Fast, Reliable, Impactful: The Flagship LMS Approach

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Christopher Dundy, who is the CEO of Flagship LMS. Welcome.

Christopher Dundy: Thank you, Lee. It’s nice to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about flagship LMS. How are you serving folks?

Christopher Dundy: So we are a learning management system vendor, and we provide not only hosting for learning management systems, specifically the Moodle learning management system, but we also provide administration as well for those organizations that don’t have or are not interested in hiring somebody to manage their learning management system full time.

Lee Kantor: Now, before we get too far into things, do you mind just kind of educating the listener in general terms about what we’re talking about here. Lms and Moodle.

Christopher Dundy: Sure. So a learning management system. A lot of organizations, in fact, the majority of organizations that have remote workers or workers that are in disparate locations have a learning management system, and it’s a piece of software. Most people have been familiar with this. When you come into HR on your first day, they sit you down in front of a computer. Maybe you watch some workplace compliance training, or you watch some sexual harassment training or something along those lines. The learning management system is not the training, it’s the software that the training sits on. It’s the platform that we manage. And so Moodle is an open source platform. It is one of the largest and most used platforms in the world. Everybody from Buckingham Palace to the US federal government to state education associations, large organizations use this platform and it is one that we specialize in.

Lee Kantor: And a lot of times those open source Very popular software systems. Uh, it’s a double edged sword, right? In one side, it’s super flexible, but on the other side, it can. It can make it very complex and tricky for organizations to kind of wring out the most value and use it in the most efficient manner. And that’s why having an expert like you can really simplify things and make things work better.

Christopher Dundy: Absolutely. And Moodle is the most flexible learning management system out there. But as you mentioned, Lee, it can be it can be a beast if you haven’t configured it before or worked with it before to make sure that your particular organization’s needs are being met because it’s so feature rich. So absolutely, having somebody who’s been there before, who’s walked that path, who can guide you through all of the things that are necessary. It’s really important to get the most value out of it.

Lee Kantor: Now, a lot of times when people start using Moodle, do they just try to go at it on their own and they’re kind of cobbling things together and then, you know, they’ll learn something new and then they’ll tack it on and they’re just not efficiently kind of getting the most out of it and is creating kind of headaches down the road as their needs change.

Christopher Dundy: Absolutely. We see that all the time. People think because it’s a free piece of software, that it is an easy thing for them to quickly download and implement without taking into account all the ancillary tasks that are necessary. You’ve got to set up the servers for it. You’ve got to make sure your servers are secured. You’ve got to make sure that the site itself is secured. You have to make sure that it gets updated on a regular basis. There are, you know, 50 or 60 different types of activities that you can use within a course. So which of those are going to be most appropriate to the material that I’m presenting? There is a lot of things that that go into the the thought process behind what you’re going to use that and how you’re going to use that learning management system. And so, um, we take all of that stress and that headache away from the client. You don’t have to to reinvent the wheel. We’re here to walk you through everything step by step, ask you the questions that you need to be asked so that we can understand fully what you’re trying to accomplish, and then we can make it really simple for you.

Lee Kantor: Now, I would imagine ideally, in hindsight, they would have started talking to you before they began. But I would imagine in most cases they’ve already gone down a path.

Christopher Dundy: Yeah, we get a lot of frustrated first time clients, people who’ve tried to implement it before or who have implemented it with, um, consultants or, uh, you know, kind of part time people that they caught off of Upwork and, um, that just doesn’t cut it. You really need to have a dedicated team behind you to, to backstop your training team. Otherwise, um, you’re going to get, you know, kind of a hodgepodge of, of, of answers and information and, and that’s just going to lead to everybody’s, uh, needle moving to the right.

Lee Kantor: So how does, um so how does it work? They come to you. Maybe they’ve gone down that path and they’re frustrated. Like, what are some first, what are some symptoms that maybe they should bring in an expert? Uh, let’s start there.

