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Excellence Foresight with Nancy Nouaimeh
Welcome to Excellence Foresight - where we explore what it truly takes to build high-performing, sustainable teams and organizations.
Let’s be real - excellence doesn’t just “happen.” It’s built, nurtured, and sometimes wrestled into place. In a world that’s constantly shifting, leaders and teams need more than just good intentions, they need strategies that actually work.
That’s exactly what we bring to the table. Each episode is packed with real-world insights, practical takeaways, and conversations with industry pros who’ve been there, done that, and have the stories to prove it. I’ll also sprinkle in lessons from my 25 years of experience working across diverse, multicultural settings—because trust me, I’ve seen it all.
So, if you’re ready to drop the guesswork and fast-track your way to excellence, you’re in the right place. Excellence Foresight is here to make the journey insightful, engaging, and maybe even a little fun.
Tune in, get inspired, and let’s build something great together.
Excellence Foresight with Nancy Nouaimeh
Building Learning Capabilities with Sabrina Malter
What truly separates exceptional organizations from the rest? It's not just about having the right processes or the best talent, it's about creating environments where learning flourishes at every level. Sabrina Malter, a seasoned business coach with over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, joins us to explore how bringing learning to life transforms organizations from the inside out.
Sabrina shares the journey of her recently published book on building learning cultures, which evolved from a simple collection of workshop materials into a comprehensive guide filled with case studies and practical tools. She reveals the three essential foundations of organizational learning: developing an open, curious attitude; fostering psychological safety; and building practical learning capabilities through iterative cycles of hypothesis, action, and reflection.
What makes this conversation particularly valuable is the clear connection Sabrina draws between learning and organizational excellence. As she explains, "They are so closely connected that I would nearly say sometimes they are really the same." Excellence today requires different capabilities than excellence tomorrow, making continuous learning essential for sustainable success.
Through compelling case studies, Sabrina illustrates how organizations implement personalized learning approaches and grassroots initiatives that empower employees to take ownership of their development. She emphasizes the crucial role leaders play in modeling learning behaviors and creating environments where people feel encouraged to experiment and grow.
Whether you're looking to transform your organization's approach to learning or seeking to enhance your own learning capabilities, this episode offers actionable insights and a powerful reminder that the path to excellence unfolds through continuous learning. As Sabrina beautifully puts it, "As a learner, the way unfolds right under your feet."
Ready to bring learning to life in your organization? Listen now and discover how to build a culture that sustains excellence through continuous growth and development.
Hello and welcome back to the Excellence Foresight, the space where we reimagine what's possible when we lead with purpose, learn with intention and unlock the full potential of people and systems. I'm your host, Nancy Nouaimeh, and today we're diving into a topic that's at the heart of sustainable excellence learning, and with this episode, bringing Learning to Life we have a very special guest here today who will help us to explore this, so I'm thrilled to be joined by Sabrina Malter. Sabrina is a seasoned business coach and a consultant, with over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, including a decade focused on leadership development, organizational transformation and strategic planning. Also, she collaborates with organizations to cultivate learning cultures. So, sabrina, welcome.
Sabrina Malter:Thank you very much for having me today. Very happy to be your guest.
Nancy Nouaimeh:Thank you, it's our honor to have you here today, and I would like to start saying something about Sabrina. She just published a new book in German. Unfortunately, we can't really share a lot of details here today, but it's a practical guide on bringing learning to life, and this episode we're going to deep dive into some of the learning that Sabrina is sharing in her book. So, sabrina, let's dive in. What sparked this book for you? Where did the idea of learning everything if I'm going to translate that from German to English begin to take shape, and why now you're publishing this book?
Sabrina Malter:Yeah, thank you. This Bringing Learning to Life, this book is really specialized on building a learning culture and building learning capabilities in organizations, and that's also a topic of my business consultancy and many of my workshops is around building learning culture and building learning competencies, and when I gave this workshops also three years, two years ago people were continuously asking me what, how could we go on, how could we dive deeper, and that sparked the idea to write a book. First, I only thought of a booklet with some workshop designs, with some exercises for reflection and a little bit more so that people could go on. And then I had so many ideas and I thought also of case studies with organizations that I knew that have different and interesting concepts to promote learning and very different concepts, and so I wanted to share these, these concepts, and wanted to make interviews, also to for me to learn more and to to provide this knowledge. Um, and that's so it it's.
Sabrina Malter:It grew and grew my concept of a book, even before I started writing, and then I realized, okay, it's not a booklet, it's a real book. I started writing and then I realized, okay, it's not a booklet, it's a real book. I started searching for a publisher and yeah, wrote my first chapter and then I found a publisher and yeah, then it got a little bit more easy because I signed my contract and so I had a fixed point when my aim, when I would like to finish the manuscript, and so I just went working and yeah.
