I am fortunate to be attending two events in two days, but I am a little surprised at what I have already learnt.
Yesterday, I attended a virtual webinar from Jon Ingham, entitled "Enhancing the Role of the L&D Business Partner" (see his Blog, here). On the whole, there was a lot of interest from the assembled audience upon how we define the term Business Partner, and consequently, what role should be played. In short, however, Jon, with his usual eloquence, proceeded to explain how Learning organisations needed to partner with business stakeholders, to anticipate and resolve requirements - from planning events, to deploying tools, to supplying information. Summarised by one attendee at the end of the session, the question was asked "How do we move L&D from a support function to a business partner?"
The answer is simple: Innovate, educate and create new value.
Later today, then, I will be participating in the online Chief Learning Officer LearningElite Forum (#CLOelite), a symposium of speakers from world-renowned and market-leading firms, who have been recognised for their efforts by the CLO Magazine. Such events are always a mine of inspiration and thought-provocation, for me...
Leading up to this event, I made a useful contact, within IBM, but when I got my hands on a preview of the materials being presented, I was disappointed by the lack of analytical or graphical visualisation. IBM has identified Business Analytics as a key growth area for the future and, with this subject close to my heart, I felt this was a great opportunity to demonstrate our leading-edge approach to the audience.
However, I am reminded of a lesson I learned when starting out in my career, that being a 'trusted business advisor' is not about throwing stats around, or trying to Wow the audience with a new vision for measurements; it is about substance, understanding and agreement. Buy-in. My contact, explains why IBM placed 4th in the LearningElite programme, by focusing on IBM's achievements in the area of Leadership Development. He didn't feel the need to dive into statistics which, even if presented by the most enthusiastic of analysts (me, among them), may lose half the audience, at a stroke.
Performing a Finance Manager role, with PwC (- who knows how I managed to blag that job!?), I was flattered by consistent feedback from colleagues that they liked working with me, because "...you explain it in real terms, which we can understand, rather than using all these fancy accounting terms we don't understand..." As I watched, and listened, I began to realise why so many people berate accountants: there is almost an arrogance involved, where some accountants attempt to show that they know more than non-accountants. Yes, when it comes to the Balance Sheet, the Chart of Accounts, the various Ledgers, and the journals, accruals and prepayments, therein - they should know what is best; that is their job! However, a good accountant relates it to their stakeholders in terms they understand: there is much to be said for having a stakeholder, or budget holder, who trusts and works with their Finance department!!
Jon Ingham also touched on this, when he discussed a slide attributed to Prof Gary Hamel, that people do not respond, emotionally, to many business buzzwords of today: for example, why interface with someone, when you can talk? (Did you ever go to the pub, to "touch base" with your friends...??)
So, it is with some surprise that we come full-circle and find that both events offered me the same realisation:
Metrics and dashboards are all very well, but without ensuring that stakeholders understand the messages, they will continue to consider a learning organisation as a drain on resources. Only when learning organisations talk to stakeholders in terms that they both expect and understand, will true partnership become a reality.
