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Welcome to our new series, Always Learning, where we interview L&D and HR leaders about their work, how they stay up-to-date on the industry, and their favorite and most impactful learning experiences.
Today, we’re featuring a conversation between Sony Das, VP of Learning and Organizational Development at Lionsgate, and Tina Hossain, COO at Next Shift Learning.
We loved what Sony had to say about the importance of communication skills, the recent shift from on-demand to live learning, and the surprising truth about why qualitative data can matter more than quantitative data when it comes to showing impact.
(Also, read to the end to see how parenting a toddler has influenced Sony’s thinking on positive feedback.)
Interview has been edited for length.
TINA HOSSAIN, NEXT SHIFT LEARNING
We're so happy to have you here, Sony. I've had the privilege of working with you. But I’d love to hear about your role in your words.
SONY DAS, LIONSGATE
Thank you for having me! I'm very excited to chat with you today. It’s important to keep thinking about how we can continue to grow our knowledge, so I’m looking forward to diving into this topic with you.
As far as what I do today, I am the VP of Learning and Organizational Development at Lionsgate. I've been there for over 7 years now. It's been a long journey, but fun. I've learned a lot and been able to do a lot here. It feels good when I’m able to make a positive impact on the employees or business.
My role has morphed over the years. Today, I head up L&D. I’m focused on L&OD strategy, performance management, leadership development, employee upskilling, and wherever we can plug learning gaps in the broader company across all levels.
We're a small L&D team. We do everything we can for our employees in the L&D space. Our team’s goal is to help employees be their best, optimize how a team performs, or help support the business in any other way.
Communication as an Essential Skill
TINA
You mentioned that your work is focused on helping teams and individuals be more effective. I'm curious about the most in-demand skills for the learners at Lionsgate, and how you're helping them grow in those skills.
SONY
For sure, one skill just continues to stay strong year after year. And that's communication. Everyone wants to be a great communicator.
For sure, one skill just continues to stay strong year after year. And that's communication.
Everyone wants to be a great communicator. They want to show up their best at meetings, be heard, and get their points made concisely. We often get folks coming in at the junior level, saying they want to work on their general communication skills. Then, at the more senior levels, they’re focused on developing their executive presence. But it's that same vein of communication and how you're showing up.
TINA
How are you supporting them in developing their communication and influence skills across these different levels?
SONY
We've woven it into different programs in different ways. Communication is such a broad topic, but depending on the area or level of the business, we modify it as needed. For example, with our early-career employees, we work with your company—Next Shift Learning—to build critical human skills. With this program, the “communications” content is more focused on listening skills and using your emotional intelligence as you communicate.
At the more senior levels, you might see more one-on-one interaction with a specific coach who helps them fine-tune how they're presenting their points. Or helps them figure out how to convey key pieces of data in a way that's going to be heard.
TINA
You brought up listening as a central part of good communication skills. This stood out to me because it’s one of the components of communication that sometimes—especially at the early-career stage—people don't realize is so important. Communication isn’t just what you say and how loudly you say it, or how succinctly. But also how well you're listening and really hearing people.
SONY
Yeah, exactly. Oftentimes it’s the great listener who takes in the information and asks a great follow-up question that helps you think differently about the decision you want to make, about the concept you’re explaining, or something else. You know—there's that saying, right? You have two ears and one mouth. My dad was often the great listener and only spoke up when he had something meaningful to say. It's a good reminder to say less.
The Shift from On-Demand to Live Learning
TINA
In the past decades, there's been a major shift toward on-demand learning, with a lot of it being self-paced and virtual. And now there seems to be another shift afoot that I want to validate with you.
Increasingly, I’m seeing an awareness of the value of live learning for certain settings and for certain audiences. How do you think about this balance between live and on-demand learning in your approach to creating strong learning for your employees?
