Let learning be chief

The Chief Learning Officer is responsible for building a learning organization. These days, they have another layer of responsibility, building the organization's ability to weather difficult economic times.

In the face of the global economic crisis, businesses around the world are struggling to figure out how to deal with it. There is such a Hong Kong company that is continuing to move forward on the road to becoming a learning organization.

SAE Magnetics (HK) Ltd. is the world's largest independent manufacturer of computer hard disk heads. As early as seven years ago, the company saw "creativity and the application of new knowledge as key drivers of economic recovery and industry growth". The conclusion stems from observations of "countries that have experienced recessions or crises in recent years," as part of a company-sponsored study.

In management circles, knowledge and the acquisition of knowledge oriented towards building a learning organization have become an increasingly popular topic. Of course, another hot spot is how to deal with the economic crisis.

Today, these two management orientations are intertwined. Thriving against adversity in the current global economic crisis requires learning and applying knowledge faster and more fully than the competition.

At the forefront of building learning organizations is a new class of leaders known as Chief Learning Officers, or CLOs (Chief Learning Officers).

Yes, we have a CEO and COO at the top of the management structure. Some functional leaders are also listed at the "chief" level, such as chief information officer (CIO), chief financial officer (CFO), etc. What's wrong with a Chief Learning Officer (CLO)?

Especially in the current economic climate, companies around the world are relying on CLOs to ensure that they can learn better than their competitors and gain a head start on corporate strategy and innovation.

In China, managers are increasingly interested in building learning organizations; people are equally curious about the role of CLO. Last year, Susan Peters, vice president of management development and chief learning officer at General Electric Company (GE), visited CEIBS. She spoke at the academy as part of one of the responsibilities of GE's chief learning officer: developing leaders. The students and teachers present recognized her ideas quite well.

General Electric President and CEO Jeffrey Immelt once recognized the importance of Peters as chief learning officer, "When business is going well, people don't feel the weight of leadership; You're going to need strong leaders."

It is said that former GE president Jack Welch decided that Steve Kerr, then vice president of leadership development, should also be titled "chief". At the time, the title of CLO was created for the first time. Developing talent is a big priority for General Electric, which spends roughly $1 billion a year on employee training and education around the world.

CLO is important to large companies, and learning is equally important to small companies. For SMEs without CLOs, the CEO himself must pay attention to how to lead learning within the company.

The above all reflect the growing recognition of the CLO position, which of course also means that people will have higher expectations for the position. We focus on three major expectations of CLOs:

·They must be proficient in the various skills CLOs require.

·They must build excellent learning organizations.

·They must prove their worth in times of economic downturn.

Mastering the skills

The first skill is managing learning within the company. "With tight budgets, limited resources, and an ever-changing business environment, learning must provide critical support for achieving business goals," Tamar Elkeles and Jack J. According to the book The Chief Learning Officer.

However, it's more than just learning. According to the authors, the chief learning officer is a unique position that adds significant value to an enterprise organization.

Peters is a good example. At GE, she was responsible for talent discovery, leadership development, training, and career planning for global managers. She is also responsible for sharing GE's experience and expertise with collaborators such as the government, customers, and suppliers.

All of the above functions mean that the CLO's job goes beyond just employee training. Nina Dankfort-Nevel, GE's chief learning officer for Asia Pacific, told StarBizWeek in Malaysia, "CLOs have a wide range of jobs, and employee learning is only part of it."

CLOs and the executives who appoint them. Faced with the same challenge, how the work of a CLO can bring value to the company, to be understood and appreciated by company leaders and financial analysts.

CLOs can do this by balancing the operational and employee aspects of their work.

Operationally, the CLO can serve as the strategic leader of the company. They must understand the company's competitive strategy, they must know what employees need to learn to execute that strategy effectively, and they must gather as much information as possible to grasp the current competitive environment and future competitors.

Josh Bersin, founder and president of Bersin & Associates, said, "The best CLOs are operators first, and learning specialists second."

On the employee side, the CLO can serve as a performance executive. To do this, they need to link company performance to employee performance.

