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I have just returned to my room after the first day of the CLO Academy in Lansdowne, VA.  The sessions started at 5pm so I’ve only seen a glimpse of what we’re we will be experiencing but so far so good.

At the orientation session we were told that our time here will largely be playing the role of consultant’s with a fictitious firm.  I don’t know much more about it yet but if I did I wouldn’t write about it - you’ll have to experience it for yourself. 

Following orientation we were introduced to Frank J. Anderson who is the President of Defense Acquisition University.  Frank talked about his experience at DAU and how he has guided this organization (with a budget of $120 billion - yes billion) to be a world-class learning organization.  His stories and examples were amazing yet somehow easily understandable to an audience that cannot comprehend overseeing a budget, staff and responsibility the size of Frank’s.  I was thilled to hear Frank mention terms such as Communities of Practice and Action Learning - he told the group he had not come from a learning and development background but had surrounded himself with people that were experts in it - he clearly selected a talented team.

CLO Academy is really taking advantage of the informal learning opportunities here.  During dinner I ate at a small table with other participants and with a faculty member that is also a learning executive with Microsoft. 

The final activity was a ‘Fireside Chat.’  A voluntary session where we sat in a circle, drank wine and did a freeform exchange of ideas from all of our different sets of experience.  Frank Anderson loosely led the discussion but the group largely set the course of what we talked about. 

More to come from me - but not tonight.  It’s late and I still have my consulting homework to do…

In an e-seminar hosted by CLO Magazine yesterday, presenter Josh Bersin of Bersin and Associates facilitated a talk titled, “Increasing the Strategic Value of Learning Organizations.”  You can find the slides here - the recording should be available here shortly.

Note: If you wish you had known about this e-seminar, we keep an up-to-date calendar on Orbital RPM’s site where you can search for events (big as small) throughout the learning and development field and send reminders directly to your calendar or email.

There are many good nuggets of information contained in Josh’s talk but in the interest of focus I will highlight one.  Bersin and Associates is known for their quantitative research in the field of learning and development and the statistics from one of Josh’s slides was intriguing to me.

The following percentages indicate how much more effective or efficient organizations were (in the areas listed) that have a highly effective Cheif Learning Officer (CLO) in their ranks:

• Partnering with Lines of Business: + 12%
• Measuring the Impact of Learning: + 20%
• Developing Innovative e-Learning: + 14%
• Sharing Best Practices: + 15%
• Making the Most of Resources: +12%
• Developing High Job Satisfaction: +10%

These numbers are compelling.  As the strategic role of learning and development continues its climb up the ranks of organizational credibility, it’s studies like these that will give it a boost.  Everybody loves data and these are numbers that any Executive would like to see.

In a Chief Learning Officer magazine article titled “People, the Neglected Part of Technology”, author David Miller explains his perspective on how learning and knowledge management should be integrated with the implementation of new technologies, such as a new ERP package (i.e. SAP).  He even provides a specific statistic from the Gartner Group that says, “when 17 percent of the total program budget is spent on these initiatives the chances of success go up significantly.”

I found David’s points to be applicable beyond tech implementations and to all of organizational learning.  I like reading articles where I find myself subconsciously nodding my head in agreement as I read and that happened numerous times throughout this article.

David calls on the combination of the usuals for learning such as “telling the learner, showing the learner and letting them try” and adds to that the elements that will support the more informal channels that allow people to build on what was formally designed for them.  He suggests strengthening the network, cultivating communities of practice and providing just-in-time access to information that people can call upon at the moment it is needed. 

Doing the above creates what David calls a “culture of shared experiences” allowing organizations to capture the often elusive tacit knowledge of how work really gets done.  This results in people having access to the information they need as opposed to “sterile, clinical information found in manuals and training courses.”  This concept can be applied to any training, regardless of the topic.

Follow David’s advice and you’ve got the diverse learning and development portfolio that will do more than just allow you to implement technology effectively - it will put you on the fast track to being a true learning organization.  How will you know if you’ve done it correctly?  David advocates the use of a balanced scorecard for establishing and assessing the metrics associated with the learning initiative (nod, nod).