Nancy Nouaimeh:It's absolutely wonderful. I think I saw your posts on LinkedIn and I think it's a proud moment to be able to publish his own book, and I think there's a lot of learning If you were able to move just from a booklet to a book. It means there's a lot of content and your work with organization is reflected in that book. I think I encourage a lot of people, when you translate that in English, to go ahead and read it. But today we can share with them a little bit more about the learning from the book and can you maybe start helping us a little bit define what bringing learning to life is or really looks like in real world?
Sabrina Malter:Yes, first you need a foundation to bring learning to life in organizations, and that's the attitude of learning. For example, if my reader is a people leader or a change agent or human resources manager in an organization, first of all they have to start with themselves to check and reflect on their attitude. And is it a curious and open attitude or is it perhaps sometimes they are triggered, more, um, defensive and closed, and when they when they got through I have some practical, um, yeah, practical steps and reflection exercises, um to so that you could really work with that. And if they they get a little bit more experience with this concept and with their own reflection, then they're, yeah, enabled to work with their teams and also to help their teams reflect on their attitude and what triggers them, perhaps in a closed attitude, which is totally normal. It's not that nothing to blame some someone for, but it's totally normal. Some situations are really triggering that you're more closed and more defensive and have what helps people and how perhaps colleagues could have each other to get again in this open and curious state of mind, and so it's really something to work on and to develop. And if you are more aware of this, of this attitude, then you yes, you realize it in yourself when you are triggered, you realize this in in your colleagues and you could have each other. So that's perhaps the first foundation.
Sabrina Malter:And then you get in this building a learning culture, which is really connected to the attitude, but it's also about psychological safety, so feeling safe to share unfinished thoughts, unfinished ideas, to ask questions, even if someone else could think there, perhaps you should perhaps know already the answer and all the things. And so you have yeah, you don't hold back too much. You share your thoughts, but you and everyone else could build on. You share your questions, you learn from the answer and everyone else who doesn't. You share your questions, you learn from the answer and everyone else who doesn't know the answer as well, perhaps the same. It's also about a culture where we help each other to learn, to grow, with feedback, but also with yeah, but also with yeah, with helping with, perhaps, thoughts, ideas, connections. And then, if you have this foundation of learning attitude and learning culture, then it's really about the capabilities of learning, and that's really very practical capabilities.
Sabrina Malter:What I am talking about is when you are aiming for an ambitious goal at work or when you find yourself before a problem that you need to solve, then it's really this one small step at a time, learning cycles that the lean practitioners from the audience perhaps recognize very well. You see, from problem solving, you see your problem or your yeah, which you could also define as a problem, your status quo and your goal, and the difference, the gap is also like a problem to solve. And then you have your yeah, hypothesis, how to move on. And then you start and really get into doing, reflect, and then there's the learning, because there's something else perhaps, as you expected. And so these small learning cycles is really something that you could learn for yourself. You could learn peer-to-peer when you. You could learn peer-to-peer when you're helping each other, peer-to-peer. You could also, as with Toyota, qatar and Qatar coaching, you could also as a leader, as a people leader, help your people in this coaching role to move forward in this direction and build those problem-solving and learning skills.
Nancy Nouaimeh:So if I summarize a little bit, so initially we need to have a culture for learning in the organization and also the mindset of people focusing on learning, and then there's a methodology to follow that could help them really have those cycles of learning in place. And you mentioned self-awareness, I think, Sabrina, and I think it's very important for people to know their capabilities, know their competencies and how to where they are on that learning journey and how they can improve that. So if I want to go back a little bit to the bigger picture and the organizations, do you have any specific case study where you feel an organization maybe made a big difference in building a culture of learning that could be very beneficial for others to learn from?
Sabrina Malter:Yes, it's hard for me to choice one of my five case studies.
Sabrina Malter:I would perhaps pick this one where a company really focused on the young people, the students and apprentices and really included this, also reflecting this reflection, reflection cycle, self-reflection cycles and self-awareness about how someone, the apprentices and young people, how they learn, what learning experience helps them, what's hard for them, how they get help, how they could, um, move forward and overcome obstacles.
Sabrina Malter:All this planning and reflection process around learning so that they get self-confident and, yeah, learners and not dependent on learning programs as there are, perhaps used from school and also, to a certain extent, from university, used from school and also some to a certain extent from university. Really that they see, or learn to see where they stand, what's missing perhaps, and then move on and find ways to close their learning gaps and to move on and find things that they are passionate about and who are, at the same time, helpful for their own, that they're in. And I think this concept it's called personalized personalized apprenticeship perhaps would be this German expression and that's really that not everyone, not every student or apprentice, learns the same, but they have different modules that they could choose from to grow this self-reflection and self-ownership of their learning process. I think that's really helpful.
