Recently, at a brainstorming CLO forum organized by the Cambridge-headquartered global learning & technology company, Ososim, witnessed the footfall of some of the best brains involved in igniting and nurturing the potential of people in 40 major companies. During a quick-fire feedback-based session in the forum, emphasis was placed on some specific barriers faced by Chief Learning Officers (CLOs) while implementing changes. Post compilation of all feedback gathered—which came as post-it notes—seven ‘key’ barriers were identified.
The sense of “what has brought us here will not take us there” is now palpable. However, most large corporations are still involved in addressing various future challenges in learning and development with their past solutions.
Organizations aren’t keeping pace with the fast-evolving hardware, software, and connectivity landscape. On the other hand, today’s learners are fast adopters of the latest technologies. Consequently, they hardly show their interest in their company-provided age-old learning options.
The controls as well as exclusions organizations impose to “safeguard” businesses limit, apart from impeding learning progress, also endangers ignoring facets of practical scenarios. Although such limitations may be valid in policy, they’re insignificant in practice.
Most of the organizations still think about L&D from the ‘teacher’ perspective, instead of that of the ‘learner’s’. Remember, learning is all about the journey of knowledge application, which needs a bottom-up approach.it ultimately signifies wider and longer investments in carrying the beliefs and knowledge from knowing to executing and ultimately, outcomes.
In today’s businesses, the trade-offs are quite challenging to reconcile. Likewise, various conflicting agendas keep rearing their ugly heads in the stakeholder community of the CLO. The effective implementation of any well-devised plan, therefore, needs confidence, trust and alignment—the opposite is quite true as well.
At present, CLOs are grappling with the intricacies of personal as well as organizational risks where resilience and courage are the facilitators for innovation—ultimately leading to rewards.
Doing more with less is no more “just a fancy business term” but a “need” now. With a shoe-string budget and schedules as well as inboxes full with minimal turnaround expectations nowadays, the demand for out-of-the-box thinkers and unconventional talent is on the rise. It has made it essential for CLOs to get the right talent on board like never before.
