emotion and tells a story. So for us, it is not uncommon for us to do something really cool. Like, we have a client where we Easter-egged the client’s tattoo into the course, and it may only make a difference to that one person, but they see themselves in that course.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah. So why do you think training has been so stuck in the ‘90s, even though we’re no longer in the ‘90s, because if we were, I would be younger, right? But when I take a lot of training courses, it looks brown and taupe, and people are wearing shoulder pads, and not in a retro kind of cool way. So why is stuff stuck back in the ‘90s? Is it just money?
Sean Stowers:
Yeah, I think it’s a couple of things. I think, number one, is there are a lot of organizations that are kind of stuck in doing things the way that they’ve always done it. I do think that the past two years, two and a half years, is starting to break that up and people are starting to go, “Wait, we can do things differently.”
I think that in some cases, some of the media, the ability to develop media, the cost of developing video has gone down and ultimately, what’s acceptable in terms of video. So now, you and I could do this sort of conversation, record this as a training piece, do a little bit of editing, and put this out there. And it’s not the beautiful studio-produced video, but this is totally acceptable. I think that some of the costs and strategies for producing media are coming down, and so I think that some of those things are going to change. But I just think a lot of organizations stay kind of stuck in their lane and aren’t always sure how to break out and try something new. And what we’re trying to do and in our messaging is to find the people that are looking to break out of that, and they’re starting to find us, and we’re having great conversations.
Laurie Ruettimann:
So when you work with your client, are you partnering with executives? Are you partnering with heads of divisions, or are you working with chief learning officers? Because there’s such an interesting way to get at the heart of a learning strategy, right? You can do it internally, you can outsource some of it, you can buy some of it, you can build it on your own. So I just wonder, how do you work with your clients?
Sean Stowers:
So, all of the above, and what I would say is our clients come from both corporate America and then also from the association space, so member-based organizations. So we’re working with, in some cases, the chief learning officer, the head of education, the head of professional development. In other cases, we’re being brought in by a CHRO or a CLO to talk about strategy. I think one of the things that we try to think about with the strategy is there’s a lot of options for folks to go out and find learning strategy. We tend to think that we are more actionable and perhaps a bit more affordable than some of the other options.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Oh, you’re not just out there making suggestions that nobody can afford and that are totally unreasonable? I’m shocked. I’m shocked to hear this.
Sean Stowers:
Well, I think you’ve probably had this experience where you go to some of the — let’s just say bigger firms — where you can ask them all the same questions, and you’re basically going to get the same information back with just varying degrees of pretty PowerPoint deck. I think that we recognize that not every organization can afford that or wants that
Laurie Ruettimann:
If I work in human resources and I’m a chief people officer, are there specific things I ought to be thinking of for my learning strategy in 2022 and beyond? What’s required and what’s nice to have?
Sean Stowers:
Yeah. So I think that there are some things for me that are really beginning to emerge, that I think the investment in learning in these areas need to be thought about differently. I think DEI — diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging — needs to be thought about differently. It needs to have a solid investment. It needs to have real investment in the learning solution. While you may have a head of DEI and belonging, learning has a seat at the table in funding and developing those solutions and ensuring that they get out. And it cannot be, “we are going to fix, insert whatever group we’re trying to address the lens of diversity through, and we’re going to provide programming.” So I think diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, something that we have to invest differently in.
Laurie Ruettimann:
You’re right. I think often, we’ve got a sliced-off diversity inclusion, equity, belonging function. Then we have a sliced-off learning function and never the two shall meet. Do you operate as a bridge between the two? Is that something that you do often?
Sean Stowers:
We would like to see ourselves doing that. I think one of the ways that we do that in our own way, and I think this is something when you do think about learning and development, we seek to make sure that the learning that we develop, the visuals that we develop, that every learner sees themselves in it. So we work very hard to ensure visually that there is representation in the solutions that we develop for our clients. I think we can be that bridge.
The other one, I think, is mental health and wellbeing. I just think that there’s a lot of organizations post-pandemic [that] really realize this. Mental health and wellbeing, I think that’s one. And then, I think this idea of burnout and resiliency — and by the way, we have a great partner, a former chief people officer who has created a program for burnout and resiliency, because as she described, she was having her own mental health crisis and basically couldn’t find resources for herself because she was not an alcoholic or drug addict.
And again, here’s the thing, you take a step back and you can go, “Well, hey, we provide an EAP for that.” Sure. And if someone can find that EAP and navigate the website and maybe talk to someone who thinks they can help, that’s one thing. But I think the thing about investing in training in those ways makes it OK for the conversation to happen in the organization. The EAP to me feels too punitive. Like, I don’t want to call that because what if someone finds out that I called? What happens to my job?