Nancy Nouaimeh:That's very helpful, I think, for students, and I think a lot of education systems have moved to something similar to right when at schools or at universities. So we have those adapted models for each one's capabilities and I think it gives them really a possibility to learn on their own pace but also keep learning, I think, as they move within their studies. So, sabrina, if I want to go back a little bit, I think both of us have worked in excellence and we have that passion for making sure that when we establish something, it is at the organizational level. So how do you see learning and organizational excellence being connected in organizations, how they help each other somehow?
Sabrina Malter:They are so closely connected that I would nearly say sometimes they are really the same. That's perhaps a little bit too much, but sometimes they are really the same. If we want to move towards excellence, it's one thing to be excellent in the moment and the other to be excellent in the future. And to be excellent in the future, we have to develop the people and the capabilities within the organization. And from this perspective, it's really just the same. You have to be a learning organization to be an excellent organization in the future or to stay. If you are excellent at the moment, even then you have to be a learning organization to stay there to build the capabilities. It's really where we're closely connected.
Nancy Nouaimeh:Absolutely. I like that. I like how you put it, because I think for organization, it's important when they reach a certain level, to maintain that, to sustain it. We talk about sustaining excellence, but also to keep that continuous improvement process alive in the organization, and that happens through learning and, coming from the Shingo background, we have a lot of principles, and we have one principle talks about scientific thinking. Embracing scientific thinking and learning is part of that thinking. Embracing scientific thinking and learning is is part of that, and once you have an organization culture that supports people to continuously learn and to experiment, definitely they're going to keep improving and that's going to feed into their excellence.
Nancy Nouaimeh:Um, exactly, journey. So that's, I think that's. That's a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of connection between, uh, these two, like you said, it's almost the same thing. And um, now for for our listeners, um, we talk a lot about sometimes the need to celebrate, right, to celebrate achievements, milestones and and things that are positive within the, within the organization and and what happens to its people. So, um, can you share with us some of the learning moments that you feel were deserving to be recognized and celebrated, and why?
Sabrina Malter:um the learning moments that I describe in my book, or the learning moments of my own journey of writing the book it's whatever you prefer.
Sabrina Malter:I'll leave the choice to you yeah, I would would say that um, building what I just shared this personalized apprenticeship program, for example was definitely something to celebrate.
Sabrina Malter:Another great example was really because it was really developed as a kind of a grassroot initiative and is now a really big learning.
Sabrina Malter:Learning what's the word?
Sabrina Malter:Promoter of learning in this organization is a concept that's a learning platform and it really built from the idea to connect people within a big corporation who have expertise in different areas so that people could better exchange, and let's just start with a list of people and their expertise.
Sabrina Malter:But what's interesting is really that it was kind of a grassroots initiative to start, that I really like this approach. And then from there on, from this list, it built that they now offer something like lunch and learn sessions, but over the whole day and the whole week you could book different sessions from colleagues for colleagues, all different areas, and also support this getting connected and work together. And the spirit of this concept and of this same movement is really that we are better when we are working together and helping each other and promoting each other. And, yeah, all the people that are involved in that are really so excited and I think that's really something to be very proud of, for those who are the initial initiators of this and who worked on that and develop that. Yeah, I think that's really wonderful.
Nancy Nouaimeh:Exactly, and I think you mentioned pride. When people are proud of what they're doing, they're definitely going to give more. They're going to be more motivated to continue to contribute to that, and I think a lot of things come from the culture of the organization that promotes the work of people. They celebrate their achievement and make them really feel proud to belong to that organization. So I think that's a great example. And I just want to go back a little bit. Sabrina, you've had 25 years of experience in organizations and if you see, for example, a place where someone or someone saying I don't know, but I would love to learn, how can organizations really have systems that support this right and how can they leverage this Like people, when they really have the motivation to learn and they don't know and they're honest enough to say it what organizations, what systems they can have in place to support this culture and keep the learning growing in their organization.
Sabrina Malter:Yeah, I think one of the most important, or perhaps the most important lever to to help people, um to to move forward, um is really the culture, because if it's the people around you, for example, um, your direct superior, or your colleagues, or some colleagues a little bit further away, who who say to you in this moment, okay, sabrina, you don't know that, you haven't done that before, but I encourage you to do that and perhaps I could help you, I could connect you to someone, or, as my perhaps a little bit a try way to help someone, like one of my former superiors it's one story that I share in my book said to me oh, sabrina, but you're an adult, you just could do that.
Sabrina Malter:And at this moment, at this point in time, I was really at the beginning of my career and I was a little bit hesitant because it was a big project. And she just told me but yeah, you know, you are grown up, you could do that. And that was really enough for me to feel this okay, someone else is thinking I can do that. And it built this confidence in me and I just moved on and experimented my way forward and I think that's something that's really important to encourage people. That's not the only thing you have to have to. Perhaps you have a little bit to watch as a people leader, a little bit to watch out and see if it's going in a good direction and give a little bit support. But it could be the most important thing to encourage people and then give a little bit of help. Just yeah, a sneak peek.