Christopher Dundy: Yeah. So, um, essentially in my litmus test for, for any client as to whether or not they need a professional to help them with their learning management system is, um, do you feel any stress associated with the management or the implementation of your platform? And if you do, the answer is you need some help because most organizations, um, their core, uh, their, their core tasks, their core, um, um, uh, I spaced out the word that I’m looking for here. Their, their core, um, goals, the things that they do. Well, uh, are not, are not around training or learning management. And they should focus on those core competencies, which is the word I was looking for. Um, they should be focusing on those because those are the things that are going to be driving revenue for their company, uh, in the, in the immediate future. And, um, if you don’t focus on those things, if you start spending your time and energy on learning a new piece of software, where and on trying to figure out if you have no education background, you know what kind of courses are going to be the best for your particular, uh, set of users. Then you’re going to be spending a lot of time from the ground up on tasks that are not, you know, really, really important to what it is that your company, uh, what service or product you’re delivering.

Lee Kantor: And it’s funny because in other areas of the business, they, they, um, delegate this responsibility to others, like when it comes to their accounting, you know, they don’t expect their people to be the accounting software experts.

Christopher Dundy: Yeah, exactly.

Lee Kantor: Like, so why would this be any different? Any type of kind of large scale, uh, utilization of a tool like this? Why wouldn’t you just hire experts to do this right the first time and then stop thinking about it?

Christopher Dundy: No. You’re right. Absolutely. And we get that. Um, we we we see that a lot, and I, I don’t actually have a really good answer for you other than, um, people. In my professional opinion, people look at learning at training and the training, uh, the training team and the training department. They look at that not as a, um, a revenue generating department, but rather they look at it as a cost center. They look at it as, um, some sort of infrastructure that they can, um, just kind of muddle through on their own. Uh, it’s not it is absolutely one of the core levers that your organization needs to be able to move in order to achieve your goals and objectives. If you don’t have a trained workforce, everything else you’re trying to do is just going to go by the wayside. Um, and so but what we don’t see that a lot, a lot of people feel like, ah, the money’s a little tight this quarter. Training is going to be the first thing that we cut. Um, it’s a nice to have. It’s not a need to have. And we’re trying to make sure that the word gets out that it’s exactly the opposite.

Lee Kantor: So then when you’re having these conversations, you’re probably brought on by the HR people, right? Like they’re the ones who need this, uh, to be done. Right.

Christopher Dundy: And I’m really glad that you brought this up, because this is also one of the things that we see quite frequently. And it’s one of the biggest weaknesses that most companies experience. We are typically brought on either by HR or by training, but it’s always by middle management. It’s never by the C-suite. And, um, that is a really difficult concept for organizations to. I think when it comes to training to kind of wrap their heads around organizations, look at, uh, and I get this in a lot of different, um, different. They state it different ways. But it comes down to this training is for them. Training is something that we push to our employees. It’s for our employees to do. But what I never get and what I very seldom, uh, even have a discussion with is training for middle management or C-suite to improve their particular skill sets, or to groom people to move into those particular positions. It’s always compliance related. Um, something to do with, uh, maybe OSHA safety training. It’s always for the grunt level employees. And, um, and that’s, that’s the first implementation. That’s typically where it stops. And it should absolutely be for every single person in the organization. But it has to start with the top providing that leadership by example. You know, the CEO has to be seen to be taking his training. Um, you know, all of the C-suite needs to have courses that are available to them, and they need to be visible, uh, and they need to be seen taking that so that the culture of training can percolate down through the ranks to that lowest level. If you’re pushing it from the ground up, it’s just not going to work. Even from the middle management point. It just doesn’t work very well.

Lee Kantor: Well, it’s interesting you bring this up because I interview a lot of business coaches and they’re they’re feeling that more and more organizations are understanding the importance of coaching when it comes to, uh, the whole team, not just, you know, certain groups of people. And typically coaching has started at the top and hasn’t gone down to, you know, kind of the frontline workers. Uh, is there a place where both the kind of these learning management systems and coaching can kind of come together in some manner to maybe have more online coaching and, um, you know, is there a place where they’re going to intersect?