SONY
I see the need for both depending on what we’re trying to solve for, but I've also noticed this shift. When I first joined Lionsgate, one of the big things I did was launch a self-paced learning platform. The thinking was: okay, this will help plug multiple gaps because there are so many different options for employees to fulfill whatever learning needs they have.
But in reality? It just ends up becoming overwhelming. You don't have the time, or you don't make the time, to do that self-paced learning.
Additionally, even though you may have watched a video on how to communicate or give feedback, it’s the actual application of the skill where you need guidance. So, without those self-paced modules being complemented with some sort of live training, it's not effective.
It's different if it's a self-paced compliance course or required training. But in most cases, getting the knowledge across is just step one. Getting the skills and the behaviors to change is the bigger step. And I think without some sort of live component—whether that's a live workshop or one-on-one guidance with another skilled individual—you won’t see that change.
So we are shifting more towards live learning. We want people to be engaged. We want people to get more out of the time they're investing in their learning. And the way to do that, in my mind, is the live setup.
We want people to be engaged. We want people to get more out of the time they're investing in their learning. And the way to do that, in my mind, is the live setup.
The only place we still use self-paced learning for skill building is a short module before attending a live workshop. The rest of our self-paced content is more of that required content that’s informational or knowledge sharing as part of onboarding new hires or people leaders.
TINA
I love the dynamic way you're thinking about what kind of format is the best fit. Certainly, for some of the situations you pointed out—compliance, for instance, or as pre-learning before a workshop training—that self-paced curriculum might make sense.
And then, if I'm hearing you, when you really want to go deeper on a topic, your learners might engage with others in a peer learning format as well?
SONY
Yeah, definitely. I think with live learning, you have the focus and attention of your learners a little bit more, and they’re less likely to get distracted. Then the learner can also have those impromptu side conversations when they're getting coffee, or in a breakout room. So even if it's a virtual training, there are also ways to add that social, peer-learning element into it.
Measurement in L&D: Strategies for Showing Impact
TINA
Earlier, you highlighted that you have a small but mighty team. I know many other learning teams out there relate to the challenge of stretched resources. I’d love to hear you talk about how learning leaders can influence their organization and advocate for investment in learning. How do you describe the value of learning to someone outside of your field?
SONY
It’s a challenging topic because measuring the impact of learning is hard. Behaviors don't change overnight. Neither do cultures if you're working at a team level. So it's hard to prove the value.
But there are certain small things we can do. For example, gathering feedback right after a program ends—not just from the participant, but from the people leader of the participants, too. What did they observe? What changes have they noticed? We can then share those anecdotal stories with others in the business.
Another more tangible piece of data is our engagement survey scores. For offsites, I might look at the team's engagement score before the offsite and then compare it to the year after the offsite or the next closest score. While correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation, the uptick in engagement scores with positive anecdotal feedback on observed behaviors tells me our L&D intervention had some positive impact on the employee or team. If it’s palpable for the team, that's important.
Where possible, I'm also starting to look at revenue-generating departments that track data like sales numbers. This can provide concrete data to use as a before and after.
TINA
Something that I've noticed in our partnership is that you put an emphasis on both quantitative data and anecdotes or stories of impact.
I'm curious to hear how you approach the mix of quantitative and qualitative data as you present the value of learning. What's a good way for other learning leaders to think about storytelling through both formats?
SONY
It's funny. The quantitative data doesn't matter as much as the qualitative. If you have the right anecdote from the right person, that can carry more weight than numbers.
With this in mind, if I'm launching a brand new program, then I'm going to select individuals who I know will help promote the content to others. I look for learners who are going to be fully invested in the program. That's how I’ll get good feedback and raise more awareness.
Word of mouth has a huge impact—it might be undervalued.
The Value of Soft Skills for Leadership
TINA
On the topic of helping people see the value of good learning—how do you think about communicating the value of investing in soft skills or human skills to other leaders?
