Checklist for Transforming Learning & Development
In this paper, I introduce and explore all the categories of change one needs to consider when seeking to transform an organisation’s Learning & Development (L&D) function.
A few clarifications…
Transformation
To transform a business function is to bring about profound, multi-faceted, sustainable improvement in efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency being “doing things right” as they say, and effectiveness being “doing the right things”.
Transformation isn’t always the answer. It requires significant investment of one sort or another (money, time, risk), and, as described in one of my other papers (https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/how-determine-whether-business-case-bpotransformation-howard-spode/), this needs to be justified by a business case, showing not only that the proposition to move from the current state to the future (transformed) state makes sense, but that this also makes sense in the light of competing propositions. If the business case for transformation doesn’t fly, there are other options. Focusing on fixing specific problems for example. Or seeking to generate a steady stream of incremental improvements. Or basically just soldiering on. It all depends on the circumstances.
But this paper assumes that transformation is in play. Maybe an organisation is radically changing its business model and realises that L&D is going to be essential in re-skilling its employees. Maybe an internal Transformation Team is looking at all business functions and it’s L&D’s turn. Maybe a new L&D Leadership Team has a vision for their function to be truly world class.
What do I mean by “categories of change”?
Well, for example, one could change the organisation of the L&D function (roles and responsibilities, reporting lines), or one could change the way L&D processes flow, or one could change the people in L&D, by providing them with additional skills, or by swapping individuals in or out of the team. “Organisation”, “Process” and “People” are three of the categories I am talking about. I'll share the full list in a few minutes, but the cover art of this paper provides a sneak peek.
Conceptually, the categories are independent of one another. Each can be seen as a separate “lever” that can be pulled to attempt to bring transformation about. So one could contemplate changing the way L&D is organised without necessarily feeling the need to change the technology that L&D uses (“Technology” being another of the categories). This is why I feel OK to look at the categories one-by-one in the form of a checklist. However, in practice the categories are highly connected. Change in one invariably necessitates complementary change in one or more of the others. As an analogy, we can imagine what would happen if someone were to try to operate this Digger by pulling just one lever:
But obviously nobody in L&D would imagine that implementing a new Learning Experience Platform (LXP) equates to transforming L&D, would they? Or would they?
As I have argued in several of my other papers, true transformation needs to be holistic in that multiple “levers of change” will need to be pulled, pushed, nudged and nurdled, all at the same time. With some just felt, with a light touch, just in case. Which of course takes a lot of skill. Just like the skill a Digger Driver has.
Why L&D?
Three reasons.
Firstly, in my previous papers (links to which are added at the end of this document), I talk predominantly about the process of transformation, which as a Management Consultant and Programme Manager, I have applied to numerous business services, such as Finance, Procurement, HR and Payroll. I give lots of real-life examples, but I don’t focus on any one function. So, a change being as good as a rest, I thought I’d do things a bit differently this time. Having said that, all the principles I will share are applicable to any business service. They are not L&D-specific. But I’ll talk solely in an L&D context, using L&D examples.
Secondly, at the outset of my career many moons ago, I had several jobs in what was then called Training & Development. Subsequently, I have encountered L&D on various occasions, usually as part of wider HR transformation programmes, but occasionally on a stand-alone basis. So, all-in-all, if I know anything about the deep content of any business function, it is L&D. I doubt they’ll be offering me a Nobel Prize in the field, but I know enough (perhaps enough to be dangerous). But I’ll not be talking deep L&D content anyway. I won’t, for example, be discussing the merits of microlearning, gamification or virtual reality, or whether the use of avatars in role-play is a good idea. ?As I said, I’ll be talking about how to make step changes in the effectiveness and efficiency of L&D, whatever it is that L&D chooses to do.
Thirdly, every time I have encountered L&D in the years since I stopped being an L&D person, I have been struck by the relative lack of transformation that the function has undergone:
THE CATEGORIES OF CHANGE
Here they are:?
