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Features

Published December 2007

A 60-Day Success Plan for New Learning Leaders

  

  Tracy Cox & Jeff Lucas

Congratulations! You've been appointed the organization's senior learning leader. Feels good. You’re pumped. But what happens now?

Here are seven recommendations for your first 60 days on the job. They’re derived from a study conducted by Raytheon Professional Services (RPS). The study identified the skill sets needed at three stages of one’s career: at the beginning, at the midpoint to position oneself as a senior learning leader and, finally, at the senior leadership level.

To conduct the study, RPS surveyed 122 learning leaders during April and May 2007. For the study, RPS defined “senior learning leader” as the individual within an organization responsible for establishing and implementing the organization’s learning strategy and demonstrating the results related to it. An “organization” could encompass the entire enterprise, or it may refer to a business unit within the enterprise.

Among survey participants, 43 percent identified themselves as senior learning leaders and 50 percent reported to or were peers of senior learning leaders. They came from organizations of varying sizes in a broad range of industries, the government and the military. The study’s conclusions were based on the survey responses, interviews of selected respondents, a review of published information and RPS’s own experience in learning.

The study's results were presented at the ASTD 2007 International Conference and Exposition on June 3, 2007.

Strategic and Visionary Thinking Needed at the Top
What’s the most important competency for a successful senior learning leader? It’s strategic and visionary thinking, identified by 62 percent of the survey respondents. The study concluded that this competency is essential for achieving organizational objectives. It requires the ability to sift through complex information to focus the learning function on critical priorities.

The second most important competency is relationship management, named by 41 percent of respondents. Learning leaders must develop meaningful relationships at all levels and understand the importance of informal business networks, or networks that exist independent of the formal organization chart.

Influential communication was the third most frequently cited competency, identified by 36 percent of respondents. It includes effective one-on-one meetings and public presentations that articulate the value of the learning function to the organization.

The other important competencies include performance/results, named by 34 percent; learning acumen, 33 percent; and business acumen, 30 percent. Fewer participants chose people development, innovation/creativity and ethical leadership.

Judging a Senior Learning Leader's Effectiveness
How should a senior learning leader be evaluated? By measurable business impact, according to 33 percent of survey respondents. Next in importance were business support and relationship, cited by 27 percent; building a learning culture, 21 percent; and people development, 13 percent.

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