L&D as a surprising by-product of Modern Strategy

What if I told you the right strategy process could also deliver invaluable learning and development (L&D) opportunities for the CEO, executive team and broader staff. Would it seem realistic given your earlier experiences with strategy processes?

And what if I said that modern strategy processes could not only achieve these parallel outcomes, but that there is something wrong if they don’t. If you are not getting live and practical L&D in conjunction with your strategy processes, then you are missing a critical opportunity.

Practical L&D is exactly what modern strategy should also deliver. This article will highlight these unique parallel outcomes and hopefully help you to see modern strategy processes in quite a different light.

But first, a crucial point: This is not about trying to bundle L&D in with strategy. We are not L&D consultants, nor do we want to be. We are simply on a mission to share the remarkable, parallel benefits of modern strategy processes when done the right way.

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Can you put a price on learning?

Picture this, you’re a CEO participating in a series of strategy workshops that (for the first time in your organisation) are based on modern strategy principles. The first thing that’s noticeably different is that the executive team and board are present and getting the chance to talk together about the most important issues affecting the organisation.

You’re also getting numerous opportunities to host practical conversations framed in a strategy context with frontline staff, partners, clients and community members, hearing their perspectives and challenges first-hand.

As the workshops and Qualitative Customer Conversations (QCCs) progress, you’re observing first-hand how the right approach elicits insights and uncovers previously unseen opportunities. You’re seeing how to gain a unique understanding of external operating conditions EOCs and weave qualitative data into strategic decisions.

And it’s not just you who’s benefiting. The whole leadership team is absorbing practical skills in real-time.

These are strategic thinking skills that might have taken months to explain in a formal learning environment or years to grasp ‘on the job’ and they are being transferred at the same time as your strategy process occurs.

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Imagine the benefits of a leadership team that:

• Learns how to think more strategically about growing the organisation.
• Knows how to gather nuanced market insights on an ongoing basis.
• Understands how to uncover opportunities and threats that fall outside of mainstream discovery tools.
• Becomes more comfortable with developing new business
• Is confident to have productive conversations with stakeholders (internal and external) in the context of the organisation’s strategy.
• Is comfortable in navigating through complex client and market feedback and pinpointing the areas that, when solved, will have a significant impact.
• Understands how to take an ongoing exploration mindset to build a foundation for future possibilities.
• Learns critical skills and ways of growing diversified revenue streams.

Are you achieving these outcomes as part of your strategy process? Are you confident that your leadership team is gaining a competitive edge from the strategy process itself?

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Where to from here?

In an uncertain economic climate, formal L&D can unfortunately be one of the first things to get chopped off the budget – but there will be negative consequences from this loss.

However, formal L&D can be offset by engaging in modern strategy processes that inherently bring incredibly practical L&D opportunities targeted at upskilling for future success.

Ask yourself these questions:

• How can we explore ongoing market insights to ensure our strategy stays highly relevant and help our leadership team develop core skills in gaining and using meaningful external insights?
• How could we shift from the typical routine strategy offsite and instead undertake a strategy process that builds impactful strategy and solidifies strategic thinking skills across our senior staff?
• Where can we incorporate direct learning of how to develop new business and diversified revenue growth into the strategy process where leadership can learn and continue this independently into the future?

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Are you ready to speed up your organisation’s growth?

Modern strategy is not just a warm and fuzzy exchange of ideas or a tokenistic exercise to give the perception that the CEO and board have listened. When done right, it’s also a live learning and development opportunity for leadership and staff around strategic thinking.

When modern strategy is done well, you not only build a highly relevant, practical strategy, but you get a direct and significant uplift in your team’s strategic thinking around how to explore new and diversified revenue streams, and proactively find nuanced external insights to solve the most significant client problems.

Can you afford not to have these outcomes as part of your next strategy process?

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How modern is your current strategy process?

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