At the centre we have “Strategy” and around the outside we have eight what I call “operational” categories. Strategy has some sub-components, but I’ll get to those in a short while. For now, the concept of strategy as a powerful lever of change is clear, I am sure. Figuring it out, articulating it, getting it endorsed by key stakeholders. And of course, strategy is used to inform action in the various Operational categories. Although as the bidirectional arrows in the graphic imply, it’s not a one-way street from the strategic to the operational. It’s very much iterative in that strategy is sketched out, current reality in each of the operational categories is reviewed, future states are envisioned and the type and scale of change needed is assessed. This process will invariably lead to tweaking of the strategy and may well lead to its modification.
Turning to the Operational categories, these eight cover the whole picture in my experience. Carving an intrinsically holistic world into specific conceptual chunks is always a mental challenge. For example, does “Policy” need to be separate from “Process”? Yes in my view. Does “Procedure” need to be separate? No. Is “Commercial” a sub-set of “Governance” or is “Governance" a sub-set of “Commercial” or do they both exist separately? Separate.
I am sure my categorisation is open to challenge, and there’ll always be a few grey areas. But it works for me. The acid test is whether I’ll have meaningful things to say about each category, without repeating myself. Fingers crossed!
Right, I’ll now look at Strategy and then go on to consider each of the operational categories.
STRATEGY
The reason I didn’t break out the sub-components of “Strategy” in the previous section is that some of the terminology can get in the way if one is not careful, and I felt I had a few valuable things to say before I jumped into the pool. For example, some people love “mission” and “vision”, but some people hate these terms. I don’t have any skin in the game, so I’ll try to stay at the shallow end by using basic, neutral language. I would strongly recommend anyway that when one is developing L&D strategy, one adopts the strategic framework used by the strategy bods and top management in the organisation.
Whatever the terminology, ultimately, strategy is about:
Each one of these is in fact a lever of change in its own right, theoretically independent but usually highly connected to the other Strategic levers, and indeed to the Operational levers. For example, an L&D Purpose that majors on enhancing “leadership skills” in the organisation would have ramifications for the Operational lever of "People" in that, if L&D is to add real value to leaders across the organisation, it would be a good idea to have an L&D team who have a deep understanding of how the organisation works, and maybe even who have successfully led things themselves. Characteristics that are somewhat less than ubiquitous in my experience.
In addition to what can be thought of as “internal consistency”, between the various levers of change, L&D strategy needs to be externally consistent, with the overall business strategy. In fact, L&D strategy needs to be driven by overall business strategy. What is the organisation as a whole trying to achieve? What barriers is it facing? How is it responding? What implications, indeed imperatives, does this generate for L&D?
Let’s imagine a company with a mission-critical priority to transform its manufacturing. Lots of learning needed, around Lean, Six Sigma, Kanban, etc. The CEO is aware that there is an L&D function and has tasked the HR Director to help. Unfortunately, this is not the kind of stuff that L&D typically gets involved in. But what the business needs from L&D may not always be consistent with what the L&D team wants to do, based on comfort zones, personal interests or career aspirations. The strategic imperative for L&D in this case is clear. Time to get deep down and dirty.
I’ll now look at each Strategy sub-component in turn, because this paper is a “checklist", after all.
Purpose
A Purpose is a succinct and compelling (and accurate) statement of what a business function is for. A sentence or three covering, in a nutshell, what the function does and why it’s important to the organisation.
What is L&D for?
Well, the clue’s in the name, right? Hmmm… In all honesty, I’m not 100% sure what “Learning and Development” means. I know what the word “learning” means. And (I think) I know what the word “development” means. I also know what “and” means. But I’ve never been fully convinced about the combination of “learning”, “and” “development”.
It’s not like “apples and oranges”, because both apples and oranges are fruits. With learning and development, it seems as if “learning” is a mechanism and “development” is an outcome. That would work logically. The snag is that the term “development”, as I understand it, connotes growing beyond one’s current role, in preparation for doing something different. Surely this is not the only objective of L&D. In fact, it’s not even the primary one. Surely the primary objective is to equip people to perform in their current roles, the roles they are currently being paid to do?
