“If you do not change direction, youmay end up where you are heading.”
—Chinese proverb
Attention training directors, CLOs (chief learning officers),and others who run learning and development functions—and you executives who appointedthem—this is for you. Whether due to budget challenges, evolving attitudes, fluctuatingbusiness needs, or marketplace changes, the ground around you is shifting yet again.New thinking now is critical, not only for the effectiveness of your function butfor your own survival as well. Among the current challenges facing CLOs, here aresix areas that need your immediate and focused attention.
1. Move past the CLO/CU legacy
Let’s be honest: Too many chief learning officers are reallyglorified training directors. They might have a neat title, higher rank, sit at“the table,” and talk the “strategy talk,” but their job responsibilities and missionhaven’t changed much. The corporate university (CU) hasn’t fared much better. Most CU infrastructure—buildings, technology, and large staffs—fostersan insatiable appetite for dollars as it expands. Maintaining high enrollments andfilling the seats can, and often does, become the driver of much decision-making.As many CU facilities get repurposed, or are abandoned or sold off, do we see thishandwriting on the wall?
If you feel like you’re drifting in this direction, focus onthree things: First, define a narrow strategic mission that reflects the highestpriorities of your business. Stop offering programs that sound good or generatemore butts in seats (including virtual butts) but do little to solve recognizedbusiness problems. Second, abandon your historical “training is all” culture. Noteverything is solvable by training. The workforce needs new solutions, availableat the moment of need, that help them get their jobs done effectively and efficiently.And third, get your metrics act together. Let your client determine what success is, and thendo everything you can to meet those goals. Performance—verified and certified—iswhat matters. Learning is just an enabler.
2. Do a better job of recruiting training talent
If you look closely at your training and development (T&D)staff, you will surely find people who excel at teaching or instructional design,and who enjoy working with learners. But, unfortunately, not everyone is so preparedor enthused. What should you do?
It begins with a more rigorous set of criteria for both yourtraining team and for quality teaching. Just because someone can “do it” on thejob doesn’t mean they can teach someone else, let alone design an effective course.Subject matter expert (SME) capabilities are important, but being an SME is no guaranteeof being a great trainer or developer, so a formal preparatory and evaluation planis key. An occasional “weekend wonder” workshop is likely not sufficient. Also importantis a constant supply of fresh teaching and design talent from the field. A strongtrainer rotational program will help keep your organization on top of what’s goingon in the business and assure that your learners are getting information from thosewho have “been there, done that” recently.Why is this so important? Think about it this way: T&D professionals touch hundredsif not thousands of employees during their tenure. When they go back to the fieldafter a successful training assignment, those interactions help them become strongerin their own careers, including future leadership positions.
But perhaps the most exciting transformation that you can supportis the idea that everyone is both a teacher and a learner. It doesn’t matter whetherthe learning is going on in the training center or on the front line; the idea thateveryone has a teaching (including coaching and mentoring) responsibility—to theirpeers, their staff, and even their superiors—is a powerful tool for positive culturechange.
3. Focus on standards, metrics, certification, and results
Live by the end-of-course multiple-choice test, die by the end-of-coursemultiple-choice test. If you don’t have a sound process for showing evidence ofreal performance results, you run therisk of false certification—sending peopleout into the field thinking they are prepared when, in fact, they may be far fromit. And for those of you who are comfortable with “course attendance as compliance,”you may be in for a rude awakening. Showing up, even taking a short test at theend of a course, is not evidence of capability, and you are putting your organization’sreputation in jeopardy.
As noted in number 1, above, let your client drive the effectivenessdiscussion. Help your client understand what’s possible, and then work togetherto achieve it. Work toward certifying performance rather than certifying completion.Beginning with the end in mind—asking what your client’s end game is—may seem counterintuitive,especially if you see your role as pumping out courses; but in the end, it may beessential for your value proposition, and maybe your survival.
4. Dull the shiny-object syndrome
Stop, stop, stop going off the deep end every time a new technologycomes along. Many training organizations went gaga over Second Life and Google Glass and got little for their efforts—except,for some, a bad taste for technology, and for others, an unrestrained desire totry it again with the next toy. Either outcome is ill considered.
Likewise, assuming that great technology is all you need forsuccess is folly. Technology is a tool, not a strategy. A good LMS cannot guaranteea successful training program. In fact, it can lull you into a false sense thatall is well. Remember: Great technology, coupled with bad training, results onlyin more efficiently delivered bad instruction.
Of course great technology is exciting, but it should never distractyou from your core mission of improving performance and helping the larger organizationsucceed. Training organizations that tout the interactive technologies built intotheir classrooms or the sophisticated infrastructure of their eLearning efforts,over the value-add of the training programsthemselves, may not be around in the long run. Technology can be powerful, but itcan also be hypnotic at times. Know when you are drifting from the former to thelatter.
5. Rein in scope creep
Get real about your mission. It’s likely narrower than you think.Many training organizations, CLOs, and corporate universities start out with a limited,defined, and achievable mission, only to see it expand over time. After all, whenyou’re done training everyone in the domain or your original charter, what are yougoing to do to keep enrollments up? This leads to scope creep, which can ultimately kill you.
Before you know what’s happening, as you chase enrollments youare offering two, three, even four times as many programs. Worse, you are startingto offer multiple versions of the same program. The five-day course, the three-dayworkshop, the one-day briefing, and the three-hour overview come in rapid succession,followed by similar programs online, and the inevitable “refresher training.” Thisall comes with associated baggage in the form of more staff, more training capacity,more technology, and more money. Soon your little, focused training program hasbecome an albatross, forcing you to do anything you can to feed it, and attractingthe knives of the budget cutters.
Stick to your knitting. Expand only with the support—includingfinancial support—of your clients. And never, ever rely on courseware marketingin lieu of demonstrating real value to keep you going.
6. Build training leadership professionalism
Too often, people are appointed to leadership positions evenif they are not ready to assume the role; that’s just a fact of organizational life.We all know people like this—people who don’t belong in those positions and arenot effective in carrying out the organization’s mission. T&D is not immune.
We can mitigate this problem to an extent. We can say that businessexperience is only one key requirement for a training leadership job, and also requiresome learning and development experience on the part of senior training leaders.We can make it palatable for senior training leaders to partake in some form ofongoing professional development. It may not be courses, but certainly we can find(or build) learning experiences that would be very helpful for future leaders inour profession.
We can insist that the organization have adequate learning leadershipbench strength. One key responsibility of a learning leader must be to identifyand develop her or his replacement.
But most importantly, we can work to make a training leadershiprole valuable, not just to the organization, but also to the leader. If our leaders—nowand in the future—come into the job just to get their “ticket punched,” well, wewill get what we deserve.
Assuring your organization’s sustainability
When training (or learning) organizations fall out of favor,or fail entirely, much of it can be due to hubris. When they are threatened, you’llhear a familiar chorus: “We’re too important to fail.” (Sound familiar?) When trainingdepartments are slashed, they expect a hue and cry about their demise from theirformer clients. It rarely comes. Too often, those clients saw it coming long beforetheir training colleagues did.
There are also structural reasons for failure. Costs, professionalism,capabilities, mission, value proposition, and leadership are some of the major ones.It’s not too late to change your direction, and it’s not rocket science. Just sitdown and seriously talk about your business model and whether or not you are ona sustainable track. Failure to do so, not just once but on a regular basis, canseal your fate. And when it’s all over, you could be the only one surprised.
