Learning Strategy Master Plan - Alignment
By Mark Harrison

NOTE: This is the part 1 of 4 Insight Briefings

The elusive search for the holy grail of learning and development has always been the creation of a learning organization. So how do organizations get there?

Peter Senge popularized a holistic view of a learning organization in his book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization (1990).

He characterized these as:
"organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.”

Countless pages have been written on this since and so there has been much greater awareness of what makes an organization a real learning organization. What do you have to do to do to reach this goal?

Kineo consultants have seen all the successful learning strategies in practice. In this, the first of four Insight Briefings, we look at the main characteristics (identified by the American Society for Training and Development) that are consistently present in the most successful learning organizations. These are:

• alignment (to overall organizational goals)
• efficiency
• effectiveness
• sustainability

The four characteristics are interrelated.

Alignment
It’s important right from the start that your learning strategy is Aligned to your organization’s goals. You can set up highly efficient and potentially sustainable learning initiatives but without real alignment they will never be properly effective.

Efficiency
Once you have aligned your learning initiatives, you need to get the most out of the limited budgets that you have at your disposal. Efficiency has been a major driver behind the adoption of new technologies and continues to be a major catalyst for change in both the private and public sectors. Ultimately, efficiency without effectiveness is pointless – both represent the key components in achieving a return on investment from your training spend.

Effective
So, to be effective you have to match agreed learning needs with the right content and the right approach, at the right time. If you are not aligned, this is not possible.

Combine Effectiveness and efficiency and you have the key components of Return on Investment. Without effectiveness it will simply be SOI – Savings on Investment. Effectiveness must lead to tangible benefits, which need to be broadcasted to all of the key stakeholders.

Sustainable
The final key element is that you’re aligned, efficient and effective learning strategy is set up in such a way that it is Sustainable.

The key is to build in sustainability into the whole learning and development infrastructure. You do this by enshrining best practice in transparent processes and procedures, engaging the whole organization in taking responsibility for the continued success of the learning operation and creating self-perpetuating networks of champions and supporters of learning within the organization.

In this Briefing we look in more detail at the first of these key components: Alignment.

Why Alignment is So Important
Alignment to your organization’s goals is the key to the success of your learning strategy.

You can set up highly efficient and potentially sustainable learning initiatives but without real alignment it will never be properly effective.

ASTD research shows that:

“BEST (Award Winning) Learning Organizations have formal processes to align short and long-term business strategies with competency, learning, and performance solution needs and priorities. The BEST map learning resources to competencies, individual development plans, jobs and corporate goals.”
ASTD 2005.

So, it is against these criteria that all learning activities should be evaluated.
In the following, we will look at a number of high level recommendations that were recently developed by Mark Harrison of Kineo in consultation with over a hundred learning professionals in the UK.

At the end of this briefing, you’ll get a checklist that can help you work out for yourself how aligned your learning strategy is to your organization’s goals.

1. Confirm your Organization’s Vision, Goals and Drivers
This is the obvious place to start. You need to:

• know the current and future vision and goals of the organization
• find out how closely operations in each part of the organization align to the overall vision and goals
• communicate any major differences between the goals of a business area and the overall goals of the organization
• know what worries senior management – what are the current key problems?
• check if everyone in your learning and development team knows the organization’s vision, goals and drivers

2. Work Closely with Senior Teams
The process of defining the organization’s vision and goals should bring you close to the top of the organization. You have to build on these relationships as much as possible. You need to:

• Ensure HR involvement at the highest level board level and build relationships decision-makers and influencers
• Build credibility for the L&D function through clear and proven alignment
• Proactively communicate your plans to the senior team and stakeholders
• Make senior managers and operations managers own your plans and the budgets
• Senior management must be seen to be involved in learning programs

3. Look for Areas Where Alignment Is a High Priority
You now have a clear idea about the issues or problems that learning solutions could resolve. Look for where the pain within the organization is at its greatest and where you will get the least resistance to the implementation of development programs. You need to:

• Look for areas in which compliance is required (easier to get senior management support)
• Prioritize areas in which levels of knowledge and capability is a big risk to organizational aims

4. Always Offer What People Want (and Need)
If you aim to meet your customer’s real needs, you will not need to persuade them to find the time to learn. Understand exactly what they want and give them solutions just when they need it, they will happily take up the learning opportunities you are offering them. You need to:

• Find out the burning issues for people in your organization
• Find out what people think of the value of learning opportunities they get (use employee surveys etc)
• Find out if learners feel their learning experience suits them
• Check levels of customer satisfaction

5. Make Evaluation Aligned to Organizational Needs
If you are going to evaluate, it makes sense that you only track the things that will make a difference in the achievement of the organization’s goals. Too often, it is done to check the quality of delivery and not on how much it has contributed to the organization’s strategic direction.You need to:

• Set up measures that lead to evidence on alignment
• Get buy into the measures from everyone
• Ensure evaluation criteria is linked to learning strategy
• Review your learning programs and check they really support and enhance organization goals

6. Work Closely with Each Part of the Organization
You need to stay close to every one of your clients and build up the sort of support that is essential for the success of learning programs. You need to:

• Ensure learning and development is regarded as a part of everyone’s job
• Ensure managers become trusted partners
• Get managers to be assessed on how they have helped the learning and development of their staff
• Make sure the learning and development function is brought in early to key initiatives
• Encourage operations and businesses to request your help
• Check how frequently the organization, without prompting, asks for meetings with you

7. Make Sure You Have Quick Decision-making Processes
You have to be quick on your feet to keep up with the changes within your organization. You need to:

• Ensure that your strategy responds quickly to changes in the organization’s overall strategy
• Develop champions who are committed to support your learning initiatives
• Reduce the number of touch-points or points in which you need sign off

8. Match Training Spend to Its Importance to the Organization’s Goals
This is where you need to look at things from a financial point of view. You need to:

• Monitor the investment on learning initiatives to check they are in line with priorities
• Ensure the learning and development function is rewarded on how well the organization performs

Your Alignment Checklist