Episode 8: Choice Hotels' Tim Tobin on Bouncing Back From Setbacks

01/11/19 • 60 min

Among the many goals organizations have for their learning and development team, building resilience and agility are near the top. Companies want agile leaders and nimble employees able to rapidly adjust to changing business conditions. For CLOs, building those capabilities is a critical part of the mission.

For Tim Tobin, that mission became personal. After several successful years as a learning executive, he found himself on the outside looking in after a corporate reorganization at Marriott. How he bounced back after losing his job and what he learned in the process now inform his work as the head of learning for Choice Hotels International, the company behind a dozen hospitality brands including Comfort Inn, Cambria Suites and Econolodge.

In this podcast recorded live in Washington D.C., Tim shares what setbacks have taught him about himself as well as the critical importance of paying attention to relationships and not just results in the quest to be a successful learning leader.

Thank you to our episode sponsors:

This episode of the CLO Breakfast Club Podcast is brought to by Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. Learn how you can partner with Georgetown to create a one-of-a-kind executive development program for your leaders at choosegeorgetown.com/clo.

This episode is also brought to you by DXC Technology and Bridge, the makers of Practice.

DXC Technology human capital management solutions are powering the next-gen workplace. Learn more by visiting dxc.technology.

Practice can scale the competency and confidence of your teams to ensure your organization thrives in today’s fast changing, unpredictable world. Visit getbridge.com to learn more.

Show Notes:

Tim’s Personal Website: Tobin Leadership

Chief Learning Officer 2015 Profile: Checking Into Marriott’s Leadership with Tim Tobin

Thank you to our episode sponsors:

This episode is also brought to you by DXC Technology and Bridge, the makers of Practice.

DXC Technology human capital management solutions are powering the next-gen workplace. Learn more by visiting dxc.technology.

Practice can scale the competency and confidence of your teams to ensure your organization thrives in today’s fast changing, unpredictable world. Visit getbridge.com to learn more.

Show Notes:

Tim’s Personal Website: Tobin Leadership

Chief Learning Officer 2015 Profile: Checking Into Marriott’s Leadership with Tim Tobin

Previous Episode

Episode 7: Citi's Cameron Hedrick on Changing Behavior

Cameron Hedrick wasn’t always on the path to being a chief learning officer. His career has taken twists and turns and includes stints as a stock broker and in sales and marketing roles. He even took a swing at being an entrepreneur and running his own company before settling into senior HR roles at New York-based financial giant Citi.

It's not all business either. When Cameron first moved to New York City after college he earned money playing trumpet in jazz combos around town. And despite the many years between his time as a working musician and now, when he leads Citi’s learning and development organization, Cameron has never forgotten the lessons he learned from his time in the jazz clubs of New York.

The ability to create something new and original on the fly as an ensemble is an experience that continues to inform his work in developing talent.

In this podcast recorded live on stage at the City Winery in New York City, we talk to Cameron about the improvisational nature of organizational learning, the need to help others constantly evolve so they don’t become obsolete and how chief learning officers need to champion behavior change as much if not more than they emphasize transferring knowledge across the organization.

This episode of the CLO Breakfast Club podcast is brought to you by BetterUp. Learn how you can cultivate a coaching culture with the industry’s first mobile platform that provides personalized coaching at scale by visiting betterup.co.

Next Episode

Episode 9: BNY Mellon's Meredith Oakes on Building a Talent Pipeline

For many organizations, the extent of their campus outreach is a few college recruiting fairs and a summer internship program. That’s a big miss in a competitive economy where talent is the currency. Either due to a lack of vision or a short-sighted strategy, organizations simply don’t think long and hard enough about how to build a robust pipeline that delivers talented people from schools into the workplace.

When Meredith Oakes took over BNY Mellon’s talent pipeline development in 2017, she set out to change that dynamic. That began with looking beyond the stereotypes to understand what early career professionals actually want from work and turning that into programs that deliver long-term value for them as well as the 200-plus year old Wall Street stalwart.

In this podcast recorded live at the City Winery in New York City, Meredith shares why BNY Mellon made pipeline development a strategic priority and what other learning executives can learn from their programs about how to build long-term relationships with early career professionals. Plus, co-host and resident CLO Breakfast Club health expert Justin Lombardo offers his tips for navigating flu season and how working with schools and universities is exactly the type of work at which chief learning officers can excel.

Thank you to our episode sponsors:

This episode of the CLO Breakfast Club Podcast is brought to by O’Reilly Media. O’Reilly’s online learning platform can help your employees learn on the job, get quick answers on the fly and advance your organization’s goals. Learn more at oreilly.com.

This episode is also brought to you by BetterUp and DeVryWORKS.

Help your organization cultivate a coaching culture with BetterUp, the industry’s first mobile platform that provides personalized coaching at scale. Learn more by visiting betterup.co.

DeVryWORKS can help with workforce solutions to attract, aquire and develop the leaders of tomorrow in your organization. Learn more at devryworks.com.