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Most executives these days state explicitly that their people are their greatest corporate asset. And if people are going to be a company’s greatest asset, then they have to be working in a way that enables the company to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
A company with a competitive advantage is one that leverages its strengths and overcomes its weaknesses faster and more effectively than its competitors; the efforts of all people working in all job roles within an organization must translate into economic gain more effectively than the competition. This requires change management capability at mach speeds—identifying a business need for change; determining behaviors necessary to make the change; and accelerating the right behavior changes into the performance of the workforce.
To gain competitive advantage in the current marketplace, a company’s current state has to be such that its strategy, organizational performance, and human capabilities are aligned and working together. To be ready for tomorrow’s marketplace, some portion of the organization needs to be focused on designing changes to the status quo and then developing and implementing solutions that systematically enable the future.
Such future focus demands a company’s internal ability to enable business reinvention while simultaneously ensuring that the organization’s talent will be equipped with the right behaviors to effectively make change happen.
The enterprise learning function, which infuses enterprise goals into performance improvement learning at all levels within an organization, serves this vital function. Operating strategically with a C-level perspective, this serves as an internal competitive driver for the company’s greatest asset.
Aligning organizational strategy, people, and performance
There are three critical success factors for creating and maintaining a competitive advantage (Figure 1):
- the efficiency and effectiveness of current organizational and worker performance in winning in the current market
- the ability to predict future market needs and behaviors, set appropriate goals, and develop a strategy and performance system that aligns with goals to create a future competitive advantage
- the ability to implement systemic change from the current performance to future state, while keeping everyone fully engaged.
The first factor leads one to ask: Does everyone—in every job role in the organization—have the skills and knowledge necessary to do their job in such a way as to create competitive advantage today? If not, we need to take action and get everyone up to speed on the skills necessary for their current job. The same question will be asked about the future desired state for the second critical factor.
What job roles are required for us to be successful in the future, and do we have enough of the right people with the right skills to get there? Our answers will ensure we have the skills and knowledge for what is next. Consider the third factor: Do we know how to make the shift? We need leaders equipped with the skills and knowledge to make the transition, and who have the confidence to take the bold step of execution.
The enterprise learning function is key to affecting each of the critical success factors. Its purpose is two-fold:
- to provide effective learning experiences to help individuals develop the strategically important skills necessary for them to perform their job both today and in the future
- to work with leaders to ensure that these skills are being applied within the performance system to create a competitive advantage.
But do we really need an enterprise learning function to do this?
Analytical sciences, applied to business structure and practices over the years, have told us there are operational efficiencies and effectiveness to be gained by grouping together individuals to bring about particular outcomes. This is why organizations have subunits called sales, marketing, product development, research, operations, and distribution. We expect they will be focused, follow common process, be held accountable, and leverage their functional expertise for the benefit of the enterprise.
It would follow then, that grouping individuals who have expertise in the methodologies needed to uncover and understand the capability gaps—current and future—would be a tremendous strategic asset for an enterprise. Investing in a enterprise learning function and the science it brings to performance improvement (organizational and individual) means leaders would have a focused ally in implementing systematic solutions and ensuring integrated solutions that close performance gaps, both immediate and in the future.
In addition to keeping an organization performance-rich, in the face of ongoing change, a well-run enterprise learning function can:
- help attract and retain talent by showing organizational commitment to development
- help leaders discover and improve environmental factors associated with performance
- reduce siloed thinking that can lead to costly redundancy, in turn, identifying common cross-functional needs, and sharing solutions and efficiencies
- consolidate and focus spending
- provide accountability for the investments made.
Linking enterprise strategies to necessary skills or job roles
An enterprise learning function must excel analytically if it is to help create a competitive advantage for its enterprise. Focus should be on achieving three primary outcomes.
First, it must be capable of identifying the strategically important skills of individuals in critical job roles for today and tomorrow. This requires that professionals within the enterprise learning function have the ability to determine and validate with leaders what is strategically important at the enterprise, division, department, team, job role, and individual levels of the organization.
Once this is understood and the most strategically important skills are identified, then the second outcome becomes paramount: identifying or creating effective learning tools that develop skills in those who need them. The third critical piece to creating competitive advantage is ensuring that the new skills are applied back on the job, or are poised for application when change occurs.
The two-by-two grid shown in Figure 2 illustrates the first two outcomes and the interrelationship between them. In the lower left quadrant, you find strategically unimportant skills and little to no investment in solving them. In other words, very little time or money is being spent on things that don’t matter—this is a good thing. In the upper left-hand quadrant, we find skills gaps that are of high strategic importance where there is no learning solution available and fit for use—this is a gap that needs to be addressed.
In the upper right-hand quadrant, learning solutions are available and are fit for use; they are solving strategically important skill gaps. This is also a good thing. Finally, in the lower right-hand quadrant we find we have learning assets (we may even be promoting them) that solve for strategically unimportant skill gaps. This is waste and should be eliminated. Once we stop wasting valuable resources on the lower right quadrant, our focus should go into the top two sections of the grid.
It is critical that the learning function first meet the two primary outcomes discussed—identifying strategically important skill gaps and making solutions available that are fit for use. In other words, manage that skills grid. Then, the third outcome becomes key: new skills must be applied back on the job (or be poised for application results). The enterprise learning function plays a lead role in connecting learning and business results. It can provide the knowledge content, and it can help equip leaders with the skills and knowledge needed to lead a transition by helping new skills be applied within their areas of responsibility.
The ability to infuse enterprise goals into learning that truly affects organizational performance and human capability at all levels makes the enterprise learning function an invaluable strategic weapon in competitive times. The learning function helps ensure a company’s greatest asset—its people—stays efficient and productive in the current marketplace, and it helps prepare for and drive the shift toward future performance and results.
Shawn E. Merritt is managing partner of SDI Consulting; smerritt@sdiclarity.com. George A. Wolfe is former vice president of global learning & development at Steelcase University; georgeawolfe@gmail.com.
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