A SURE WAY TO SCORE A GOAL
You have to admit, the word ‘strategy’ is intimidating. It means taking a step back or doing a deep dive to critically look at your organization.
It can take on many meanings and organizations have different expectations on what they want to see from developing a strategy. Sports teams employ a strategy to ensure each play is successful. Businesses require a strategy to help them focus on the right priorities that will drive growth or sales—as well as ensure that all employees are aligned to the company’s priorities and business goals.
Learning and Development organizations are not that different. In fact, L&D organizations should develop a strategy to focus on the right priorities for the business they support and gain credibility. Whether you are new to your learning role or are an established leader of your learning organization it does not hurt to validate some of these questions and ensure you have the best plan for success:
Review your organization’s business goals or outcomes. Do your current strategies, projects, tools contribute to advancing those business outcomes? Is your team focused on building the right programs to develop the skills to drive business goals? Focusing on activities that are critical for your organization will improve L&D credibility and focus your team on meaningful work.
Define your charter. What is L&D’s vision, objectives (both short-term and long-term), how will you operate, how will you measure success? Don’t forget to connect the business goals to the L&D objectives.
Assess your readiness to support those goals. Do you have the right skills on your team? Do you need new tools, content, or capabilities to successfully deliver on the goals.
Create a plan and practical timeline. Demonstrate how you plan to align L&D to deliver on the business objectives and measure success.
Get input from your business partners and HR partners (the most important step). A better approach is to engage them in the process but if they are not able to participate, identify your key stakeholders who will support your efforts and guide you through organizational hurdles to help you achieve your goals.
If you need to develop a new learning strategy and need a little help with navigating the process, contact Startup Learning to discuss how a customized 2-day learning strategy design session can get you and your organization focused on the right strategies, build your credibility, and achieve your goals.
