Ryan Decoste’s path into learning and development began unexpectedly, but it sparked a career spanning more than 20 years in leadership, performance, coaching, and organizational development. Today, as Senior Vice President of People and Organizational Development at Klick, Ryan helps shape everything from onboarding and skill development to coaching and performance across a global organization.
In this Learning Expert Spotlight, Decoste discusses the importance of staying close to the business, recognizing the signals hidden in organizational data, and designing development around the real challenges leaders face. At Learning Leadership, he’ll bring these ideas to his discussion, What if leadership capability is built in moments—not programs?, where attendees will explore how pivotal decisions, conversations, and experiences can become powerful opportunities to build leadership capability.
Q: How did you get your start in learning and development?
A: I fell into it. It was an accident. I got bit by the learning and development bug. And I’ve been in learning and development, organizational development since 2004. It started with me working at a global retailer, in charge of merchandising. I really wanted to bring the level of expertise to the sales associates on what the product really was all about and how to sell it to the customer and how the customer could wear it and how it would complement what the customer came in for. And then from there, it really just took different turns where I wanted to learn so much about instructional design, human performance improvement, consulting, overall implementation, facilitation, coaching, you name it. It just opened up the door for me to lead me where I am today.
Q: What does your current role look like?
A: I’m currently the Senior Vice President of People and Organizational Development. And my remit and overall mandate is to look at how we onboard Klicksters from an orientation “Welcome to Klick” perspective, how we immerse ourselves and Klicksters into the craft or department in the outside world, as well as how do we actually go to market for our clients, which is what we call our client success team. So, we actually look at all three elements of that onboarding experience. I also oversee coaching facilitation. So, whether that is individual coaching, team coaching, group coaching, whatever it may be when it comes to those elements and really how we facilitate all of our programs within the organization. We’re a global company of 1500 Klicksters, so my role also includes leader development, where we really break down the different elements and levels of leadership, who needs support and ongoing coaching, and how we sustain and support the business to achieve what they do. Also healthcare education. So, for those folks that are outside of the life sciences and healthcare space, we have some experiences ready for them. To get them up to speed rather quickly, to get them doing what they do best is, you know, working in the advertising and marketing space and life sciences. I also oversee our Cultivate Performance program, which is end-to-end whole elements of feedback, one-on-ones, reviews, mid-year reviews, as well as overall 360 of performance. The last thing I would say what my current role looks like is a skill development, ongoing skill development, especially within the age of AI, and how we build out additional skills required and needed to service our clients day to day.
Q: What is your favorite part of the work you do?
A: First of all, I feel like the luckiest person on earth getting to work with such smart, talented people at Klick. I pinch myself every day that I get to do this work. The most favorite part of my day is actually getting to connect in with the different stakeholders, connecting with my team, connecting with cross-department teams, just to find out what’s going on, understanding what’s happening. I like to use the term “staying on the pulse of what’s going on.” And that really helps inform me of any potential thoughts or insights that we can actually support long term and look at how we speed up the time to contribution and really make an impact on our Klick community. In a nutshell, it’s really getting to spend time with the folks in the business doing the actual work, figuring out how we build high performance and really support and nurture a high performing culture and connecting them with the teams.
Q: What can attendees expect from your discussion at Learning Leadership, and what do you hope they take away from the conversation?
A: Think about this. You’re a new manager, a new leader, or you’re a seasoned leader, and in a moment, you need to make a split decision. For the most part, you’ve been trained and given all this information, but you never focused on what are the moments that matter and how do I make a decision that’s going to impact a lot of people if you’re a senior leader, or as new leader it might be going through a very difficult conversation with somebody. So the sneak peek is really about how do we distill moments that matter for our respective organizations. So, we’ll be able to actually take some tangible things back with us when we leave Learning Leadership and do something with the information and start distilling down what are the moments that matter throughout all of our organization. Be it leadership or onboarding or performance, that’s really going to sharpen the saw and get people excited about how to implement these newfound thoughts and strategies and ideas back in the workforce to actually see the difference in behavior, difference in productivity, but also in how people are actually implementing and demonstrating the things that they’re going to take away.
Q: What do you hope to take away from Learning Leadership?
A: What I’m hoping to take away from all the conversations is one, being with folks in our space that are going through very similar situations and circumstances, and that may mean we’re on different parts of our journey. And so, getting to learn and think about different and fresh perspectives, different insights, and also think about different ways of doing things because we’re so stuck in what we’re doing today, having that think tank type experience and camaraderie and conversations is probably the most exciting thing I’m looking forward to in all of the conversations. The little tidbits, some nuggets, things that I can actually implement in small little doses and the connections, the connections.
Q: What is one trend that learning leaders should pay attention to?
A: For me, the biggest thing for learning leaders is understanding the signals that are coming up throughout your organization, whether that’s engagement data, whether that’s performance data, whether that could be exit data, and understanding how that all works in and fits in to what we are doing. There’s also the elements of measurement. You could actually bucket all that under measurement and metrics and those signals. I think we need to really pay attention to what the voices and those signals are saying within the organization so we can adapt to the actual needs of the folks doing the work. I think for senior learning leaders, it’s imperative to always understand the story. If we can understand the data and the signals and the correlations to that and how it impacts the business, that is being that trusted learning advisor, that is being that trusted learning executive where we can understand and uncover all that hidden value that we can bring to the table and share with the executive team so we can make a difference. And whether that’s behavior change, interventions that we need to design, or maybe that comes down to change as part of our work as well. I believe that was more than one trend, but I think it’s not just one trend. I think it’s a bunch of signals that we need to be aware of and really understand how that correlates to our work, how we can connect into that. Because that to me is that super, super hidden superpower that we have and can leverage that will be the multiplier for the organizations we support and serve.