Whether I want to move into another role is driven by me. My employer can’t demand that I seek promotion, or transfer to a different business function. I might be perfectly happy where I am, doing a good job in line with my employment contract and life preferences. However, if I lack the full set of capabilities to perform in my current role, perhaps because I am new or perhaps because the role has morphed in some way, it isn’t really a matter of choice for me to try to fill the gaps. I am obliged to, with the organisation’s support of course.
So there are two significantly different scenarios at play, and, in my view, the term “development” only covers one of them. Maybe just “Learning” would be better title for the function, and some organisations are indeed adopting this.
But enough semantics. ?Imagine a billionaire has taken over the organisation you work for.? Not beyond the realms of possibility these days, whether you’re in the private or public sectors. This new CEO meets you in the elevator. S/he already knows who you are. You’re the Head of L&D. S/he asks you a question. The same question s/he is asking the leader of every function in the organisation. It’s politely phrased, but it boils down to: “what are you for?” What is L&D for, I mean. What are you going to say before the elevator stops?
When I search “purpose of L&D” on the internet I find lots of “nurturing”, “empowering”, “enriching”. “Employee growth”, “professional development”, “competency”. “Better work performance”, “helping the company grow”, “staying ahead of the competition”. All this could be OK, but I doubt it would float the billionaire’s boat if couched in such nebulous terms.
I even find reference to the purpose of L&D being to “motivate employees”, to “attract and retain talent” and to “build organisational culture”. I can see how an effective and efficient L&D function can make significant contributions to these objectives, so that they can be benefits of good L&D. But as for their being part of the Purpose of L&D, surely “motivation” is primarily a job for leaders across organisation? Surely “attracting and retaining talent” is primarily the purpose of a different part of HR? And surely “building organisational culture” is part of the purpose of top management? I guess if I were the CEO and I heard such claims for the purpose of L&D, I’d be worried about delusions of grandeur, and I’d be thinking about sticking to knitting, staying in lane, laser focus.
Producing a good purpose statement is not easy. But this is not primarily about wordplay. It’s even more challenging to determine what L&D is for, achieving the internal and external consistency I have talked about. So even though "Purpose" is at the start of the list, and you may well will draft a Purpose at the outset, it will probably be the last element to be finished, after you've thought through all the other strategic and operational levers.
Customers
The Customers of L&D are likely numerous and varied. Employees who manage other people, at senior, middle and first-line levels. Employees who don’t manage other people. White collar. Blue collar. Apprentices. Graduate trainees. Contractors. Consultants. People who work for outsourcing partners. Other business support functions that want to use L&D-owned technology for compliance purposes. Visitors to company sites who may need to be briefed using that L&D technology. Government agencies. Industry bodies. Non-executive directors. Etc.
It's always a good idea to think about who one's Customers are. Contemplation of this question immediately starts to generate connected thought in other categories. Services most obviously, as in what do we do for our Customers?
Services
L&D can do lots of things, from setting up training rooms to designing and running bespoke interventions to build senior teams. But often I find that L&D’s Services have developed organically, like a coral reef, as opposed to being subject to proactive analysis and decision-making about what the “service portfolio” should be. Some of the current Services will no doubt meet genuine Customer needs, but some might not. For example, is it really a bona fide “service” for L&D, at the behest of compliance functions such as Health & Safety, Legal or IT, to load low-quality mandatory training onto the Learning Management System (LMS) and assign this to employees across the organisation, without any validation of the learning need or quality review of the material?
The question: “Are there Services currently being delivered that shouldn’t be?” needs to be asked. So does its opposite: “Are there Services not currently being delivered that should be? As an example of the latter, it is not unusual for technical training to be handled by the business as opposed to L&D. In this scenario, it might be a valuable Service for L&D to support the people in the business responsible for the technical training. Training in basic L&D techniques for example, setting up knowledge sharing networks, coaching. This definitely is unusual in my experience. (STOP PRESS: As I was finishing the current paper, I decided to write a second one, focused on the transformation of Technical Training, specifically through the establishment of "Academies". It can be considered a companion to the current paper and can be found here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/transforming-technical-training-academies-howard-spode-e15le/).
