Integrate learning, leading and execution - why?

Every organization tries to develop its leaders, improve execution, and support learning – but these investments frequently fail to transform results.

They “miss the boat” for a simple reason: The world of predictable, gradual change is gone. Separating learning from leading, leading from execution, execution from learning - all lead to delays in translation and areas of white space where there is no accountability. One of the reasons startups are so agile and innovative is a lack of separation of these elements. Separation is a structural change that mature organizations typically make in the name of efficiency. We are not advocating wholesale closing of functional groups, but rather introducing a mechanism to restore lost linkages within the execution of key projects in order to restore agility.

Try this: Shift your perspective from learning or capacity building as things done in classrooms – to something you build into the processes of normal work. When organizations do this, the distinction between leadership, learning and execution begins to blur.

You can build LLE integration into your existing business processes in surprisingly simple ways – from the strategic all the way down to the daily rhythm of operational processes. Many times small changes will yield impressive improvements. For instance, small changes like this:

• A brief Before Action Review when transitioning from planning to action will build a foundation for execution to stay coordinated - even amid change;
• Short reviews throughout a project (rather than one large AAR at the end) encourage rapid course correction;
• Placing all current strategic initiatives on one wall with post-its tests for coherence and enhances the line of sight from vision to execution;
• Leaders at every level build a simple habit - communicating the purpose of the action with the plan, then asking for a brief back from implementers in order to check for alignment.
• To assure that learning is integrated, aim it directly at the links between leadership vision and execution. Leaders focus on the one or two performance challenges their organizations face which, if their people could master, would make the biggest contribution to bottom-line performance.

Assess: Are we as agile as we could be?

We invite you to take a quick look at your organization through the eyes of a world-class learning organization – take a pencil to a quick organizational agility assessment. Then, with the page on interpretating scores, use the instrument as a strategically focused conversation-starter for your teams or with a senior leader.

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