What matters to CEOs with their corporate learning

What matters to CEOs and corporate learning: it's all about the business results (T&D magazine #learning #results #ROI): http://ow.ly/1nkjK

An article by the training ROI authority Jack Phillips in the January issue of T&D magazine shows the results of research among a large number of CEOs regarding what they want to see from their corporate learning investments. Even though a whopping 96% want to see the results of learning and development back in their business impact data, only 8% claim to see it now. This demonstrates an enormous mismatch in L&D investments and providing business leaders with what they want to see.

The article lists a number of practical steps that we as learning professionals can now take to start showing business results. Even though Phillips is renowned for his admittedly complex training ROI calculations, the solutions he mentions are practical, immediate and can be undertaken with a minimum of investment. Among others they include focusing on objectives, integrating personal learning scorecards, providing success stories and building evaluation early into the L&D design.

"Confronting CEO Expectations About the Value of Learning," by Jack J. and Patti P. Phillips, T+D 64 (2010) 1 (Jan); p. 52 - 56 (5p.)

Employers failing to Integrate Talent Management and Diversity

RT @TrainingJournal: Diversity should be threaded through ALL talent management activities http://bit.ly/aOAFRm

Includes an excellent quote from Claire McCartney, CIPD resourcing adviser and co-author of the report, “It's important that organisations see talent management and diversity as more, not less important, in periods of economic uncertainty to outwit and outperform competitors through their people,” she said. “By opening up talent opportunities organisations will benefit from a stream of differing views and practical answers to problems, helping them to reflect increasingly diverse customer needs and remain ahead of the competition.

My experience is that in times of economic difficulty, leadership in organizations unfortunately take exactly the opposite course of action: sticking with what's familiar and comfortable, drawing back, playing it safe. Understandable in times of uncertainty, but a lost opportunity.

Leadership lessons from Indian companies

RT @HarvardBiz: Leadership lessons from Indian companies: good preview of an very good articlehttp://bit.ly/bpzusc

The question is: can the rest of us learn from their practices? As Peter Cappelli astutely observes, the lessons are not new, and even though many are based on circumstances found unique to the Indian business environment, there are nevertheless inherent lessons.

Especially: measuring and tracking training and development and creating a real sense of social mission, whereby employees can feel that their work has impact can have clear influence on the culture and success of any company.

Going Global, Stateside

An atypically shallow article in NYTimes re: intercultural communication http://ow.ly/1hNgB.

I was quite disappointed in the article. It touched very lightly on the general status quo without really defining either the problem or the underlying causes. Then leapt immediately to the solutions.

And closing with the most likely apocryphal "When the British company redid the proposal with a positive spin, they got the deal the next day" only reinforces the shallowness of the article's tone. It implied easy, simple solutions while ignoring the complexities of intercultural decision processes.

Effective Multi-Cultural International Business Meetings

Nice article from Neil Payne from Kwintessential. Quite comprehensive with examining all aspects of business meetings (including expectations, examining what the real goals are, hierarchy, etc.):  http://ow.ly/1h30S

Managing Communication within Virtual Intercultural Teams

An article by Christine Uber Grosse Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Management:http://ow.ly/1fLvs

Abstract

As global companies rely more on virtual teams to conduct short and long- term projects, business students need to be prepared to manage the communication of intercultural teams. Communicating across cultures using technology can be a difficult task. Best practices in managing the communication of virtual intercultural teams are identified from interviews with four executives and feedback from 90 graduate business students. This information will help business communication faculty to prepare students for the complex job of communicating across languages and cultures on virtual teams.

Cultural differences in doing business in Turkey and the Netherlands

An ING Bank commissioned report gives a good, solid overview of major differences, including standard measures such as power distance, individualism, masculine/feminine and uncertainty avoidance: http://ow.ly/1fszh