The Opportunity
The Mandate for L&D Has Never Been More Clear
What separates companies that win from their competition? In most cases, it's not unique access to resources or a distinctive strategy. Rather, it's their ability to execute, that is, their ability to convert strategic intention to reality.
And what enables an organization to execute? In most cases, it's their talent, that is, the ability of the people in the company to perform the tasks that are most important to it—and whether they do them better, faster, and with fewer errors than competitors' people.
Given this reality, the mandate for L&D has never been more clear. Yet few business leaders view L&D as a partner that helps them achieve their most important objectives.
That's a big opportunity. If you are looking to make an impact, it's a good time to be in L&D.
Want some evidence about the ground to be covered? See below.
Talent Management: Boards Give Their Companies an "F"
Groysberg and Bell investigate what concerns corporate directors. What did they find? More than anything else, "corporate directors identified talent management as their single greatest strategic challenge."
Companies struggled across talent development capabilities. Perhaps most relevant for those in L&D, only 11-21% of directors strongly agreed that their companies were "effective in developing talent" (ratings varied by region).
Lack of Talent Is Preventing CEOs from Executing Their Strategies
According to this survey:
- 25 percent of CEOs have cancelled an initiative because they did not have the talent they required;
- 33 percent were unable to pursue a market opportunity; and
- 70 percent were less than “very confident” that they had the talent they required.
Executives Want to Build Organizational Capabilities ... But Their Companies Are Not Strong at Doing So
This report points out that "companies can gain a competitive advantage by building foundational capabilities such as lean operations and project management or industry-specific capabilities such as merchandising or underwriting." In surveying 1,440 executives, it finds that 58% put building such capabilities among their companies’ top three priorities and 90% put it among the top ten.
You would think that these companies would align their investments in training to their efforts to build capabilities. Yet the report also found that 75% of executives "don’t think their companies are good at building the capability that is most important" and "only a third of companies actually focus their training programs on building the capability that adds the most value to their companies’ business performance." More broadly, "only about a quarter [of executives] think their companies’ training programs are 'extremely' or 'very effective' in preparing various employee groups to drive business performance or improve the overall performance of their companies."
Talent Management Professionals Can Overrate Their Capabilities
The authors report that in this survey of talent professionals, 68% of talent professionals rated themselves in the top 20%.
Furthermore, respondents who rated themselves as only "Slightly Capable" in Knowing the Business did not seem to feel that lack of capability interfered with their ability to contribute. 69% rated themselves in the top two tiers for being a Courageous Advocate (Either a Role Model or Very Capable). 38% rated themselves in the top two tiers for being a Trusted Executive Advisor.
The authors state "While it's possible that the majority of HR practioners excel at managing talent, a more realistic suggestion is that we are markedly overconfident in our capabilities. If we maintain this view, we will find it difficult to advance the talent agenda in our organizations ...."
Perhaps it would be helpful to offer talent professionals a systematic way to understand their businesses and align their efforts. That's what our approach offers.
Learning & Development Leaders Know that Strategic Alignment Is Critical ... But Are Not Confident that Their Organizations Have the Capability to Achieve It
The authors report that 59% of learning leaders rate "Strategic Alignment" as the single most critical process capability required by a great L&D organization. This was not only the highest rating ... more than 5 times the number of learning leaders selected "Strategic Alignment" than any other process area (e.g. "Content Development", "Delivery", "Reporting & Analytics", or the other choices.).
At the same time, the authors report than only 28% of learning leaders rated their own organization as being great at Strategic Alignment.
We offer a systematic approach grounded in the idea of developing strategic alignment as a solid process capability.