10 Insights For Stronger Commercial Capabilities

HOW TO CONSTRUCT AN ENGAGING CASE FOR L&D INITIATIVES

HR and L&D professionals are in the business of seeking the next “yes”. Buy-in from stakeholders is a priceless commodity that pays for the implementation of initiatives. Even the best of us have had the odd “no” that brings an opportunity to learn and adapt future strategy.

This booklet shares 10 insights into the process of attracting buy-in to hear “yes” more often. Use it for personal reflection and team discussion to spark conversation, reflect on past experiences, and plan for the future.

DUCTION

10 SOME PEOPLE FOCUS ON PERSUADING BUT COULD FOCUS ON EDUCATING

Learning and development roles have a job to do. Not just the workload, but in communicating to our organisations what our function can do. For example, Sales and Marketing have an obvious function and often tangible results. The danger in this is that we can project an importance that doesn’t exist. We attempt to persuade. But in reality we’d benefit from educating. Persuading leads us to overinflate the importance of our function, in turn losing respect from colleagues who can see through our pretence.

Smart people know that what HR is working on is not more important than what Sales are working on. Rather than inflating through persuasion, we can educate through the evidence of what we’ve delivered.

Key stat: 94% of employees say that they would stay at a company longer if there is investment in their learning and development.

(LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report).

Coaching Question

Scale. On a scale of 1-10, how much educated is your organisation on the what L&D can do? Why did you chose that rating and how could this education improve?

9 SOME AIM TO BE LIKED, BUT WOULD

BE BETTER AIMING TO BE RESPECTED

We all want to be liked. There is something in the human psyche that craves to be known to be of value to someone else. We might be forgiven for thinking that being liked will help us get buy-in, after all, we know from the guru of influence Robert Cialdini that ‘liking’ is part of the science of persuasion. Yet, a leader who prioritises being liked won’t be respected. Eventually, the leader will be faced with a decision where the respectable option will make them less liked. A deadline might be missed and in the pursuit of likeability they’ll let it slide, losing respect from stakeholders relying on a timely outcome.

Key fact: A recent study shows that [perceived] respect had a significant positive influence on innovative behaviour through the effect of thriving at work.

Coaching Question

How might an L&D leader aim to be respected rather than liked?

8 PEOPLE TRY TO DELIGHT STAKEHOLDERS, BUT IT’S BETTER TO FIND A SPONSOR

Stakeholders by design have competing requirements. There are often multiple stakeholders because different departments need their say, each with different agendas, desires and timelines.

Aiming to delight them all is near impossible, and any attempt to can end up in an endless loop. Our energy could be better spend finding a sponsor. A project sponsor is the silver bullet to getting it done. The sponsor is uniquely positioned to corral stakeholders into making a decision or adjusting their expectation. While stakeholders endlessly debate, the sponsor says “we have to make this happen.”

Key stat: An estimated 68% of projects don’t have an effective project sponsor to provide clear direction or help address problems.

(KPMG New Zealand: Project Management Survey).

Coaching Question

Search. How can we get a sponsor early, ensuring our projects don’t get into an endless loop of stakeholder debate?

7 PEOPLE TEND

TO THINK WHAT WE MEASURE IS IMPORTANT, BUT WHAT THE CLIENT MEASURES MATTERS MORE

Typically we might try to track a lot of measurables and overwhelm our stakeholders with positive data. A more strategic approach would be to find out what metrics our stakeholders really care about. It’s hard to align stakeholders; it’s incredibly unlikely that they care about exactly the outcomes we care about.

Yet we can find an alignment between how we as L&D measure things and how our stakeholders measure things. It’s the art of simplification. It makes it crystal clear that our projects are a success, increasing respect and making buy-in more likely for next time.

Key fact: When L&D leaders were asked which metrics they use to determine the impact of leadership development programs, ROI ranked last.

(Chief Learning Officer Magazine’s State of Learning Report).

Coaching Question

How can L&D professionals make a compelling case for these intangibles in an environment that heavily prioritises quantifiable results?

The idea that we need buy-in to make progress - whilst in some cases true - holds us back. Instead of making possible and positive progress, we wait, we try, we chase. Getting caught in ‘consulting’ for too long makes no progress.

Instead of looking to export progress from buy-in, flip it to export buy-in from progress. Progress can be any action against milestones, towards the objective. Setting deadlines and the commitment to meet them builds a momentum that demonstrates progress and increases buy-in. Create urgency for starting something.