Christopher Dundy: That’s a great question. So my my philosophy on training is if you, as a member of the organization, have to say something more than once, it belongs on a learning management system. And so as an example of this, as the, um, the common example that a lot of people see, um, if you go to work for a, for an organization, um, I worked for one many years ago where, uh, every Monday morning, all the new people who were hired that week or who started that week would join an HR member in the conference room, and they would go over policies and documents and these kinds of things. And that same HR person, that was their job, and that’s what they did every single week, was prepare the training for the next week and then deliver that training. And you know what a ridiculous waste of time and money and personal effort. You know, all of that could have been recorded in a, you know, a nice easy format put online. And then, you know, you can put your new employees through that, uh, time permitting. And I think coaching to bring this back to your question is, uh, something very similar to that. If you’re hiring a coach, a lot of it is going to be sort of one on one meeting the needs of that particular executive wherever they happen to be in their development. But I think a lot of the messaging that the coaching is going to be getting across is pretty standard. Uh, a lot of the skill sets are going to be pretty standard at the C-suite. And so those types of things should be arguably captured and put onto a learning management system so that you can quickly and easily put large groups of people through those. Uh, and then you give that the benefit of that coaching to a large number of people rather than to just a select few, and it’ll cut down ultimately on the amount of money you have to spend on coaches as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you saying that actually happening, or is that kind of in your head the way it could be?

Christopher Dundy: Uh, it’s the way it should be, definitely. Um, I don’t see as much training dedicated to the C-suites. We’ve got a lot of clients, and, um, we have clients who are putting training out there for the, uh, the salespeople. They’re putting training out there for those people who are acting as, uh, call center representatives and walking people through, um, you know, different types of products and which product might be best for them, um, or how to implement a particular product. But I don’t see a ton of training related to, um, the leadership of an organization and how to sustain that leadership, you know, over a five, six, seven, ten year period.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you go in and start working with the organization, is the scope of your work, like, okay, we’re just kind of putting the nuts and bolts of this together, or are you kind of delving into the possibilities of this type of training, you know, for the executive suite?

Christopher Dundy: No, that’s a great question. So we do two types of we have two types of packages. One package is just our pure hosting package. And that is we’ll set up the platform and maintain it for you. We’ll ensure that it’s secure. Um, and those are for organizations that already have a solid training team in place. They’ve got administrators in place that are familiar with the software or are willing to learn the software. And, uh, they can pretty much handle things on their own. But more and more, what I’m seeing is clients who are taking us up on our second package as well. And the second package is our administration package. And with that, we do all of the things that we’ve just discussed. So we are actually a working member of your training team. We will join your training calls every week. We will listen to what initiatives are being rolled out, what your goals and objectives are, and then based on the experience that we’ve gleaned over the last eight years as a company and, you know, 17 years for me personally working in the in the industry, we will go through and make suggestions and recommendations about ways that you can better utilize your system, uh, in order to be able to, you know, perhaps achieve goals that you haven’t thought about yet. Um, and to try and, you know, get those other groups that are underrepresented in the learning management system on board with, you know, courses that will will help them develop.

Lee Kantor: So if you do, you typically start with kind of I’m just going to build the bones of this. And then they learn more about how you can help them on the other side, or vice versa.

Christopher Dundy: Well, there’s always a, uh, an exploratory call where we sit down and talk with, uh, typically, again, HR members, uh, HR managers or managers on the training team and get a feel for where they are at as an organization. And then based on that, we can make recommendations. Um, there is always a scaffolding process that that occurs. Um, typically, you know, we will want to start with the basic training that is going to be that they’ve already got and all organizations have this, whether that training is on some other learning management system that we’re doing a data migration from, or whether it happens to be just, you know, documentation that somebody has in a PowerPoint or a PDF. Um, but whatever it is, we take whatever is existing and we try and get that up as rapidly as we can. Uh, and once we get that, uh, Um, in a, in a position where it can be consumed by the, you know, the majority of the people who need it. Then and only then would we start to extend the capabilities to these other groups.

Lee Kantor: So how quickly can that situation be triaged and say.

Christopher Dundy: We can typically, depending on how well organized the the company is, we can turn a learning management system on and get the first course or two up and usually about a week. Uh, and we’re, we’re very, very good at that. Now, we’ve had organizations that have taken an implementation time of a year, and they’ve done that at their own behest. They’ve they’ve wanted to, you know, go through with a fine tooth comb, and they’ve wanted to have 150 courses online before they rolled anything out to the individual user in the company. But most organizations that we see want to do this faster rather than slower, so that they can get a quick return on the dollar.

