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Commentary
Lessons from Private Equity: Creating Business Value Through Learning and Development 
The 2012 US presidential race has focused public attention on private equity (PE) firms. More specifically, media outlets have directed attention on the buyout side of PE, which buys mature companies that have encountered some challenges, fixes them up so that they are profitable, and then sells its interest to another buyer all usually within a fixed period of time (usually between 5-10 years). A lot of ink has been spilled by pundits and politicians about whether PE firms create jobs, though the truth of the matter, according to a recent NBER report from September 2011, offers a measured answer ... Read More »
Commentary
Learning Metrics, Moneyball, and Human-Capital Financial Statements
CorpU research has identified an unsustainable trend among organizational learning and workforce development professionals: taking on more programs while offering less measurement of outcomes. In a way, one can understand how the situation has spiraled and accelerated: feeling the pinch of budgets and business challenges, practitioners eagerly jump to address needs to improve performance, often taking on "emergencies" that require immediate action and resulting in less follow-up and follow-through on evaluating interventions across the board. Corners get cut and quick solutions are applied, resulting in learning measurements that senior executives find unconvincing.
Measurement alone won't change performance, but many ... Read More »
Commentary
Future Proofing with Shell at Online Educa
"Preparing Together for the Future of Online Learning" | Online Educa Conference | Berlin, November 30, 2011.
"He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future." George Orwell, 1984
December is a magical month for many reasons, but one that tends to stick out is the annual tradition of prophesying the future: fantastic declarations of flying cars, personal jetpacks, the death of the LMS, and other evidence from the intersection of wish fulfillment and magical thinking. Considering the future, however, should not require mastery of a ouija board, particularly if the reason for prognosis is ... Read More »
Research Brief
The Business Case for Creating a Corporate University
This paper sets forth the business case for creating a corporate university, based on the premise that corporate universities are the current best practice for systematically building human capital – a key capability for adaptive, innovative, knowledge-based organizations. The term “corporate university” is most prevalent in the United States, Western Europe and Japan, but whether it is called an academy, institute, or center for excellence, the feature that distinguishes it remains the same: the alignment of key learning programs so they actively support the strategic interests of the business.
Corporate universities offer a curriculum designed to support major change initiatives, serve to align staff development with business goals and improve the ROI associated with training investments. Corporate universities help create the conditions for strategic agility and innovation in a knowledge economy. Successful corporate universities have executive support and oversight to assure corporate goals and training align; appropriate technologies to assure and measure transfer and retention of knowledge and skills; and a well documented organizational plan for execution. Companies with efficient and effective corporate universities show measurable improvements to the bottom line in shareholder return, productivity, and customer satisfaction. Read More »
Research Brief
Learn Faster: A Case for Preparing for a Faster Rate of Change in Business, Knowledge, and Know-How
The current approach to corporate learning is about to be swamped under a tsunami of business change. It’s time for Learning and Talent Management teams to overhaul their corporate learning strategies. Or, if they’ve been focused on delivering programs and managing training operations, they need to develop one for the first time.? It all begins as leaders increasingly hear about the marketplace conditions and challenges of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. This paper is a case for preparing — on the basis of reasoned faith — for a faster rate of change in business, knowledge, and know-how. Corporate learning teams must begin to understand the dimensions of tough challenges that are confronting leaders and their workforces. They also must understand why these new challenges require new learning skills, new learning methods, and new approaches for prioritizing the learning function’s time, attention, and resources. In essence, it is time for learning and talent management teams to overhaul their strategies.
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Commentary
The Tactical Training Cycle: Don't Let It Hold You Back
Recently, Corporate University Xchange, in partnership with Edward Trolley (author of Running Training Like a Business), conducted a follow-up research study to ascertain the legitimacy of Trolley's original findings, as well as to determine whether learning organizations have been transforming themselves from having a function orientation to a business orientation, which was the key premise put forth in 1999. Mostly, what we found is that "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Of a total of 150 companies that were surveyed as part of this study, there were only 18 that could make the claim that ... Read More »
Research Brief
More Programs and Less Measurement Reflect an Unsustainable Trend
Does the CorpU 12th Annual Awards Program applications tell us anything about learning innovation? Indeed they do. In a nutshell, they show that learning organizations are focusing energy and resources on a variety of new programs, but not so much on measuring the effectiveness of the programs being implemented. After 12 years of giving out awards for Excellence and Innovation in corporate learning, the dramatic increase in the number of applications received in the Launching category is noteworthy. However, there seems to be significantly less innovation going on in the very important Measurement category. Why is this trend important? Because ... Read More »
Commentary
Curate Your E-Learning Library for Organizational Impact
E-learning is well over a decade old and has come a long way from its simplistic, PowerPoint-based roots. Increased interactivity, virtual classrooms and simulations are fast becoming the norm, while software and authoring tools are becoming more sophisticated and easier to use. In spite of the improvements in presentation and design capabilities, most companies do not take stock of their e-learning library of content even when they have a process to review and evaluate the catalog of other types of learning available across the organization. In order to meet ever-changing company goals, strategies, and workforce performance needs, you should review ... Read More »
Commentary
Do You Know Any Positive Deviants? Using Your Star Performers to Inform Learning
Benchmarking is the comparison of one organization’s practices to another organization’s, usually one that has been recognized for its excellence in a particular area. It is an externally focused process undertaken to learn how other companies work in order to have models and comparisons with current practices. When new or innovative practices are discovered, companies can use benchmarking to develop a business case for change.
Positive Deviance, on the other hand, is the concept that every group of people performing a similar function will have certain individuals within it who, as a result of their particular characteristics and ... Read More »
Commentary
The Need for a Performance-Based Culture
The question that has to be asked after the a-ha! moment when Friedman’s thesis is understood is what tools and techniques are there, and what levers can be used, to maximize the effort and take full advantage of the talent that a company has. Only by creating a performance-based culture can business hope to stay ahead of the continuous acceleration of business change that is caused by four mega-factors: Technology, Complexity, Competition and Globalization. Read More »
Research Brief
Q&A: What Evaluation Models do Companies Use Besides Kirkpatrick and Phillips?
Evaluation is often the most misunderstood and least completed step of the human performance improvement process, also known as Human Performance Technology (HPT). Using evaluation correctly, however, helps performance improvement practitioners learn what activities the organization has completed and what the results of those activities have achieved. It also helps establish accountability for employees, business units, managers, and organizations as a whole. This accountability helps focus the company’s efforts on the path toward achieving the desired business results.
Few organizations complete thorough evaluation of interventions because of time and resource constraints. All too often, practitioners receive numerous pleas for ... Read More »
Research Brief
Q&A: Is Our L&D Function Adding Business Value?
How can you really know if your L&D programs are highly relevant to business success or are just considered “nice-to-have”? How might you predict if your L&D budget will be…
dramatically slashed in an economic downturn?
reduced by less than other support functions?
increased to counteract other drags on business performance?
What’s the likelihood your senior executives are beginning to think they need to install someone with a business background to lead the learning function to redirect its focus toward improved business performance?
If you answer the following five questions with complete honesty, you’ll get a ... Read More »