Current business challenges are global, and learning should have a global perspective, and SMEs are no exception. “New CLOs must be willing to take the time to understand and build learning organizations with a global perspective,” Belsing said.

“Finally, and perhaps most importantly, CLOs need to create an organization where everyone in the organization can get help from it. A hub of expertise that ensures everyone has access to the knowledge tools, information, and data they need," Dana Ardi said in InternetWeek magazine.

Building an Organization

If all the work involved in the above can be successfully completed, the CLO has almost established a learning organization that can withstand difficult times.

A learning organization is built with the talent the company recruits strategically at its core. These people can solve the three major problems facing companies today.

Belsing's research identified three major problems:

The biggest people challenge facing companies today is the lack of leadership talent (60% of companies surveyed by Belsing listed this as a top issue) ).

The second biggest people challenge is developing a performance-oriented culture (46% of companies think so).

The third biggest workforce challenge is recruiting for key roles and improving retention (cited by 31%-38% of companies).

None of the above three questions are specifically related to training. These problems require comprehensive resources in recruitment, career development, performance management, training, etc. to form an overall and comprehensive solution.

To come up with a holistic solution, companies can start by defining "learning" as a broader concept than "training." Learning isn't just traditional training, it's a holistic change in corporate culture that will transform a company's day-to-day operations and business results.

“Learning organizations create cultures in which employees gather intelligence. At the heart of learning organizations are growing individuals who continually absorb new knowledge and translate it into business insights, competitive advantages and behaviors,” Adi said. wrote.

If a company invests heavily to attract talent, the learning of those talent will also require an equally large investment. Writing in VARBusiness magazine, Karen Franse writes, "As a chief learning officer, you need to ask yourself, 'Are we investing enough in learning to generate the desired growth and returns?'"

This is a great Important business question because, according to Frans, research by a group of graduate students found that investment in employee training and development was the best predictor of shareholder returns over the next 3-5 years.

Recruit talent, invest in their learning, etc. What company wouldn't do that?

Yes, but only a true learning organization can guarantee that such an investment will pay off because learning organizations are better at retaining talent.

“A good learning environment can improve employee retention, especially for younger employees. They are used to a lifestyle that values creativity and new abilities,” writes Frank Jossi in Industry Week magazine.

Getting through the crisis

The ultimate goal of all learning activities is to benefit the company, or at least help the company survive a bad economy.

Hong Kong Shinco, Nestle (), Xerox (Xerox) are typical examples of learning to grow in the economic downturn.

Hong Kong Shinco discovered that some of the most important learnings required the participation of company leaders. Specifically, it is how company leaders can change their leadership styles to guide employees to respond more flexibly to and respond to change.

When it started to establish a learning organization, Hong Kong Xinke Company regarded learning as a "medicine" for manufacturing enterprises to survive in an increasingly severe environment.

HK Shinco aims to be a world-class learning organization, competing with other world-class companies. One of the keys is how leaders transform their leadership styles and motivate employees to learn. The traditional command-and-control leadership style is not suitable for learning organizations, and the empowering and participatory leadership style can help employees learn better.

RE Franken said in Human Motivation, "One of the reasons people learn is because they are motivated."

Lam Yung Wei Joyce A paper published in the City University of Hong Kong is based on Hong Kong Xinke as an example. Research shows that personal learning does not mean organizational learning. Organizations that need to learn to improve themselves need managers to learn how to change their leadership styles. A leadership style appropriate for a learning organization encourages and motivates employees to engage in learning.

The paper investigated the Dongguan factory of Shinco, Hong Kong, and 21 employees said that "participatory leadership can more effectively motivate employees to participate in work-related learning." The "commanding" leadership style scored the lowest. Obviously, the latter hinders the development of learning, which is necessary for enterprises to develop in difficult situations.

One of Nestlé USA's goals is to teach employees how to solve problems creatively. Tim Gates, president of Nestlé University, de facto CLO, sees an opportunity in the current downturn.

He said: "We are striving to implement lean management and innovation, reduce operating costs, and enhance customer value. These all require innovation. The current economic crisis is difficult, but the real innovation comes from the crisis."

