How to Embody David and Slay Goliath

In Sunday morning’s ATD 25 session, “Empowering Solo/Small L&D Teams,” David L. Jackson III, director of talent pathways and learning at HealthPoint, advised attendees to upgrade their L&D teams—even though they may be a solo leader or team of two—from order-taker to strategic partner. Doing so involves three main learning components: strategy, governance, and infrastructure.

Strategy

An effective learning strategy drives business outcomes and goals, leads to employee engagement and retention, and creates a competitive advantage. Alluding to the saying of “what if we train people and they leave,” Jackson noted that companies that develop their people, even if those individuals were to leave for other opportunities, would have ambassadors when individuals mention where they learned their skills.

If your learning strategy doesn’t align with your organization’s business goals, you need to re-think it, Jackson said. And any learning strategy should include measurement.

In addition, the learning strategy should use collaborative elements; if you’re not collaborating with stakeholders, you’re likely struggling, noted Jackson.

Your strategy should also include cultivation: Push the envelope even if you’re a small staff, be flexible, and allow for innovation. Integrate other entities from the organization such as shadow L&D departments and well-intentioned subject matter experts who may not be familiar with adult learning theory.

Governance

Talent development practitioners who have their strategy in place first “have their North Star for governance,” continued Jackson.

Governance isn’t about control, assured Jackson, but about the right person making the right decision at the right time. While it takes time to create the processes and structure of learning governance, it ultimately saves time because it enables you to say “no” to asks that don’t drive business outcomes.

Learning governance can feature a senior leadership table that ensures executive alignment and funding approval; a learning committee that includes representation from business lines and assists with program prioritization and allocation as well as budget monitoring; and L&D operation, which influences standards and quality control, ongoing management of programs, and identification and selection of preferred vendors.

A governance committee buffers L&D from telling a member of the C-suite their initiative isn’t a priority.

Infrastructure

The learning infrastructure is the equivalent of your operating system. It governs the types of learning programs and in what areas—for example, leadership, role-specific skills, or communication capabilities. The ecosystem’s tools include a learning management system, content authoring tools, and the virtual classroom. Small departments should start with a free LMS if need be.

From there, L&D professionals can show business leaders the value and data that an LMS provides. You are more likely to obtain a budget for a platform with greater reporting and data options once you prove the validity of the tool in general.

Some additional pro tips that Jackson imparted include asking the business leader “What problem are we trying to solve?” before anything else; to have conversations with business leaders on a regular basis, listening to the details of their initiatives and then seeking to determine where learning might be able to help; and spending a few moments upfront to prioritize their schedule and initiatives, which will lead to the best outcomes for the business.

Read more about ATD25 at conferencedaily.td.org.