A powerful technique for deciding what Services should be provided is to get all the members of the L&D team to list what they actually do, then perform a Stop/Start/Continue analysis. Yep, I know that what people do are activities, not services. But the two are closely related, and I find it easier to start here, then abstract the Services from the resultant analysis. People have enough difficulty listing what their activities are, especially if they are required to also estimate the average time they spend on each. Trying to go straight to Services is too conceptual in my experience.
There will probably be a few specialised roles within the L&D team (L&D Technology for instance or the Head of L&D). But most of the team will probably be doing the same role, which will be some kind of “L&D Consultant”, albeit in different geographies or business units or types of learning, and maybe at different levels of seniority. So most of the L&D team should be doing more or less the same things, right?
Let me share a story.
Once, with a team of five L&D Consultants assigned one each to five BUs, 84 activities were self-identified. But not one activity was named the same way twice. Sure, there were common themes. Evaluation of learning for example. But there was no common vocabulary at all. If there had have been L&D process maps, the activities could have been taken from these and pre-populated in the analysis. But there weren’t any process maps (yet). So, rather than providing a top-down manufactured vocabulary that the team would have had to force-fit itself into and thus may have distorted reality, we let people be free to describe what they did in their own words and undertook the subsequent reconciliation. There’s a lot of spade work in transformation.
Even considering different people describing the same things in different ways, we found that there was still a wide variation in what the five people in ostensibly identical roles were doing.
It turned out that a couple of them were acting as traditional L&D practitioners, personally developing and delivering learning programmes and interacting directly with managers and employees to advise on individual learning solutions. A couple were more focused on a CoE role of creating a learning and development environment that is executed through managers, HR, the LMS and external suppliers.
And one seemed to be acting as some kind of Organisation Development (OD) Consultant. Coaching managers, facilitating business team meetings, running culture change workshops. Not much L&D at all. This is not too uncommon in my experience. Some L&D people seem to find L&D a bit boring and prefer to exercise their Occupational Psychology predilections. Fine if that’s what the business needs, but not if it’s self-indulgence.
Once we had confirmed our understanding of the current state, we were able to decide Stop/Start/Continue for each activity. Just one example here or I will go on for ever. As part of Learning Needs Analysis (LNA), only one person was collating and analysing individual outputs of the organisation's performance management cycle.?I used to do this when I was an L&D person, but that was a long time ago as I mentioned, and I feel as if some parts of the L&D community have moved away from the practice. It can be a pain to do, but it’s at least a source of data? I wonder whether the readers of this paper would Stop, Start or Continue this practice?
Anyway, from activities we could easily get to Services: “Learning Needs Analysis”, “Evaluation of Learning”. “Annual Learning Plan”, “Internal Learning Programmes”, “External Learning Programmes”, “The Learning Management System”, “Bespoke Learning Interventions”, “Support for Major Business Projects”, etc. A detailed specification was then written for each Service – what is it, why is it important, what are the performance standards, how will performance be measured? After validation with stakeholders, we had ourselves a formal “Service Catalogue” defining what L&D delivers to its Customers and thereby letting those Customers know what they could expect from L&D. We could then set about standardising the Services across the organisation and properly communicating them to the business.
Core Values
Continuing through the list of sub-components I shared when I introduced Strategy, we now get to “what key principles guide the way we work?”. Articulating 5-10 of these, if they are honest and meaningful, can bring great colour to a strategy and provide guiding lights for future decisions. The principles don’t have to be super-tangible. Tangibility comes in the form of Strategic Objectives and lower-level metrics that I’ll talk about soon.
An example Core Value might be about everything L&D does being driven by the business, but I’ve already covered this theme. Or about striving for internal efficiency within the L&D function, which I’ll cover later. Or maybe about the style of L&D’s interactions with its Customers. For instance: “the people we help learn are adults, and we treat them as such”.
Hmmm… What might this be getting at? Well, the commitment to utilise genuine adult learning principles, as opposed to treating people like children as I am afraid much training does – chalk and talk, all push no pull, silly tests that learners can get right without even going through the material. So, a commitment to andragogy as opposed to pedagogy. Wow – a bit of jargon. I surprised myself there!