In an article for Chief Learning Officer magazine, Gates mentioned the opportunity to thrive in these adversities.

Gates is working hard to create the right environment for Nestlé's employees to break away from traditional ways of thinking and use new approaches to tackle new economic challenges. This is not the first time for Nestlé. Nescafe coffee, the company's flagship product, was introduced during the Great Depression. Nestlé helped the then-Brazilian government digest a large batch of coffee beans with a brand new product.

With today's demanding consumers and savvy distributors, keeping up with them can be a challenge. One of Gates' goals is to quickly prepare company leaders for such challenges on a global scale. "We're going through a period where leadership skills are more demanding than ever," Gates said.

For Xerox, the creation of a learning organization helped the company retain talent and, of course, support the business.

Tim Conlon, CLO of Xerox, said in an interview with Office Solutions, "Learning new skills is key to employee retention, and a large part of employee value is tied to learning."

Long-term employee retention helps guide customers in their selection of Xerox technology. Office equipment and technology are evolving rapidly. The company's products are also increasingly complex. "Many customers' needs transition from products to services and solutions, and that's when people with expertise become available," says Cullen.

Under Cullen's leadership, many of Xerox's training uses e-learning. This is more conducive to interaction and feedback; in today's environment, it is also very important that the cost is lower. According to Chief Learning Officer magazine, Xerox saved money by reducing classroom training and training supply contracts.

For South Korea's LG, the current crisis presents an opportunity to further develop into a world-class company. In order to strengthen its position as a global company, LG will continue to invest heavily in raising the bar of global companies.

In a February press release, the company said, "The work being done by the company includes improving HR systems, restructuring the business, focusing on customer-centric processes, attracting and retaining international talent, eliminating unnecessary costs, continuing to support technology and Design innovation."

To help global talent achieve the innovation companies seek, the ROI of their learning must be significant. For executive vice president Michael Lee, that means the learning he advocates must be aligned with high-level strategy and be effective. His perspective on learning ROI is different.

Some CLOs value the skills development of their employees, while Li places more emphasis on corporate culture and leadership development. The risk of skill building is that the skills employees need are updated too quickly. When Elkress and Phillips interviewed Lee for their book, Chief Learning Officer, Lee replied, "That's because skills are updated quickly during the skill-building process (accounting standards, financial systems, programming languages all change) , people are always in need of new skills.”

Lee says, “There is a more lasting return on investment in culture and leadership development.” Therefore, he focuses on learning activities in these two areas to improve the company’s bottom line ability. If his job is done well, LG employees will be able to implement the company's cost-cutting and innovation programs, which the company hopes will turn a crisis into an opportunity.

Learning and helping companies become learning organizations can be a rewarding task for CLOs and their peers around the world.

Ted Hoff, IBM's vice president of learning, summed it up well: "CLO is the best job in the world, with limitless opportunities."

The author JET MAGSAYSAY is a consultant for the journal. Translated by Allie.

CLO Challenges

CLOs must be able to meet many challenges at work:

Financial Challenges

Familiarize yourself with the company's products

Understand the company's business conditions

Support Business Model Transformation

People Challenges

Facilitate On-the-job Learning, Attract New Clients to the Company Trends that help change business conditions

Globalization Challenges

Understanding Company Culture

Corporate Knowledge Challenges

Providing Learning Networks

Creating Continuous Learning Environments

Managing Company-Wide Knowledge Communication

From the book The Chief Learning Officer by Tamar Elkeles and Jack J. Phillips.

Is your company a learning organization?

How to tell if your company is a learning organization? Learning organizations will have the following performance:

·The company often asks each other for advice.

·Listen to each other.

·Learn about the overall development of the company and understand what other departments and colleagues are doing.

·Take job improvement seriously, documenting and evaluating job performance and results.

·Resolve conflicts openly and honestly.

·Spontaneously, external rewards and punishments do not constitute the main reason for driving performance.

·Accurate and truthful feedback, open and honest assessment of the status quo.

From The Superintendents Fieldbook.