Increasing your Return on Learning Investment

Consider the following two examples of companies implementing strategic change

Company A

Following the appointment of a new CEO, Company A initiates a complete review of their existing strategy. The team meets with him for two days to define a new strategy. An external consultant from a strategy consulting company presents a detailed analysis. The team then meets together to identify changes to the current strategy. Some executive team members have attended various public programmes which addressed strategy and change at different top business schools over recent years and use different concepts and models. At the end of the meeting eight programmes are created, sponsors and programme managers are identified.

In the past there has been a record of incomplete or unsuccessful projects so the HR director gets agreement to schedule project management training programmes. These are organised by the training department and the dates communicated to all concerned.

The CEO sends an email to all employees announcing the planned changes.

Company B

Following the appointment of a new CEO, Company B initiates a complete review of their existing strategy.In discussions between the CEO and the HR Director it is agreed that the track record in change implementation has to be improved. The first step is to develop a shared understanding of strategy and change, simultaneously establishing a common language for the change programme.

A strategy and change expert from a top business school is retained to work with the team over the two days. The professor delivers a session on effective strategy development. The team immediately applies the models to their own situation. After this the team addresses implementation and change leadership issues with the professor. They then define a detailed change implementation plan.

A project leadership consultant is retained to work with the eight programme teams. The project kick-off meeting is a workshop facilitated by the project leadership consultant. The participants refresh their understanding of Project Leadership and immediately apply the concepts to the change programmes. The sponsors attend their team meeting to approve the project plan. Each team is given one day of the consultants time to be used during the project life cycle to check progress and to address problems.

Simultaneously an elearning package is developed for all employees and placed on the company's internal website. This includes video presentations, a competition for the best improvement suggestion related to the change programme, and a notice board for question and answers and debate. A separate PowerPoint communication package is sent to all managers for use at their team meetings.

The costs of both are similar. One of them delivers!