You have a corporate training strategy, right?

I just got done watching A plan is not a strategy —a great video—in which Roger Martin , former Dean at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, describes the difference between having a plan and having a strategy. The application to corporate training isn't perfect because an overall corporate strategy isn't the same as having a strategy for training, but let's take a few liberties at the edges and get something done here.

He defines strategy as "an integrative set of choices that positions you on a playing field of your choice in a way that you can win."

Let's see what this can tell someone who is leading a corporate training program.

Define what it means to win.

First, you need to become familiar with your company's strategy and any current strategic focus in the next several years.

• How has your company decided that it is going to win?
• How can your training program support those efforts? What skills and abilities do employees across the organization need so that the company will win?

You must ensure that your training programs are the first to receive funding and the last to be cut. Leadership must understand that your training program is vital to the company's success.

And then you need to…

Define a coherent and doable theory as to how you will do that.

The point here is not to come up with a plan for what to do at this point. First, you must to come up with a theory for how the company's employees need to act and what abilities they need to have in order to enable the company's success. We are going to assume that leadership has already come up with metrics that show whether or not the company is winning in the marketplace. You won't be able to guarantee the company's success, or that you have the right theory, but this is the only way that your program—and the company—might succeed.

Now that you have a theory for how you think employees need to act and what abilities they need, then you need to come up with a way of measuring if they are acting that way and if they have those abilities. You also need to get continual information about the performance of the company; if things aren't going as expected in the marketplace, then you will have to tweak your own plans and, possibly, the sets of skills and abilities that you are imparting to employees.

You can't control if the employees are doing their job well, but you can set them up for success.

Track all of that data so that you can show that the investment in training is paying off for the company. Leadership, and employees, will know that your programs are vital to their success.