Operating Model
This is the way in which Services are accessed by Customers, delivered by L&D and governed to ensure effectiveness and efficiency. The details of the Operating Model are composed of the details in each of the operational categories of change (Policy, Process, Technology, etc.) that I’ll look at in due course, but a summary of the Operating Model would feature in the L&D strategy, with key features pulled out such as:
领英推荐
Strategic Objectives
What key outcomes do we want and how will these be measured?
No doubt L&D will want many outcomes. As many as there are Services. As many as there are learning programmes. And hopefully lots of aspects of effectiveness and efficiency will be measured.
But for Strategic Objectives, it’s either a matter of developing a few higher-level objectives, which encompass the more operational ones, or of selecting a few of the most prominent operational ones that are known resonate with key stakeholders.
Or maybe a mixed approach, with a super-overarching objective such as:
And underneath this, a selection of picked-out operational objectives such as:
Now I will look at each of the operational categories in turn. I’ll present them in an order that makes intuitive sense to me, but as I keep saying, all the categories are iterative with each other.
POLICY
Policies are codified statements of intent that guide specific decisions and actions. So, to use a rather mundane example, if an employee asks: “Will you fund my MBA?” there is a pre-determined official response.
Usually, organisations have an overall “L&D Policy” document with content such as:
This is all fine, but unfortunately L&D policies often feel like they were first drafted in 1982 and have been cursorily and reluctantly updated at random points since by people who were given the task as a punishment. Oh dear. But by using extracts and summaries of the various sub-components of Strategy as previously described (the Service Catalogue for example, the Core Values), the L&D Policy can be a vibrant, inspirational, customer-facing document. L&D’s shop window!
Even more important than the shop window, of course, is what’s in the shop. What new and innovative L&D policies could be put in place to help achieve business objectives? How, for example, could L&D help an organisation become more “entrepreneurial”? Offering employees the possibility to spend paid time in a network of small businesses that L&D has partnered with? How about the need for cross-functional co-operation within an organisation? Could L&D encourage and facilitate Action Learning, as opposed to just throwing that term around every now and again? And, for an organisation operating in a field where skills are in short supply, what L&D policies might make a real impact on the recruitment and retention of talent?
PROCESS
By “Process” I mean the sets of sequenced activities by which L&D undertakes its work. The practice of understanding, documenting, analysing, improving and re-documenting business processes has been around since the early 1990’s. Yet I know of L&D Departments in the mid-2020’s which have not started on this journey in any meaningful sense. Some don’t even have process maps, as mentioned in one of the examples I shared earlier.
To an extent, it is possible to survive without documented processes because the process flows embedded in the core L&D systems determine how things are done. But Technology does not cover the whole scope of L&D. How to perform LNA for example, or how to develop a learning programme, or, indeed, how to serve Customers who cannot use the core systems for one reason or another.
Process and Technology are closely related, sometimes harmoniously but sometimes discordantly. As an example of the latter, in one organisation I knew, an LMS had been implemented which had the functionality to arrange group events and record the attendance of all the participants. However, for some reason a practice had arisen where L&D Administration would not set such training courses up as group events in the LMS but simply use the system to house the relevant materials. Trainers would then download the materials to deliver the events. Trouble was, the LMS had no way of knowing that there would be multiple participants, it only knew that one person (i.e. the trainer) had downloaded the materials. So it assumed that the trainer was undergoing the learning on a solo (asynchronous) basis as opposed to all the participants learning as a group (synchronously). Ooh – asynchronous and synchronous learning! I’m on a roll with the jargon!
But, I hear you cry, what about the training records of all the participants? Guess what! These were retrospectively passed by the trainers to L&D Administration (on spreadsheets, emails, pieces of paper) and then entered manually by L&D Administration into the LMS. Net result? More than an entire Full Time Equivalent (FTE) of unnecessary effort.
TECHNOLOGY
When I say "Technology" I am focusing in this paper on the core applications that L&D uses to deploy its Services to its Customers, predominantly the LMS (and/or LXP, but I'll just use "LMS" from hereon). However, there are often other "satellite systems", for example to support online delivery or evaluation, or to deploy content to people who cannot access the core system. And there are the applications the L&D team itself uses (e.g. for internal communication, workflow, project management).
