How to be a Strategic L&D Leader

And Why It Has Nothing To Do With Learning Design

Author

Ross Stevenson
October 29th, 2023

📨 Upgrade | 🛠 Tools | 🚀 Courses

Today’s Thoughts ☠️

Hey there 👋,

Welcome to the first monthly deep dive series.

Here I’ll answer questions and explore topics for STT Pro subscribers (not one? Upgrade here ←). These editions are like mini-books and toolkits designed to help you do your best work in your L&D career.

Today, we’ll explore how to be a strategic L&D leader that drives real success.

Get your tea 🍵 or beverage of choice ready. We've got lots to discuss!

THE BIG THOUGHT
How to be a Strategic L&D Leader

Will Ferrell Reaction GIF

Many believe being a good L&D operator & leader is about only building great learning experiences and products.

❌ They’re wrong.

It’s about knowing how to navigate your business to deliver the outcomes it wants.

This has nothing to do with skills. If you want to know the 7 skills every high-performing L&D operator needs, you can find those here. What I’m talking about is knowing how to move through a specific organisation to make sure you can maximise those skills.

You see, not all organisations are created equal.

What the courses, accreditations and all the ‘experts’ can’t tell you are your organisations:

  1. Culture

  2. Constraints

  3. Context

Knowing these 3 is instrumental to any success you will have.

Stories from the frontline

I learned this the hard way.

Over a decade ago, I was leading digital learning for one of the world’s Top 5 retailers. I naively thought my output was all based on how good my learning experiences were. I was wrong.

No one really cared about that.

What they did care about was performance and building useful skills. To do that, and do it well, you need to understand the 3 C’s of your organisation.

No one cares about the best learning experience since sliced bread if it doesn’t fit into these 3.

Let’s break down these 3 pillars and their importance.

Subscribe to The Cult of Thoughts ☠️ to read the rest.

Become a paying subscriber of The Cult of Thoughts ☠️ to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.

Already a paying subscriber? Sign In.

A subscription gets you:

  • • Exclusive Monthly newsletter
  • • Exclusive data, insights and reviews
  • • Access to workshops, events and perks

Reply

or to participate.