Nancy Nouaimeh:Yeah, when you were talking, I was thinking she already mentioned people leader and I was. I mean it was funny to see you, to hear you again saying that. So it's absolutely about the leaders, their skills and the leadership style and how they focus on people. So giving confidence to people, encouraging them, is a leader's responsibility and if the leaders focus on that, they will get more learners in their organization. So I totally agree with you on this. And, Sabrina, if you still want to spend some time a little bit talking about the future and looking ahead a little bit for the learning sphere, where do you believe the most learning forward organisation will be doing in the next five, 10 years? What is it the one thing that should preoccupy them as they continue focusing on learning?
Sabrina Malter:Yes, the first thing that they really understand that to stay excellent or to get excellent, they have to be a learning organization to understand this high priority and not only understand it, say in the boardroom, but really share that widely and give out this, this expectation. We expect everyone to learn every day and share your learning and have each other so that it's really important. Perhaps you need some, let's say, kpis on your way to really to focus on that, depending on the culture, if you need that, and then people, an organization that's really on the forefront of learning, would have to implement this that people leaders or also peer-to-peer coach each other on learning, that really support each other on learning, to build these capabilities. It's really basic capabilities to help people get into this learning process that you have to practice to really get into that and to keep that going. I also have seen organizations who started something like that and then there was perhaps some change in management. The next manager doesn't know so much about that and doesn't. Yeah.
Nancy Nouaimeh:Doesn't continue the momentum right.
Sabrina Malter:Yeah, things stop. So really keep having a focus on help people to learn and coach people to learn, encourage people to coach each other to learn. I think that's the main point.
Nancy Nouaimeh:Absolutely, and I think you're spot on here, because we see a lot of talk around managers as coaches, right, a lot of I mean talk around managers as coaches, right, and we see the coaching field is growing because there's a need for managers to start focusing on coaching their people to be more involved, to be present, to be able to spot what's going on and guide their team. So I think that's a great, I think advice and I think it has to happen at an organizational level, with some systems that support to develop that coaching, I think ecosystem within the organization. And, sabrina, I want to just look at back to a little bit to excellence. What do you think is the one question that leaders should ask themselves really to focus on excellence through learning? What is the thing that they need to maybe shift their focus to?
Sabrina Malter:oh, with the hard question what should they shift um?
Nancy Nouaimeh:should they start with their own mindset, maybe a little bit first, before they start? I mean, there's something that some organizations are not doing learning. They're not not focusing on learning, so how can we really take them to that other level when it comes to learning?
Sabrina Malter:Yeah, when I think of my work with leadership teams and when I do this, talking about working with them, about learning attitude and their way towards excellence, and at the end I also ask them for their one big thing that they would like to work on and they're really different things, but what really is the first step is to reflect and to get self-aware, as we talked about in the beginning. To get self-aware what is my own attitude and what am I bringing to my organization, what? What example am I? Perhaps I say something, but the example that I give is something else. Then it doesn't really work.
Sabrina Malter:What I'm saying is not really leading people, but they are following what they see and how I, as a leader, would act, um, and so really get self-aware um, what, what we are, they are standing in their learning attitude, um, also, to practice themselves I always start with the leadership team to practice themselves, with a peer-to-peer coaching set up to gain these skills. Not only understand from a talk or from me consulting them that it would be a good idea to bring people their people, say, medium-level managers and people leaders to get into coaching, but really to experience it and practice the skills themselves so that they could tell their next level people, leaders why that's important and also that they really could coach them and that it really gets from the top one level to the next through the organization. So really go on this learning journey themselves.
Nancy Nouaimeh:That's a great advice, and I think it's. They need to role model, right Learning and excellence and all this behavior that we're asking them to start establishing and building within their organization. Sabrina, this was really wonderful. Thank you so much for bringing your stories and your vision to excellence, foresight and to our listeners. What's one thing you're taking away from today's conversation? Please share it with us and let's keep the learning alive. Again, sabrina, thank you very much, and if you'd like to say something for our audience before we wrap up, please, the floor is yours thank you very much.
Sabrina Malter:Thank you, perhaps I would like to share um, my um, yeah, most beloved quote from my book um, and that is really, um, as a learner, the way unfolds under, right under your feet, and that's really the yeah, the quote that is leading through my book and it's also something that's leading through my, yeah, professional journey. It's really, if you have your goal and if you are a learner and have this learning attitude and the learning, um, say a little bit, learning skills and experience, the, really the, the your way forward unfolds under your feet that's a great wrap-up.
Nancy Nouaimeh:Thank you very much, sabrina, and I look forward to listening again to the podcast. Thanks everyone.
