Re-Architecting The Learning Organization To Drive Business Value

Re-Architecting The Learning Organization To Drive Business Value
Summary: It is vital to re-architect your current Learning and Development program in order to stay ahead of current developments. This article will introduce you to the most important concepts, terms, and practices.

Re-Architect Learning: What Does It Mean?

Clearly defining learning in the realm of the enterprise (and pinpointing its business value while trying to re-architect it) has proven elusive. Perhaps this is the symptom of a “too many cooks in the kitchen” scenario. Academics, organizational theorists, and business leaders have convoluted the meaning of the learning organization.

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Close The Learning Loop
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Some see organizational learning as a process that unfolds over time and link it to knowledge acquisition to amplify both individual and organizational performance. Some believe value is dependent solely on behavioral change, while others suggest “new” ways of thinking are enough. Is information processing as a learning mechanism enough to derive value or does the learning organization depend on knowledge sharing, rigid organizational routines, or even memory?

For argument’s sake, and for the purpose of this article, let’s consider the learning organization as one that is skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge while modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.

4 Levels To Align

Traditionally speaking, there are 4 levels within learning organizations that must be aligned and optimized to connect the links between L&D, business strategy, and desired value.

1. Organizational Strategy

Align L&D function to the business strategy and goals to address the needs of various stakeholder groups while having a vision, purpose, value proposition, learning business plan, annual budget, and quarterly priorities.

2. Organizational Capabilities

High-performing L&D organizations optimize learning capabilities around strategic, financial, and operational excellence, plus defined capabilities: business alignment, organizational structure, process excellence, learning technologies, measurement and evaluation, finance and planning, and forecasting and demand management.

3. People Competencies

L&D teams need internal champions with both general and specialized competencies, including business acumen, performance improvement, Instructional Design, Project Management, change enablement, learning technologies, and training facilitation.

4. Execution Methods

How the work gets done: Methodologies must be clearly defined and optimized over time to produce consistent outcomes. Methods include how an organization delivers quality assurance, social and informal learning, Instructional Design, program management, change management, technical development, and training delivery.

The Necessity Of Investment In New Technology

The rise of AI in L&D has come at an incredibly opportune time. As new generations of learners, who place emphasis on opportunities to learn on the job, grow in numbers across global workforces, organizations must make learning a core cultural component to attract and retain quality talent. For learning organizations, these generational shifts, in addition to the growing need to place smarter technologies at the core of their operations, mean learning technology; and, AI will play a key role in connecting L&D to business value.

AI and machine learning (no, they aren’t one and the same) will assist L&D leaders to understand learner behaviors better and provide the tools necessary to predict needs by recommending and positioning content based on past behavior (adaptive learning). Learning that is personalized to the individual is a powerful way to engage today’s workforce. Making sense of the data derived from these machines will enable L&D to uncover new ways to drive business value with learning.

For these solutions to take hold, however, there must be a recognition that technologies, such as AI, are not a replacement for humans. Instead of shying away from the digital evolution, it must be embraced as an opportunity to enhance the L&D administrator experience. The digital evolution allows them to focus attention and energy on rewarding and challenging tasks, such as creative and strategic solutions.

Investing in new technology is no longer an option, it’s a necessity—especially when it comes to improving the way people work and learn. Let technology do the repetitive, menial tasks, and learn to leverage the data-driven insights AI provides to make the learner experience more effective and more personalized. Doing so produces greater learning outcomes, better aligns L&D to organizational performance, and amplifies L&D’s value to the business.

Artificial Intelligence Learns How To Re-Architect L&D

Apart from the quality of learning, AI also presents an extremely valuable solution for L&D in businesses with high rates of dynamism. For example, organizations that require content to be continually updated will benefit from the adaptive learning environments AI produces by accurately predicting how that material needs to improve and change by processing more data over time (satisfying Senge’s five learning organization traits). These adaptive capabilities will also enable the creation of complete learning personalization in which the AI engine gathers individual learner data and refines it based on their behavior over time.

AI will touch each of the 4 levels of the learning organization structure and act as the catalyst (a supposed 85% of businesses require) to align learning programs to strategy and desired business outcomes properly.

Would you like to learn more about how to improve the effectiveness of your eLearning programs? Download the eBook Close The Learning Loop today!