MODELING LEARNING

From the desk of Marcia Dresner...

The learning organization serves multiple purposes: preparing leaders, training employees in job skills, making sure strategic priorities can be met, and more. But the most successful learning organizations try to create something even bigger and broader than that. They try and create a true learning culture – one where everyone is part of the learning process, and one where there are no barriers to learning.

To set the stage for this new mindset, learning organizations have to be role models or a new learning mindset will never happen.                                                                       

What exactly do I mean by that? Actually it’s fairly simple. The learning organization has to be proactively engaged in its own improvement, and has to engage others in the process.

There should always be time and attention paid to how learning is fulfilling its responsibilities to the business. We have sometimes heard companies say that measurement is too hard, and yet, how else will the learning organization know that it is making progress? There is also a tendency for organizations to continue doing what has worked before, and not pay attention to new ways of learning and sharing information. Although Web 2.0 sharing tools, and e-learning before that, have gotten a lot of attention, the latest CorpU data still show that most learning takes place in a classroom. This could be taken as evidence that learning organizations are not willing to invest the effort in trying new things, in other words, in learning.

The real issue though is not in the particulars of any of these. It is in the mindset of the learning organization’s leaders and managers. Do they use at least some of their resources to look beyond corporate walls and see what is working for others? Do they regularly test their learning organization against others that are considered experts? When they embark on a new venture, do they find stories and examples of companies that have done similar things to learn where the promise and the pitfalls might be?

The CorpU 8th Annual Benchmarking study data shows that fewer than 40% of companies are looking at external data sources or benchmarking with other companies.

 

The Opportunity

If your company is one of those that have not done much benchmarking, and even if you have, CorpU has an offer you simply should not refuse. Data is currently being collected for the CorpU 9th Annual Benchmarking study. The results of that study will center on the CorpU 12 Dimensions of Corporate Performance, and provide a scorecard for your organization based on  performance metrics and percentile rankings in the four critical areas of Alignment, Organization, Execution and Measurement.

More than 200 participants world-wide have completed all or part of the study. This rich data set will enable you to compare your organization to experts, and also to others that share similar demographic characteristics like industry, employee number, and age of corporate university. The survey results can provide important input into the learning organization’s own strategic planning, by showing what aspects of performance need to be improved to optimize learning’s impact on business goals. Features of the analytics tools include the ability to:

• Download charts and graphs with live data into presentations to your executive team
• Compare your strengths and weaknesses to companies of similar size, industry, or learning organization age
• Participate in a consulting session that analyzes your results and generates recommendations for performance improvement
• Utilize a suite of peer-tested tools and templates to (1) close gaps and (2) improve performance
• See strengths and weaknesses broken down to fit CorpU’s 4 Quadrants of Corporate University Performance

 
The Journey

Caterpillar University set itself upon that journey to become a learning culture when it was founded almost 8 years ago.

Along the way, they have created a learning organization that is focused on continuous improvement. Even in areas where they are considered experts, the learning organization models this philosophy, which is the goal of their journey. The leaders of Cat U are always looking outward to see if there are things they can improve, and inward to see if they are having the impact that they expected. Fred Goh’s research on how learning affects employee engagement is one example of the latter.

Your journey and its goals may not be as carefully plotted as that of Cat U’s, but your learning organization can certainly follow their lead, and make sure that you are focused on continuously improving - looking for what you can do better. Participation in the 9th Annual Benchmarking Study is one way to accomplish that.

To participate in the 9th Annual Benchmarking Study, click here.

 

Marcia Dresner, CorpU Senior Research Analyst

Resources Available Only to CorpU Members:

• CorpU 8th Annual Measurement Chapter
• The Caterpillar Learning Organization
• Learning and Employee Engagement at Caterpillar: Making the Connection