Framing the value of learning

Under the umbrella of The Learning Forum, CLO LIFT, a group of learning and development leaders, is actively addressing persistent challenges straining the learning and development industry.

Tackling these 10 industry wide challenges three at a time, the group hopes to elevate learning and help move their organizations to a more sustainable future by getting to the root cause of each challenge and finding a solution that works across different organizations and cultures. Resolving these core challenges will enable organizations to accelerate, measure the business impact of L&D, operate an efficient L&D organization and generate new value.

Across three initial challenge teams, over 30 practitioners from 17 large organizations (McKinsey, Deloitte, Amazon, Google,  Starbucks, Pepsi and more), are working within CLO LIFT to strengthen the learning community, tackle inherent challenges in L&D functions, emphasize fundamentals, generate thought leadership from practitioners and establish a cohesive narrative from prominent CLOs and their ecosystem partners.

The first challenge starts with valuing the role of learning itself — addressing how to encourage both employees and leaders to invest time in learning. CLO LIFT’s values group is taking on this particular challenge as time, by orders of magnitude, is the largest investment that goes into learning.

“We have an opportunity to raise the bar for the standards that we hold ourselves to, where there are common challenges,” says Lisa Christensen, director of the learning design center of excellence at McKinsey and Co. and member of the CLO LIFT values group. “It’s exciting to know that there are people in [CLO LIFT] who are interested in solving those problems together. The idea that we might be able to really start to make some meaningful progress against what we would characterize as generational problems. That feels pretty inspiring.”

The value problem

Each group — consisting of about 10 industry leaders — begins by focusing on the root of their challenge. They begin the process with a half-day meeting and then work as pairs and partnerships before reconvening as a whole group every few weeks or so. 

Originally framed as the “Time to Learn” group, the Value of Time group initially focused on getting learners and organizations to commit more time to learning — but this didn’t stick. 

As they re-evaluated, they determined that while time is a significant investment for organizations to make, it may not be the right conversation — which instead should focus on the value of an investment in learning. 

“If we keep discussing this as a problem of time, that feels very hard to fix,” Christensen says. “But if we start discussing it as a challenge about value for both the organization and its employees, the solution space opens up a lot more.” 

While working on the value challenge, the team determined there is a necessary framework that doesn’t exist in the industry today. In their conversations, the values group works to take a holistic approach to the framework of investing in time and learning. Straddling different polarities, they focus on the value of learning to individuals, the organization and how to expand its role across organizations. 

The group is committed to elevating learning with a broader scope and “more aligned with the full development ecosystem and organization,” Christensen says. When thinking about actually creating that value in learning for organizations, it’s mandatory to think across multiple axes. 

While technology is an important part of modern learning solutions in organizations, the problem is much more complex than just throwing a new piece of technology or modality at it for everyone in every organization. “We want to think about it from a more holistic frame,” Christensen says. “Our challenges are very similar, but our contexts are quite different.” 

Identifying and understanding how leaders grapple with similar challenges and stay true to their organizational culture is key. The group knows the framework needs to work across a broad definition of value, whether individual or programmatic and formal, but they must remain inclusive of all the different contexts in which they operate. 

Currently, the Value of Time group is working hard on that universal framework and aims to begin pressure testing it among peers. Their goal is to eventually share their findings with the broader industry by publishing a strategy paper and releasing the framework on The Learning Forum to engage more learning leaders in conversations. 

With a flexible framework, the goal is that any learning leader can take the finished values framework and use it to elevate learning at their organization. As a living, adaptable framework, they want to see where people can “move the needle,” in test sessions. 

Forging a universal standard

The team hopes the framework and foundation they set can become an industry standard for crafting a business case that demonstrates value in learning, Christensen says. With change management work to generate buy-in: “There’s an opportunity going forward to engage people in these conversations so that they can own a piece of that themselves.”

“I’ve been inspired by the fact that even when something may not work in my organization, it can be very successful in another organization. It’s been interesting to pull back from all of those stories and make sense of that,” Christensen says. “It’s been really fun work to try to look for the kind of common themes and all of these different experiences and stories.”

This article is the first in a three-part series exploring the initial challenges of CLO LIFT. Look out for the next article covering the skills challenge.