Level-Set for L&D Goals

Chapter 1

When L&D goals miss the mark

Measuring success is a common challenge among L&D teams. Two major issues often cause this:

There’s misalignment between L&D goals and overall company goals
Because of this, the wrong projects are assigned to L&D teams—often, projects that have less impact on the organization’s goals

The effect of this disconnect can be monumental, setting L&D teams up to fail before they've created a single course. The good news? These issues are preventable and lie largely in the hands of company leadership.

So, how can your leadership team manage better outcomes? First, you must clearly communicate your goals to L&D leaders to ensure organizational change occurs. Meanwhile, develop a baseline understanding of what can—and should—be solved through L&D efforts.

Second, you can work with your L&D team to align their success metrics with those of the overall organization. This can allow you to more effectively advocate for the L&D team’s work and provide deeper visibility into the ways that the L&D team’s work contributes to the company’s success.

These efforts don't just make progress easier to track. They pave the way for effective learning experiences that drive true organizational results—the ultimate value-driver of an L&D team.

L&D functions often face an overload of initiatives and insufficient funding. L&D leadership needs to maintain an ongoing discussion with business leaders about initiatives and priorities to ensure the requisite resources and support.”

Source: McKinsey & Co.

What can your L&D team solve?

Training can be a powerful solution to many organizational problems. However, it's not a silver bullet for every issue.

In order to analyze issues effectively and determine an appropriate solution, the relationship between L&D and executive teams must be highly collaborative. L&D leaders should set the tone with company leadership on which problems can and should be tackled, while company leadership should provide appropriate context and resourcing on project requests.

Without proper project vetting, it can be complicated to solve problems and measure results accurately.

In her Action Mapping framework, expert instructional designer and consultant Cathy Moore offers an excellent tool for identifying the best solution for specific business problems. This framework asks L&D and company leadership to align on topics like solving specific issues, determining measures of success, and planning actions that help achieve success.

If education or training are actions that would help achieve success, then L&D is an appropriate route to solving the issue. If not, company leadership should look elsewhere to effectively tackle the problem and protect their L&D team's time.

By aligning expectations from the start, leadership can set teams up to solve problems efficiently and successfully. Remember: Your L&D team should be a trusted partner in business problem solving.

Nailing the “prove it” element

Even when the right issues are tackled through education and training, it may be difficult for L&D teams to prove success if their goals differ from those of the organization. To showcase their true value, L&D goals must ladder up to company goals.

To align L&D content with performance-based outcomes and create true impact, participants must have a chance to apply the content that they’ve learned in the course. Leadership must understand the need for application in performance-based courses so L&D teams can create useful assessments to measure success.

Beyond content, successful learning experiences must provide opportunities for the learner to practice making the types of decisions they’d make in real life when applying their knowledge.