Meet Dr. Carrie Graham | Adult Learning Consultant & Instructional Design Strategist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Dr. Carrie Graham and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dr. Carrie, what role has risk played in your life or career?
As a shy child taking risks was not part of my experience. However, my college experience definitely helped because I had impressive career goals but not a personal or academic network to support achieving my goals. I decided that if I wanted the career of my dreams, I had to take some risks. The first big risk as a college student was introducing myself to a visiting CEO. As my mother taught me, I extended a firm handshake with direct eye contact, welcomed him and offered necessary information. Although I had to give myself a pep talk to approach him, it was a pivotal turning point in my willingness to take risks.

Consistently in my life and career I’ve objectively weighed the short and long term advantages and disadvantages of taking a risk. I say objectively because assessing the pros and cons with my feelings will prevent me from taking a risk. When I evaluated my options with minimal to no feelings, there was often an opportunity to do what I perceived as risky that will have a positive impact. I don’t fear taking risks because I’ve found there are 3 benefits to taking risks: 1) things don’t go as expected and I learn a great lesson, 2) I don’t achieve what I expected but received some else that is equally beneficial, and 3) I achieve the aspired goal.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I help talent and learning development experts with existing content who want engaged adult learners, improved information retention and accurate skills application. ‍Combining your knowledge with my instructional design for adult learners strategy, you can prevent disengagement, forgotten information, or poor decision-making.

I’m proud the I have a PhD in adult learning and 25+ years in instructional design experience, those are unique qualities that set my consulting services apart from others in the industry. Given my experiences of not fitting in, Carrie O. Graham Learning & Solutions (COGLAS) values providing customized consulting because one-size-does-not-fit-all. Our clients receive learning and development services to meet their unique end-user needs.

I had not seriously considered business ownership as a career option, but due to downsizing and the COVID pandemic I was blessed with the opportunity to start my consulting business leveraging my experiences to support the need for improved adult learning. This journey has required me to learn business language and various technical skills. Learning the business language was not challenging but the technical skills were and sometimes still are draining. One important lesson learned was: hiring people with the skills that I’m deficient. I admit, this was not an easy lesson to learn but thankfully I finally realized the value of vetting service providers and making the investment.

Another lesson was, early in my career I was frustrated by not being able to share my vision, but over time I identified a solution that transformed my ideas into a visionary program to reflects my expertise and values. I want to help others do the same calmly, effectively, and efficiently.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love spending time with loved ones, so when they visit what we do is totally based on their interests. Thankfully, my friends love to eat, be inspired, and relax. I believe breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so off to breakfast we go. Then doing anything to inspire our mind (with museums, movies, or live music), body (golf, rafting, bowling, anything to get steps), and soul (deep conversation over good food and drinks).

Trying new things with friends is the best, so I usually find something that we haven’t done before and sign us up. This makes for wonderful memories.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I have to publicly acknowledge that God has been the source of all my blessings and lessons. Looking back I know that before I was fully committed to Jesus Christ, He has always provided what I needed.

I have to give a special shoutout to my mother who provided me exceptional models of impeccable work ethic, humility and kindness. Putting aside my experience and knowledge, these three characteristics have set me apart from the masses because my work is grounded on strong work ethic, service to others with humility, and kind communication. I am forever grateful to her for that and her encouragement of me to pursue anything of interest. Regardless of my aspiration, my mother would always say “well Carrie try it and do your best”. Through her consistent yet simple encouragement I learned the value of encouraging others even if it’s simply “try and do your best”. I’ve seen how a little encouragement can move people to do things they were reluctant to try.

Over the past few years, I learned the value of surrounding myself with a supportive network outside of the workplace. Research (Graham, 2017) shows there is significant support for success when ethnically diverse women establish their own: tribe, community, or network of others with similar identities. I love my group and keep them privately close.

Website: www.drcarriegraham.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drcarriegraham

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drcarriegraham