Laurie Ruettimann:
Sure, or your point about navigating the complexities of the EAP is something that we’ve talked about on Punk Rock HR. And I think there’s a time and a place for calling the EAP, but if there’s an online learning module to help you with burnout, to help you with having difficult conversations, to help you with navigating the world of caregiving, why wouldn’t we offer that as a complimentary offering to the EAP? It’s not “either or,” it’s “all of the above.”
Sean Stowers:
Absolutely. So I see those as three really big things that learning organizations should really be focusing on.
Laurie Ruettimann:
You know, one of the things that I think learning organizations ought to also be focusing on is gratitude. This is something that’s been on my mind for years. And so there’s all this energy in the space about gratitude, recognition that’s been going on even pre-COVID, but to really help people understand that gratitude doesn’t just make work better, it makes life better. So talk to me a little bit about gratitude.
Sean Stowers:
First of all, I love that because it’s one of our north star values here, and we tend to say thank you to each other a lot and thank you to our clients and be thankful for the work. The point about teaching gratitude inside of organizations is exactly right. Because I think that, too often, we get into this mindset of, why I’m not going to say thank you to someone? They’re just doing their job. That mentality — and I’ll give you a real example about this.
In another part of my professional life, we had this rockstar kick-ass development team, and I just knew that it was important to recognize members of the team. And I would send feedback to the senior leader over this team, and the response that I would always get, it wasn’t this, “Hey, I’m going to forward this onto the team and let them see that, hey, you’ve given this feedback.” Which wasn’t what it was about for me, but I never saw that it went, but I would always get this response back going, “Well, they were doing their jobs.” And I’m like, “Wow!” That to me is so fundamentally off of who I am as a human being, and I just would never understand it. And so I think that if we begin to teach this idea that you can express gratitude to individuals, to teams, as a way of supporting this great culture of people, I think that’s so huge because it’s so important to us and to the point that we don’t work for people that we don’t think have gratitude.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, I mean, that’s the beauty of being an entrepreneur. And I also, as you were talking about gratitude, one of the things I was thinking about is that this idea of learning is so important as it relates to gratitude, but a lot of different topics, because what we teach at work can be brought home. And for many of us, we were not — I was not raised in a culture of gratitude in my house. And so learning about gratitude, I think has made me a better sister, a better partner, a better wife in this world. Recognizing that you say thank you even for the basic things in this world, just because it’s important to say thank you. It’s been a game-changer for me. So it’s not just gratitude, but the other things that I’ve learned at work and been able to take home have just been life-changing. So I don’t know what you think about that.
Sean Stowers:
I think that corporate learning can be a great strategy for those of us who weren’t always raised right.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah.
Sean Stowers:
I relate. There are things in my life. I think I was raised right, but there are things in my life where I go, “You know what? I’ve learned this in my professional life, it carries over to home.” And so I totally agree with that. Well, here’s the thing: I think in so many things that we teach, communication skills, negotiation skills — I will say, I once heard from a former boss that the best class of negotiation was having a 2-year-old because they have no concept of losing. It is “what I want” and that’s all that matters. But I do think that there is so much of what we teach inside of organizations that does carry over to personal lives. So I totally agree.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Amazing. Well, as we start to wrap up the conversation, I’m real curious about what’s next for WeLearn because you’ve created a beautiful platform, you’re out there, you’re interacting with clients and prospects, talking about the future of learning. What does 2022 and 2023 look like for your organization?
Sean Stowers:
That’s a great question. I think that we are going to continue to grow, take on really interesting novel projects and that, ultimately, that the organizations that we work with are going to be positively impacted by what we bring to the table, both in terms of the solutions that we deliver, by our philosophy — again, rooted in generosity — and our ability to bring beauty and learning together.
Laurie Ruettimann:
That’s really great. Well, I’m so happy for all of your success. I’m excited about your trajectory and I’m grateful you are a guest today. If people want to learn more, Sean, where should they go?
Sean Stowers:
Great question. So I’m on Twitter. So I’m Sean Stowers on Twitter. We are also WeLearnLS on Twitter, and then our website is welearnls.com.
Laurie Ruettimann:
We’ll make sure we have all that good stuff in the show notes. And again, thank you for being a guest today. It was a real pleasure.
Sean Stowers:
Laurie, thank you for having me. This was a great time. Thank you.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Hey, everybody. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Punk Rock HR. We are proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is the B2B marketing agency for innovative brands, creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head on over to thestarrconspiracy.com.
Punk Rock HR is produced and edited by Rep Cap with special help from Michael Thibodeaux and Devon McGrath. For more information, show notes, links and resources, head on over to punkrockhr.com. Now, that’s all for today and I hope you enjoyed it. We’ll see you next time on Punk Rock HR.