Forward-Focused Learning

Tamar Elkeles

Description

Shape What’s Next for Learning in Your Organization
Our era of dynamic change and its profound impact on personal lives and businesses throughout the world represents a new normal. How organizations learn will determine whether they rise to the occasion and adapt or struggle behind outdated practices and processes.
New or aspiring talent development executives can learn a lot from the best of the best—the high-performing, award-winning companies responding to increased pressure to deliver business value. Forward-Focused Learning features organizations that are proactive about looking for ways to grow, build, and learn. They offer lessons for being the most innovative, the most aligned to business needs, and the most strategic. Peek behind the curtain and see how other companies use learning to develop their employees and their businesses.
Rich in examples of what’s worked, this book is a must-read for anyone setting learning strategy or managing the learning function. Organized around themes of vision, people, and process, it covers how to:

Become a strategic business driver

Apply a systems mindset to the learning organization

Gain support from organizational stakeholders

Build a learning team capable of serving the business

Do more with the resources you have
Written by talent development practitioners and consultants at the top of the field, from brand-name companies such as Comcast, Hewlett-Packard, Nike, General Mills, Ford, GE, and Booz Allen Hamilton, this book is your key to gaining a seat at the table.

Sujets

• Efficacité professionnelle
• Efficacité
• Business
• Economics
• Employabilité, métiers et formations
• Organizational Development

Informations

• Publié par: Association for Talent Development
• Date de parution: 08 décembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781950496686
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Praise for This Book
“Future readiness is a vital capability for talent development leaders. In Forward-Focused Learning , world-class TD execs describe the award-winning best practices that have prepared their organizations for what’s next. This is a must-read to help you take your organization to the next level.”
TONY BINGHAM President and CEO, ATD
“ Forward-Focused Learning goes well beyond L&D theory. It is a collection of lessons and real-life stories on application in some of today’s leading organizations. A must read for any practitioner who is looking to refresh their toolkit.”
TARA DEAKIN Chief People Officer, Spin Master
“ Forward-Focused Learning is a crash course in how to think like the world’s best CLOs. From the contributors to the content, this book delivers cover to cover.”
ANDRÉ MARTIN VP and CLO, Google