Key stat: Teams that focus on achieving specific milestones and deadlines are up 30% more likely to accomplish their goals compared to those that primarily seek buy-in without concrete actions.

(Harvard Business Review)

Coaching Question

What could it look like to make progress and let buy-in follow?

5 MOST PEOPLE THINK IT’S ABOUT DOING

THE RIGHT THING, BUT ACTUALLY IT’S ABOUT DOING SOMETHING

In our experience, L&D leaders always have everyone’s best interests at heart. We want to do the right thing, all the time. This starting point can be a pitfall leading to many lengthy decision making processes. In L&D, there are no right answers. Should the training be Sales training and Service training separately, or just a Sales Service training? Which is right? This could be debated for months. Does it matter? It can be done either way. The important part is to just do it. ‘Doing the right thing’ is trap to avoid on the route to getting something done.

Key stat: A McKinsey & Company report on decision making found on average, respondents spend 37% of their time making decisions, and more than half of this time was thought to be spent ineffectively.

Coaching Question

How can L&D leaders and teams avoid ‘doing the right thing’?

4 PEOPLE INVEST IN STRATEGY, BUT FORGET ABOUT THE TACTICS

Should we build something for a five-year period or do something for this year? If the priority is this year, do we want to see results or just get the thing done? Take a sales team training for example. If we run it part way through Q4, we might have achieved our objective to run it this year, but we won’t see the impact on revenue until next year. Rather than a strategic approach, being tactical can help us achieve not only our initiatives but what we really want from our initiatives.

Key stat: In a survey conducted by PwC, 59% of executives stated that 1 out of 4 projects fail to deliver the expected outcomes within the time and budget constraint.

Coaching Question

How can we be more tactical L&D leaders in making initiatives happen at the right time to get the wanted results?

3 PEOPLE LOVE CUSTOMISATION, BUT IT’S ALSO ABOUT SPEED

Bespoke programmes can be brilliant. After all, we have experience designing and delivering bespoke programmes for some of the world’s most famous companies. But while customisation is craved, it could take three times, five times or 10 times longer. Customisation of solution is rightly craved, but can be a case of trying to designing a perfect house to please multiple stakeholders, without consideration of how long the process takes.

Every organisation is completely unique and faces a decision every time; Should this really be customised? If yes, are we willing to invest the time? Then set realistic deadlines. If we can’t invest the time, we can utilise off-the-shelf as necessary.

Key stat: An article by eLearning Industry reported initiatives can repurpose existing assets and streamline practices to reduce overall workload. Yet, 75% of 1,500 L&D professionals agree that their companies will be developing more custom learning content in the upcoming years.

(Chief Learning Officer Learning States of the Industry survey).

Coaching Question

What does the decision-making process look like in your organisation on whether to go bespoke or off-the-shelf?

2 MOST PEOPLE THINK IT’S GROUND UP, BUT ACTUALLY IT’S TOP DOWN

We know engagement with our ideas is important. Yet, we don’t always get it. This struggle is often caused by a desire to get buy-in from the junior levels to feed up to the execs. “People want this.” Yet, top-down engagement is still has significant value. If our senior stakeholders are bought into an idea, it has senior level traction.

Key stat: The Workplace Learning Report by LinkedIn found that 61% of L&D professionals believe that executive support is essential for learning program success.

Coaching Question

Is the approach to engagement for your L&D more top down or bottom up?

1 SHORT-TERM

WINS ARE GOOD, BUT LONGTERM VALUE IS BETTER

It’s easy to make a case to get started and make short term wins with results this year (as we shared previously in this booklet). But how do we get buy-in for the bigger and better? We may be better off focussing on long-term value and benefits rather than short term quick wins. Over-emphasis on the short-term loses credibility of our biggest and best L&D initiatives. The kind that can transform an individual, leader, team, or organisation.

Key fact: Research led by a team from McKinsey Global Institute in cooperation with FCLT Global found that companies that operate with a true long-term mindset have consistently outperformed their industry peers over the past 2 decades across almost every financial measure that matters.

Coaching Question

How might an overemphasis on short-term returns impact the long-term strategy and evolution of L&D initiatives?

We are an award-winning L&D agency igniting and equipping the world’s most exciting companies for the adventure of work. Our clients choose us for innovative learning and development workshops, webinars, eLearning, coaching, leadership development and L&D marketing collateral.

Intrigued about a work adventure we could start? We’d love to spark something together.