Lee Kantor: Now, what are some of the kind of maybe, Um, from a customer standpoint, they don’t know what they don’t know. What are some of the costs of a clunky LMS?

Christopher Dundy: Oh yeah. There’s well, so there the, the cost that most people don’t see, um, are associated with friction and frustration. So if an employee cannot get into their training or for whatever reason, that training is not being completed, we see this a lot with a Scorm package. Um, and we can talk more about Scorm because that’s my the bane of my existence. But uh, if they’re not being able to complete that training quickly, you’re paying the employees to sit in front of that computer. And if they can’t get it done, if they can’t get it done in a timely manner, that’s costing you the organization money. We don’t typically account for that. Um, but the knock on effects of that, uh, in addition to the, to the, uh, to the financial cost, are the inability that employee to finish their regular job because they’ve got other tasks, you know, that that everybody’s got other tasks they’ve got to do, but they have to knock out this training, whatever it happens to be. So, um, the friction of that and then the frustration of the individual when they can’t get their training done or they can’t get it done quickly or they don’t feel like it’s giving them a good return, uh, will keep them from, number one, recommending that learning management system, that training to anybody else in the organization. But number two, it will keep them from seeking out additional training which could benefit them in their job or could potentially provide them an avenue for a lateral move into a different job or into a promotion.

Christopher Dundy: Um, we see this a lot in organizations. About the three year mark is a really important time period in an employee’s life cycle, because at that three year mark, the employee is comfortable enough with their own job that it’s not as challenging anymore, and they start to look for other things. But if you don’t have a good pathway marked out for that employee inside your organization, whether it’s a pathway again, laterally into another department or another type of job, or whether it’s, you know, moving up into a position with more responsibility or maybe a management position if you don’t have that clearly articulated. And the easiest way to do that is in a learning management system, that employee is going to start to look for other opportunities at other companies, and they’re going to take that, uh, corporate knowledge that they’ve worked so hard to, to achieve. And they’re going to, you know, sell that to the highest bidder. And unfortunately, we see that a lot. And it’s totally preventable because most employees would rather stay in the same organization, um, than move. It’s just a pain in the neck to move and start over again somewhere else. So you can avoid all of that. If you have a good training program in place that shows an employee a career path or a trajectory that they can, um, that they can progress upon.

Lee Kantor: Now, is this a case where kind of senior leadership is just seeing, uh, training and, and these kind of activities as just checking boxes. I got to do this and they’re not seeing kind of the value and the upside and all of these ancillary benefits that can happen if you put in place an elegant, robust learning system.

Christopher Dundy: Well, yes, I agree with that statement. It is viewed as a check in the box for most employers. And I think part of that problem comes from the fact that they have not established, um, their metrics for evaluating the ROI. I’ll give you an example. Um, in California, all so we work with the California Grocers Association, uh, their educational foundation, and they are the umbrella group for all grocers, um, and grocery organizations in California. So they’re responsible for ensuring that organizations have up to date information on all the legislation that’s affecting them. And one of the things that they are mandated, every worker is mandated to go through an hour plus worth of sexual harassment training. And so this organization provides that. And most companies do it because it’s a check in the box. You have to do it. The state says you have to do it. But what you should be doing is you should be looking at, uh, the metrics associated with that training to determine what effect it’s actually having for your organization. So how many instances of sexual harassment did you have last year? How much did that cost you in terms of legal, um, issues or settlements or, you know, what were. And then after the employees have completed that training, what was your follow up? Did you did you see any kind of cost savings because of that training? And this is just one example, but you should be doing these kinds of metrics for every single course that you’ve got. So whether it’s a safety course, whether it’s some any kind of compliance training, but you can also measure metrics for soft skills. You know, there are lots of ways to do that as well. But you should be getting the ROI for each individual course so you can see which ones are effective and moving the needle for your company and which ones, quite frankly, are just kind of a waste of time for people. And we don’t see a lot of people organizations focused on the ROI for individual courses.