© 2021 ASTD DBA the Association for Talent Development (ATD) All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, information storage and retrieval systems, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please go to www.copyright.com , or contact Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 (telephone: [phone]; fax: [phone]).
Chapter 1 © 2019 KPMG International Cooperative (“KPMG International”). KPMG International provides no client services and is a Swiss entity with which the independent member firms of the KPMG network are affiliated. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
ATD Press is an internationally renowned source of insightful and practical information on talent development, training, and professional development.
ATD Press 1640 King Street Alexandria, VA 22314 USA
Ordering information: Books published by ATD Press can be purchased by visiting ATD’s website at td.org/books or by calling 800.628.2783 or 703.683.8100.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020943712 ISBN-10: 1-95049-667-8 ISBN-13: 978-1-95049-667-9 e-ISBN: 978-1-95049-668-6
ATD Press Editorial Staff Director: Sarah Halgas Manager: Melissa Jones Content Manager: Ann Parker Developmental Editor: Jack Harlow Production Editor: Hannah Sternberg Text Design: Shirley E.M. Raybuck Interior Layout: Kathleen Dyson Cover Design: Rose Richey
Printed by Versa Press, East Peoria, IL
Contents
Foreword: Welcome to the New Normal
Kimo Kippen
Introduction
Tamar Elkeles
Chapter 1: Becoming a Strategic Business Driver
Brad Samargya
Chapter 2: Designing an Effective Learning Organization
Susan Burnett
Chapter 3: Supercharging Your Learning Agenda Through Purpose, Culture, and Brand
Andrew Kilshaw
Chapter 4: The Five Building Blocks of a Learning Ecosystem
Marina Theodotou
Chapter 5: Winning at Shark Tank: How L&D Leaders Really Gain Management Support
Kevin D. Wilde
Chapter 6: The Talent Behind an Award-Winning Learning Team
Gale Halsey
Chapter 7: Leaders as Teachers
Jayne Johnson
Chapter 8: Do More With Less: Using Your Budget Wisely
Michelle Braden
Chapter 9: Impact Matters
Martha Soehren
Chapter 10: Collaborative Learning Drives Collective Ingenuity
Aimee George Leary, Ruth Almen, and Chris Holmes
Chapter 11: Agile Is the New Smart
Laura Lee Gentry and Annmarie Neal
Conclusion: Moving Forward
Tamar Elkeles
References
About the Contributors
Index
About the Editor
Foreword: Welcome to the New Normal
Kimo Kippen
I call it the “new normal,” this era of dynamic change we are experiencing and its profound impact on personal lives and businesses throughout the world. It began even before the COVID-19 epidemic descended on us all. But as I write this in the midst of that dreadful pandemic, its full impact will clearly be both global and seismic.
What will the future of this new normal look like? We don’t know. But we do know it will require individuals and organizations alike to develop a dramatically heightened sense of resilience.
The challenge to meet this new standard begins with what I call a link back to purpose. Today’s successful and forward-focused organizations are those that have defined their sense of purpose and how it links to their visions, missions, and values.
For learning and development organizations, both obligations and opportunities await. They will be on the front lines, after all, leading the way and ensuring that their organizations don’t lapse into previous business practices. Fortunately, the talent development field is well positioned to meet these challenges, and indeed is already doing so by aggressively recognizing and pursuing new learning opportunities and delivery methods.
But I believe this new sense of resilience must begin on an individual level, with an increased sense of self-awareness, purpose, mission, vision, and values. It will then expand outwardly to family, to work, to teams, and to our social structures. Every aspect of our lives will have to be reframed in a way that starts with self. For many of us, that will require a complete reset on how we perceive and live our lives.
I know from personal experience that my own journey has always been centered around the concept of life’s purpose. It has guided me at the personal, social, and workplace levels, and in the learning profession I care so deeply about. But for many others, this reset will be a more profound experience.
I also think people are hungry for that higher level of connection, commitment, and purpose, both personally and among organizations they relate to as members, employees, business partners, and customers. Like me, they believe their choices of where to spend time and money reflect their fundamental values and purpose in life. They believe that what they do matters, as do the organizations with which they relate.
That’s why I’m gratified to have witnessed a resurgence in this link back to purpose, especially among organizations with which I have worked that define their missions and cultures for employees and customers alike. I am also proud that this sense of purpose has long been prioritized by the Association for Talent Development and its members worldwide.
ATD members are helping their organizations “crack the code” of this uncertain universe by creatively connecting vision, mission, and values to a greater sense of purpose. Indeed, the most useful and timely advice yet compiled to guide TD executives has already been articulated by some of the profession’s most respected leaders. You are holding it in your hands!
Principal among their many insights is today’s intense focus on the customer, and the impact of that focus on learning. It is where everything begins and ends for companies—or should be. Today, we are seeing in real time a dramatic change in the needs of customers. Yet there are silver linings to be found in times like these, both on personal and organizational levels.
The global population’s universal need to go virtual during COVID-19—and the resulting impact on the hospitality industry and other fields—surely offers the most vivid example of impending change. I believe the experience will spur people to reset their personal priorities by dining out differently and taking vacations in a more solitary way. How will they do that while also sharing the experience with family and friends? Creative entrepreneurs will provide answers.
Talent development professionals are clearly at the center of this dynamic as they guide individuals and organizations through the shifting landscape of business, technology, and social awareness. Clearly, the new world for organizations will revolve around the customer more than ever. Companies that make the adjustment will see great opportunities.
Indeed, that adjustment has already begun. Examples include corporate decisions to elevate talent development to core competency status, regarded as vital to the bottom line as well as strategy and innovation. Companies suddenly view learning not as an HR-related function, but as the cornerstone of a customer-centric, agile business agenda.
TD departments have long been showing their organizations how to “go virtual,” of course. Recent enhancements include the adoption of artificial intelligence and learner-friendly digital techniques borrowed from popular platforms such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, and YouTube. Convenient delivery platforms like Zoom and WebEx have ushered in a new era of high-touch and high-experience learning.
Meanwhile, TD departments are also helping their organizations adopt other forward-thinking methods such as design thinking, the bottom-up approach to creating innovation and challenging assumptions. L&D teams are embracing this iterative process to help build, nurture, and cultivate their own learning ecosystems while also molding new corporate cultures.
I believe the design thinking approach, often referred to as “slam teams” and many of them virtual, will become part of the DNA of successful organizations. But doing so will also require a different set of skills for leaders and a new mentality that embraces flexibility, open-mindedness, and group performance. Call it a core capability required for success within this new normal.
You will find these and many other practical insights included within these pages. I sincerely hope you will find them useful.
Introduction
Tamar Elkeles
“And the winner is …”
Across every profession, in every industry, the outstanding contributions and hard work of individuals, teams, and organizations are recognized as “the winners” or “the best.” Sometimes there’s the international spotlight of a World Series Championship, an Oscar, or the green jacket, and other times th