CEOs highlighting that their organisations are not developing skills fast enough should be a rallying cry to L&D to take a look at itself.
Here are five thoughts to help that process:
1. It’s about performance, not learning
By looking past ‘learning’, refocussing on ‘performance’ and throwing off the shackles of a ‘course only mindset’, L&D can focus on activities and outcomes that impact the work itself, embed learning in the workflow and help people grow in line with the organisation’s strategic goals. Start thinking resources before courses.
2. Influence the performance of everybody, every day
Create the opportunity to potentially influence the performance of everybody every day by exposing people to resources that are designed to help them access what successful people already know and do as well as carefully curated resources with content from outside the organisation.
3. Create your in-house Google of learning
If people are finding their own resources and developing themselves online, L&D must create an environment and platform that does this better than the outside world to prevent creep in the way things get done.
4. Empower employees to be self-sufficient and to contribute
The internet of things means that many people are better connected when they go home than they are at work. It’s easy for us to access a network that ranges from celebs to professors resulting in a ‘personal learning network’. This concept can be cultivated by L&D to support the creation of a personal learning network to support professional development.
5. Lead so that others will follow
It’s likely that a traditional training approach will be deeply ingrained in the organisation so bringing about change will be a challenge. This is a journey worth initiating and there will be advocates along the way whose influence can be leveraged. Any approach to change should be qualified by the state of readiness. Donald Taylor, Chairman of The Learning and Performance Institute created this model to recognise the dynamics in play.
Remember ‘If not you, then who’ — are you on a path to learning leadership?
News and stories
SEE ALL
The real power in negotiation starts with how you sell
Negotiations become far more collaborative when strong selling creates value early and builds trust long before anyone reaches the table.
Optimising your ROTI (Return on Training Investment)?
L&D teams are busy reaching out to their functional leaders reviewing 2018 programmes and co-creating the shape of their 2019 capability priorities and plans. Our findings show that all too...
Creating replay value — a lesson from gaming
It’s very fair to say that I can’t add ‘gaming’ to my list of interests or hobbies unless you count the occasional venture into BubbleXplode or Two Dots as a...
Growth doesn’t just happen – it must be intentional as you get ready for 2026
Getting in shape to navigate the commercial adventure of 2021
If your year looks commercially daunting, strip it back to the fundamental challenge and try reframing it to an adventure. Critical to successful navigation is knowing your current location on...