I already made the point that changing Technology alone does not equate to transformation. It's also important that Technology is implemented in tune with the other categories of change. So for example, if a new LMS is populated with the same low-quality mandatory training as existed before, what’s the point? Except a more efficient way of beating people over the head, I suppose.
I once knew an organisation that loaded almost 8,000 courses in its new LMS, with a Policy of “opening up learning”. Two years later, 50% of them had never been accessed. Of the ones that had been, over 90% of the activity was mandatory (assigned to the employees by the LMS). People simply were not going to the LMS voluntarily.
In this case, the Technology was aligned with the Policy, but neither were being accompanied by Process. For example, to provide quality assurance over material loaded or governance over what was made mandatory. This is something I alluded to before. So when learners interacted with the LMS for their mandatory training, they often did not have a pleasant experience, which did not encourage them to go looking for non-mandatory content. As it happens, many of the non-mandatory courses were of decent quality, but another piece of Process was missing in that no formal routines had been put in place to promote the non-mandatory content to Customers.
SERVICE
Under Strategy, I talked about Services. But now I will talk about the Operational category of “Service” which refers to the various ways in which Customers get information about, access and feed back on L&D’s Services. These various ways are collectively called “The Service Model”, which can be thought of as a customer-facing “wrapper” that surrounds the inner workings of the L&D function.
For example, if I, a team member, want to attend a calendarized internal training course, I may apply using a portal on my computer. A workflow then seeks approval from my manager. If this is granted, I am accepted onto the event or waitlisted for a future one if it is full.?All in the LMS. An LMS can be a clever thing.
Prior to applying though I will have already spoken to my manager to discuss my learning needs. This step is outside the LMS, which is another illustration of why Process is needed, in addition to Technology. But that’s not the point here. The point is, for me as a team member, my manager and the LMS are key parts of the L&D Service Model. So is the L&D Policy I talked about earlier (which probably sits on the LMS but may exist in other places too). And, if there is one in my organisation, so is the HR Shared Services Centre (HRSSC), because if I have a query or experience an issue along the way, I contact the HRSSC and receive a response / resolution according to its Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
As a team member, these are the ways I access L&D Services – my manager, the L&D Policy, the LMS and the HRSSC.?
If my learning need is complex, maybe my manager will consult with the relevant HR Business Partner (HRBP), who will have a good understanding of all HR matters, including L&D. If the need is super-complex, maybe the HRBP will need to seek the advice of L&D. The HRBP and L&D, acting as a CoE function, are also parts of the Service Model, but not parts with which I as a team member interact.
The role of each part of the Service Model, the process flows between the each of the parts and the key performance metrics can be clearly specified, all with the objective of ensuring predictable and professional customer service. Here is an example of a Service Model:
I haven’t got time here to describe all the details but hopefully the key features are clear. Suffice to say all nice and neat. Like clockwork. :)
This is not always the case, though:
Designing, setting up and enforcing the Service Model is one of the most challenging initiatives I have seen L&D functions make. But one of the most transformative.
COMMERCIAL
The Commercial lever relates ultimately to how things are bought and sold. It provides another lens to examine current practices and reveal future possibilities.
In terms of what is bought:
Turning from what L&D buys to what it sells, how is L&D funded? As an overhead that is automatically allocated to the various parts of the organisation? This is the norm, but fundamentally it’s a “like it or lump it” model. The business doesn’t have a choice and this must pose at least some risk to culture and customer service within the L&D team. How to change the melody here? Maybe create some kind of contract with each BU, even though this might be more “psychological” than “commercial”? Maybe provide basic L&D services on an allocation basis, but require payment for special services or projects? Or maybe outsource the whole of L&D?
ORGANISATION
Modifying the organisation structure tends in my experience to rival implementing new technology as the most common unidimensional change that L&D tries to make. It is very tempting to imagine that a new set of roles, responsibilities and reporting lines will cure all ills. And it is relatively easy to do. But, unfortunately, just as changing Technology alone does not equate to Transformation, nor does changing Organisation alone. As an illustration of this fallacy, allow me to pop over to HR for a moment.