Lee Kantor: But when you have them for the compliance related learning that they have to go through, isn’t that an opportunity to at least make them aware, make the the employee aware of these other things, like you’ll know if if John Smith is taking this check the box, um, training they have to take. But you can see they’re in, you know, junior sales person. Isn’t there an opportunity then to go, hey John Smith, do you want to learn more about, you know, learn these skills that might get you promoted to the, you know, a senior sales associate? Like, isn’t there opportunities to take when you’re doing the kind of check the box, learning to at least, um, tickle them with the opportunity to learn more in other areas that might benefit them directly where there’s, you know, that can put money in their pocket if they learn more and grow more. And that’ll help the organization, like we said earlier, be more sticky and help them, um, you know, keep and retain these people instead of them kind of having one foot out the door.

Christopher Dundy: That is a huge benefit. Uh, the the thing that prevents that from occurring in most organizations is that it takes sustained consecutive thought. Most organizations are quick to put up a course because they have to put up the course, but it takes a, it takes a, a very conscientious effort to sit down and say, okay, what’s next after they take this course, where could they go? And to step by step create that potential pathway. And a lot of times the training is being put onto the learning management system by middle management who doesn’t really have, um, the the bird’s eye view that they would need to necessarily plan out a career progression through the organization. So a lot of that gets missed. And you’re absolutely right. It should be. It’s a perfect opportunity to say to somebody, look, you’ve done this first course and now, you know, based on this, you could do these other three things which will bring you to that senior level or to that, um, you know, to that next step in your, in your career. But I’ll be honest with you, I don’t see a lot of it. And, and here’s, here’s where I think we come in because we are not involved in the day to day activities of your organization, and therefore we are not overwhelmed by all the other stuff that you’ve got going on.

Christopher Dundy: We can ask those questions. We can say, okay, what is the next thing that this employee can do? We did this actually, um, at the Peace Corps in Washington, D.C. we put out a and this is actually, uh, prior to my launching this company, this was something that I did when I was the learning management system administrator at the Peace Corps. Um, we put out a huge block of butcher paper in the entryway of the Peace Corps building. It was probably 25ft long, and for a week every morning, we were there with coffee and donuts. Every time an employee came in, we said, you know, want a cup of coffee? You want a donut? Now, this butcher block piece of paper represents the life cycle of the average volunteer and the life cycle of the average administration person. Tell us in your department what training you have and where it occurs on this life cycle. And over the course of a week, we were able to map out all of the courses that existed within the Peace Corps and where and when they occurred, and how many then were not on the learning management system, but were just being administered within a particular department. And using that information, we could then consolidate that and make it a much more transparent training organization. So I was kind of proud of that.

Lee Kantor: Well, I think it’s critical. I mean, if you if you take your thesis that this is a critically important work that you’re doing and that the organization should be doing, then you have to give your employees the same experience they have when they go on Amazon to say, if you like this, you might like this. Like. Like that’s just kind of table stakes nowadays when you’re dealing with software, I think that you have to help the user take the next step. And if you if you believe which I believe, you believe that this learning is critical. This is not nice to have. This is must have. So if you take control of the learning and have some more holistic view of what you’re doing here, if you’re going through all of the trouble of building this out, don’t make it kind of this, uh, this kind of minimum requirement thing, make it as robust and as, um, and get wring out as much value from this activity as you possibly can.

Christopher Dundy: You’re, you’re you’re right. That is what needs to happen. And that is what should happen. And I love the comparison of training to Amazon because it should be just that simple. The employees should quickly be able to go and find a list of all the things that apply to them. They should be able to one click enroll in those particular courses. The courses themselves should be interesting, and we can come back to talk a little bit about that, because I have seen so much incredibly bad, uh, online learning, just mind deadening, spirit crushing, uh, compliance training that. Um, and there’s lots of better ways to do that. But, yes, it should be quick. It should be easy. It should follow the consumer model that we have grown accustomed to with online shopping. It does not in most cases. And that is simply because we’re not viewing the activity of training in the same way that we view, um, the shopping experience. We’re we’re getting a dopamine hit from shopping, and we are definitely not getting a dopamine hit from our online training.

