Most learning teams put real effort into building a strategy. They talk to the business, agree on priorities and get sign-off. Then the business shifts priorities. A restructure or a new AI tool changes how the work gets done, and the plan has to change with it.
Our latest benchmarking data shows that many teams stop at this point. They build the strategy but don’t go back to update or modify it when the business changes. Mid-sized organizations of 200 to 3,000 people, for example, tend to start the strategy work but rarely adapt it to the ebbs and flows of the business. Their maturity stays flat, and L&D loses credibility.
WeLearn CEO and CLO, Sean Stowers, will dig into this on Oct. 7 at the Training Industry Strategy Summit in Milwaukee. He’s moderating the featured keynote, Learning Strategy: Why the Work Is Never Done. Four L&D leaders join him on stage, each of whom has kept a strategy moving through growth, restructures and AI with the resources they have:
- Karen Ganitsky, global sales training leader at 3M
- Sarah Casper, senior training and quality manager at Spotify
- Jonathan Sprague, director of education and credentialing at the American Academy of Implant Dentistry
- Jennifer Myers, senior director of learning and talent development at the Center for Internet Security
Attending the summit? Be sure to add the session to your agenda or register here to secure your spot.
What we're hearing from learning leaders
As we prepare for this panel we have gone back and forth with learning leaders about what it takes to keep a strategy working effectively when leadership changes or business priorities shift.
A few patterns really stand out.
The first measure isn’t always the one that tells the story
Most teams pick a success measure before a program launches, which is the right instinct. The leaders we speak to say that the strongest evidence often shows up somewhere they weren’t looking. For example, a sales training program might be set up to track results against sales targets, yet the clearest change shows up in how sellers work day to day. You might see it in what they record in the CRM or in the tools they start using. That data usually belongs to sales operations or sales technology, so L&D only hears about it when those teams decide to share it.
Building relationships with the teams who own that data matters just as much as choosing the right measure. When those teams share their data with you, you can show a program’s impact in the business’s own numbers. Evidence like that is what gets L&D included in leadership conversations.
Good results don’t always keep a program running
Showing that a program improved a business result makes a strong case for keeping it, but the business may still decide to stop running it. Sometimes teams are short-staffed and managers can’t spare people for training. Sometimes a new leader takes over and wants a different approach. In both cases, the decision comes from a change in what the business needs rather than any problem with the program.
If L&D agrees to stop a program without offering another option, leaders may start to see learning as optional. A better approach is to treat the decision to stop a program as a business conversation. Find out what pressure is driving it, and look at whether training can move into the workflow so people learn while they stay productive.
Some results take years to show
Some of the programs that matter most to the business take the longest to prove their value. A leadership development pipeline, for example, may need three years or more before you can see who was promoted into senior roles and who stayed with the company. Leadership, meanwhile, reviews spending every quarter. A program that can’t show progress at those quarterly reviews becomes an easy cut well before it has had the chance to deliver.
Before launch, agree with the business on the early indicators you’ll track along the way, such as retention or promotions within the cohort. Leadership then has early results to consider, while the program gets the time it needs to deliver.
Where FRAME™ comes in
Each of these conversations came back to one question. What did the business get back for what it spent on learning?
Every other function answers that in financial terms. L&D usually reports numbers that mostly matter to learning. Learning leaders have told us again and again that they can’t show leadership what their work is worth in dollars, so we built FRAME™ with them.
FRAME™ connects each learning initiative to a KPI the business already tracks, such as first-year turnover or time to proficiency. It gives learning leaders a way to show what the business got back and to review it every quarter, on the same schedule as the rest of the business. We’ll reveal it on stage on Oct. 7.
Join us on Oct. 7 and hear:
- How a maturity baseline shows where your function stands, and what it takes to keep pace with the business
- Where strategy work falls off, and what successful learning leaders do about it
- How to operate like a large enterprise with the resources you already have
- How methods like FRAME™ help L&D show its value and make the case for continued investment
Learning Strategy: Why the Work Is Never Done
Oct. 7 | 8:30 – 9:30 a.m. CT
The Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee
Attending the summit? Be sure to add the session to your agenda or register here to secure your spot.