In the early days of HR Transformation, various administrative tasks would be moved to an HRSSC. There was always a lot of attention on this transition. Meanwhile, the previous “Personnel Managers” back in the BUs became HRBPs. But often there was almost no attention on this transition. Did the Personnel Managers have the right skills to be HRBPs? What, anyway, was the HRBP role? How should HRBPs interact with the business, and with the HRSSC? What were the performance metrics? None of this was adequately covered, so this part of the overall transformation constituted a unidimensional change of Organisation, not supported by change in any of the other categories I have been talking about. In some cases, it boiled down to just being a change of name.
Back to L&D now. I have alluded to various aspects of the L&D organisation earlier in this paper. Learning Consultants assigned to BUs, the relationship of these CoE roles to HRBPs and the business, an L&D Technology Team, L&D Administration, Content Creation, the use of external resources and services. But these were just examples. I wasn’t meaning to promote any particular way of organising L&D. For example, a company I know embeds trainers directly into its sales teams. Real-time feedback and coaching, backed up with formal interventions. This is more focused than allocating a Learning Consultant to each BU. On the other hand, another company I am familiar with maintains a central team of L&D Consultants, with no allocations to BUs. Any BU that wants work done has to commission it. Everything is done on a “pull” basis, paid for by the business.
How to organise best depends on specific circumstances and the business cases for the different options. And "business case" will definitely include numbers given that the most significant item of the L&D budget will be the organisation. Or, rather, the People in it.
PEOPLE
We’ve now covered most of the structural elements of the Operating Model, and we can look at who is going to be doing the operating, i.e. the People.
“People” comes after structure because we don’t design the Operating Model around our current people, do we? We staff the Operating Model with the right people. Hmmm… well theoretically yes, but Policy, Process, Technology, etc. don’t have feelings, whereas People do. People also have employment contracts. So sometimes in the real world, some of the flow is the other way. Which is just the point about interaction between the categories of change again, I suppose.
But People are certainly the motive force behind transformation, so it’s essential to do what one can to ensure that the future team is right. Who do you want in the new world? How will these people be motivated, trained, retained and allowed to grow into their new roles? Their transition won't happen automatically, however good they are. Who, unfortunately, will not make it? What will happen to these people? Re-deployment elsewhere in the organisation? Severance by one means or another? And will you just have to grin and bear it with some people whom you don't deem suitable but who cannot be displaced for one reason or another?
GOVERNANCE
Governance is oversight of a business function, ensuring it is effectively and efficiently responding to genuine needs. Regardless of what business service I am working with, I always think of Governance as consisting of three levels and this framework works well for L&D:
Previously in this paper I have referred to the people whom L&D serve as “Customers”. This remains true, but, specifically for the purposes of Governance, we can think of three different customer roles:
So far I have been describing the governance of ongoing L&D operations. We could call this “Run L&D”. But if L&D embarks on a transformation journey, a second aspect of governance will be needed, to oversee the “Change L&D” activities that will occur in parallel to those of Run L&D. The two aspects will be connected but at the same time separate given that the dynamics of Change L&D and Run L&D will be different. Change L&D will be a project, with a start and an end, a specific set of goals and project management disciplines (See my paper on project managing transformation: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/ten-life-hacks-project-managing-transformation-bpo-howard-spode/). Run L&D, on the other hand, will continue to be an operation, understanding and responding to Customer needs on an ongoing basis. Projects and operations are different.
Transformation projects of course aim to create long-term benefits for operations. But they usually cause some short-term pain. Strain on operational resources utilised in the project for instance, or risk of service disruption as change is implemented. Governance needs to balance the requirements of Change L&D and Run L&D. Otherwise there is a risk of what the philosopher Virgil in the first century BC called "aegrescit medendo", meaning that the cure (i.e. the transformation) is worse than the original illness (the previous state of L&D).
? Howard Spode, 2025
Many thanks to Javier Ordó?ez, an L&D professional, for reviewing and providing great feedback on the draft of this paper (https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/javierordonezruiz/).
As promised, links to my other papers on LinkedIn: