Musings on L&D-10: Transforming Corporate L&D for the New World

The world is changing at a rapid pace. Black Swan events are occurring more frequently than ever before. The accelerated pace of change, creative destruction of industries, organizations and products propelled by market evolution have time and again proved that only the most agile, most adaptable and most flexible organizations, teams and individuals will survive in future. Organizations and individuals need to constantly transform themselves. Transformation is a painstaking process. The equation for transformation is:

Transformed organization= Transformed people.

To transform organizations, we need transformed people. In this context, one function which can play the pivotal role is the Learning and Development function in organizations. Before L&D takes on this mantle, it has to firmly position itself in a role which has both strategic and tactical significance. This obviously means that L&D cannot transform the workforce unless it, first of all, transforms itself. So let’s expand the equation further as follows:

Transformed Organization= Transformed people = Transformed L&D

This expanded equation, indeed is very powerful. This emphasizes the fact that in order to drive transformation in an Organization, we need to start the the transformation of its L&D function first. How is the transformation of L&D function possible? Well, transformation of L&D entails the following 3 steps:-

1. Reimagine Stakeholders

The transformation journey for L&D begins with this first step. And Reimagining stakeholders is indeed a paradigm shift for L&D practitioners. These practitioners traditionally had two primary stakeholders, viz, the Organization and its employees. L&D programs aimed at building organizational capability and employee development & career growth. However, for L&D teams today stakeholders are not restricted to these two groups only. Rather, L&D in present times has a broader spectrum of stakeholders. In addition to the Organization and employees, the stakeholders also include Customers, Investors, Community, Suppliers, Academic Institutions, Contract employees, Family members of Employees and others. L&D teams now need to think about the needs of each of these stakeholder groups and design their interventions holistically.

2 Reimagine Role

The next step in the transformation journey for L&D is to reimagine their role in the changed context. First of all, L&D leaders should stop looking at themselves as members of an enabling function as part of a cost center. They need to reimagine themselves as a business unit (preferably a startup unit) accountable to deliver tangible business value. As a startup business unit, they need to be lean and efficient and at the same time focus primarily on problem solving and value creation for their stakeholders. L&D leaders should become agile, adaptable and always willing to try, experiment and be prepared to fail. This is the DNA of an ambitious start-up.

In yet another major shift, L&D leaders should start reimagining themselves as performance consultants. Their job in future would be to understand the organizational and individual performance gaps and then design and deploy appropriate solutions to bridge the gaps. This will be a game changer for L&D.

Thirdly, L&D practitioners need to reimagine themselves as designers of learner experience. In the past, they used to take pride as designers of content. In future, they need to look at themselves as designers of learner experience because learning is not going to be about business outcomes only. It is also going to be about Immersive learner experience and engagement.

3. Reinvent Approach

The third step for L&D in its transformation journey, is to repurpose their approach as well delivery models. L&D cannot drive organizational transformation for tomorrow with yesterday’s delivery models. Needs Analysis, Content design and Content delivery are three important components of the L&D delivery model. Let’s understand how L&D practitioners can repurpose each of these components:-

Needs Analysis

L&D approach has to shift from from TNI (Training Needs Identification) to BNI (Business Needs Identification). L&D leaders need to understand business strategy, determine business needs and priorities and map their interventions to these priorities. They also need to evaluate whether these learning interventions are adequately addressing these priorities or not. KPIs and Metrics for L&D need to be aligned to business needs and priorities.

Content Design

Traditional approach of content design is evolving. In the era of content democratization, for learners content is available in plenty. This is often called the ‘problem of plenty’. Learners are not sure what is relevant for them and where they should start. Where content is available in plenty, L&D practitioners don’t have reinvent the wheel. All they need to do is curate and organize relevant content and direct learners in their organization to the curated content.

Today knowledge is becoming obsolete very fast. And the cycle time to design, develop and deploy learning content is too long. How can learning designers keep pace with the evolution of knowledge? Well crowd-sourcing of content will address this issue to a great extent. Crowdsourcing will help L&D teams to secure and deploy learning solutions at a fast pace.

Content Delivery

With work from home and distributed working becoming the new reality, virtual and technology enabled learning will become the new norm. L&D practitioners need to figure out how they can simulate or emulate the physical classroom or shop floor environment for the learner going forward. Delivery which used to be low tech and mostly instructor-led needs to be high-tech blended with facilitator intervention whenever required. This has to be now accelerated because of the COVID19 pandemic. Run of the mill e-learning solutions would soon become things of the past. Organizations will now look at deploying AI, AR, VR, ChatBots, Avatars and Holographic Presence etc. as tools to engage learners in highly immersive and effective learning activities.

We discussed the 3 key steps in L&D’s transformation journey. As L&D practitioners embark on this journey, they also need to upgrade their skills. Here are 8 critical skills L&D practitioners should develop for the future of work:

1. Design Thinking skills

2. Learning Agility

3. Strategic Positioning

4. Culture and Change Leadership

5. Learning Analytics

6. Consulting skills

7. Leveraging Technology

8. Influencing and Persuasion skills

These are exciting times for L&D professionals. For L&D, the transition to the new world is not just going to be a strategic or tactical shift alone, it is also going to a shift in skill-set as well as mindset. The faster one makes these shifts, the faster one would thrive in the new world. Are we ready?