SONY
There's the general idea that we promote people who are deeply skilled in their functional expertise. And this continues to work up until a certain level of the corporate ladder. The individual who understands how to harness and maximize their human skills will be the one who continues to rise in the ranks. Your functional expertise only goes so far. It’s your interpersonal skills, communication skills, ability to follow through, and more of these human skills that allow you to tackle the right problems and build the right solutions. The person who has 80% of the functional expertise and 100% of these human skills will go much further.
Your functional expertise only goes so far. It’s your interpersonal skills, communication skills, ability to follow through, and more of these human skills that allow you to tackle the right problems and build the right solutions.
When discussing what skills an employee needs to grow in, it’s most often the human skills regardless of what level of the company we’re discussing. Leaders may share that they want their employees to present better, to be more strategic, to lead their teams more effectively, etc. Once we’ve unpacked the broader ask and pinpointed exactly what the leader or employee’s expectations are, then I would say most employees are self-motivated to grow the skills they need to develop. When leaders see how their direct reports or others on the team level up after participating in a learning program, this builds value without much from me.
Other times, it requires further dialogue with the employee, HR Business Partner, or leader to align around the key goals for behavior change and the impact if no change is made. Once there’s alignment and the right solution is identified, the value of investing in the identified human skills is clear. Usually employees want to tackle the human skill to be proficient enough so they can focus on the business outcomes they/their team have set out to achieve. My team’s goal is to be there on the sidelines as their coach so they can go be LeBron James and score the company some points.
The Best Places to Learn about Trends in L&D
TINA
Where do you go to find out about trends, changes, and what's exciting in learning?
SONY
On LinkedIn. I’m on there a lot. I like to see what others in the space are doing—what's winning and why? And then I look at that and see what's realistic for Lionsgate. What we implement may not be the same as another organization at a different level of maturity. But I can still take nuggets from what others have shared.
Conferences are another great resource. I try to go to at least one conference a year in the learning space to hear from other leaders, see what they're doing, and share what I’m doing at Lionsgate. Sometimes the best ideas come from just chatting with folks during lunch or coffee.
Great Learning Experiences
TINA
What was your favorite learning experience? What made it special for you?
SONY
Two things come to mind. One is from a women's conference I attended, where there was one session led by Kerry Washington that really resonated with me. She spoke about how she had a lot of negative thoughts floating through her mind. She knew she had to do something to change that. So she started writing down her negative thoughts in one column in her journal, and then on the other side, she'd write the positive side of it. This would help her start seeing more of that glass-half-full side of things. She said it made such a huge difference, and that really stood out to me. I bring this up because as a learning leader, it’s important to keep thinking about what’s possible especially when we’re often asked to do more with less—smaller teams and smaller budgets.
The other has to do with being the mom of a toddler. I see so much advice around how to show up and manage behaviors as a leader that aligns with being a parent. Of course, a toddler is different from an adult. But two things that stand out to me are the value of positive feedback and using clarifying statements. I had been trying to tell my kid to not do things, saying: Don't do this. Don't do that. Her face said: you keep telling me don't do all these things—like, what can I do?
Later that day, she lifted something, and I said, with a lot of conviction: Wow! You're so strong. Good for you.
Since then, she has been lifting everything she can find. For me, it illustrated the importance of that equation in the workplace, too. Don't just give developmental feedback. Focus on making sure you're highlighting those wins and the strengths of your employees. They need to see that you see it.
As for clarifying statements—the phrases like “tell me more” or “I notice you seem [insert emotion]” are solid gold. When my toddler is having a meltdown, I might say, “I notice you’re really sad right now. Can you tell me about it?” That’s when I’ll find out it’s because I drained the bubbles too soon in her bubble bath. I wonder sometimes if we all applied these phrases with colleagues, friends, or family, how much stronger our connection would be?
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Thank you to Sony for speaking with us. We hope you found this conversation as interesting as we did!
For a deeper dive into building great leadership development programs, download your copy of our practice-forward guide for building world-class leadership development experiences (even with a small L&D team!).
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