Content to Capability: the new route for business success
Article 1 of 4 in a series on Rapid Upskilling and Reskilling
The COVID-19 pandemic firmly cemented what many of us in the leaning and development profession have known for years: businesses is rapidly changing and businesses need to accelerate their efforts to reskill their workforce for post-pandemic success. Since 2019, CEOs have realized that they cannot hire or buy their way out of this dilemma; making reskilling and upskilling an imperative not an option.
During stable economic times, with long time periods to develop a workforce, learning professionals have kept pace by providing courses and traditional training. And many in the learning field are comfortable with this type of approach. But 2020 taught us that gone are the days of comfort and tradition; rapid change is here. Today, executives are asking learning partners to accelerate how they step up, partner with them to take the next step and provide new solutions that enable their success as they emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.
We know that when rapid change is upon us, one of the worse things someone can do is stand still and wait. So how does the learning and development function rapidly shift out of their comfort zone of course centric strategies and traditional training and move towards robust capability-building strategies and new approaches that enable business success?
There are three things that will enable this rapid shift.
1. Shift your strategy and approach towards building specific capabilities and skills.
2. Use an innovative framework that isn’t about training but about building core capabilities for business success.
3. Back up this strategy and approach by offering leadership proof of results; ones tied to key business outcomes such as better ROI and value for your executive teams.
The pandemic has forced many businesses to fundamentally change what they do and how they do it. These changes also require learning and development functions to adapt as fast as their businesses are shifting. Over the last 25 years as a leader of learning functions, I’ve had to rapidly shift the focus of my organizations, functions and teams many times towards strategies that build capability and skills; I’ve had to help them become high-performing, agile teams that continually add value by addressing changing business needs.
Each week, this blog series will tackle tough questions head on. I will highlight how organizations rapidly transition to a new way of thinking and operating for long-term success. The series will address topics in a variety of ways and bring in different perspectives.
I’ll begin with the shift in strategy and approach that needs to occur in learning and development to add value to how organizations operate. As learning and development, or operations leaders, you’ll be exposed to specific examples of how to shift from content centric strategies focused on training, to capability building strategies focused on success. As I dive deep into the series, I will introduce a four-step framework on how to robustly assess needed capabilities, develop innovate reskilling programs and measure what really counts. In tandem with this series, you can read stories on how this framework has been successful deployed in industry. By the end of the series, your time will be well spent, and collective a new community of capability builders will exist; one that learns from each other.
In this network I’ll post tools and invite the community to share real case examples of how to sustain, build upon and scale reskilling and upskilling investments.
If you are challenged by any of these questions. Or, if your executives are asking you to shift the role that you play in developing your workforce to create greater value and impact, then, watch a short video where I discuss the trends driving the need to move towards capability building.
If you’re ready to take the next step to advance your capability-building strategy and rapidly upskill and reskill your workforce, then please contact us. We would gladly discuss how a capability-building project can move your organization forward for success.
I look forward to this series. Please invite other people in your network to join in and add value to this new community.