Lee Kantor: It’s almost the opposite. You’re getting a dopamine effect.

Christopher Dundy: Yeah, I don’t know if there is a negative dopamine, but yes, we get that from a lot of people. Um, and I have been through, you know, the worst training you can possibly imagine. And I it just boggles my mind that people would put this on their learning management system and expect somebody else to take it, because there’s no way they would themselves sit through it if they didn’t have to.

Lee Kantor: Right. And I think it goes back to your original kind of the original topic of this, why it’s critically important to have an expert like you and your team come in and do this, or at least assist in doing this because you need fresh eyes on this, this, this, this can’t be your grandfather’s training. Like, you know, in the world of Netflix and Amazon, people have a different expectation when it comes to content consumption and and dealing with software. This can’t be what it was. There’s a it’s a new world now, and especially with the attention span that people have nowadays, it’s you got to work a little harder to engage people and keep them coming back and wanting to do more.

Christopher Dundy: That’s totally true. In the history of e-learning, there has never been a person who has come home on a Friday night and cracked open a beer and said, wow, this is great. Now I get to sit down and relax with my compliance training. Um, it just it’s never happened and it could happen. Realistically, it might not be as enthusiastic as I’ve portrayed it, but but it certainly can be something that is both enjoyable and instructional, and it just requires a it requires an organization who has seen the same mistakes a thousand times over. And we absolutely have. Um, it’s every organization starts from the exact same place, whether regardless of the industry, you could be a manufacturing industry, you could be, um, you could be, uh, in the education sector, it doesn’t matter. Every organization starts from the same point, and they all progress through the same, uh, trials and tribulations until they get to a point, which I think is and we’ve got some organizations that I think have achieved sort of the, the upper level of, of of training. It’s it’s organized, it’s efficient, it’s good. Um, it’s it requires thought on the part of the user rather than just sitting and staring mindlessly at a video and clicking the next button. Um, it’s so I think there are organizations out there who have done it, but they’re few and far between. So an organization like us who can help you walk through that and speed up that process to to get you to that end result is really important. It’s a good investment, I think.

Lee Kantor: And it just takes a mindset shift. You have to look at this differently, like it can’t be seen as just a check the box thing that we just have to do. It has to be something like, we’re going to lean into this, we’re already doing it. Let’s just get the most value out of it, and let’s hire an expert to help us do that instead of just do the same old, same old. I think the especially younger employees are just need that nowadays. They don’t have the patience or tolerance of of just a lousy experience. They don’t have to do that anywhere else. Why would they want to do it at their workplace?

Christopher Dundy: Well, you’re right, Lee and the but the initial mindset, the initial change has to happen from the C-suite and it has to be training is and from middle management as well. But it has to be training is for us. Right now it’s training is for them. And I’m not so concerned about what their feelings are or their experience is. If I have to take it myself now, there’s going to be a bit of a bit more interest in how we’re presenting that. And, and, um, when and all those other things. But if the and most middle managers are not going to be taking e-learning. Most middle managers are going to be pushing that down to their employees, their sales departments, their accounting departments, all of those people, and let them deal with it. And I see this again and again and again. But that’s the mindset. If it’s for them, we’ll make it okay if it’s for us, meaning I’ve got to do this as well. Hey, now let’s put some time and thought into this.

Lee Kantor: Well, if there’s an organization out there that wants to uplevel their learning and wants to have a conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Christopher Dundy: I’d absolutely love to talk with you. There is absolutely no there’s no cost to talk with us. And we’ll talk as long as you want to kind of get a handle on what you’re learning needs are and if we’re going to be a good fit for you. But, uh, if you’d like to talk with us, flagship LMS is our site, and there’s a button right there. You can schedule a free call with us. Um, again, we can talk as long as you want. I’m happy to just even hear what it is that you’re doing. Um, because anything associated with e-learning is kind of a fun thing for me to to converse about.

Lee Kantor: Well, I really enjoyed the conversation and congratulations on all the success. I think you’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Christopher Dundy: Well, thank you so much, Lee. It was a pleasure being here.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.