This story is an excerpt from my forthcoming ebook titled: Larry's First Action. The book uses a story format to explain how to create an organisational learning strategy using Larry's experience.
Brian looked at Larry and started talking, "Let me tell you about an experience I had. After we both left Compliance Experts, of course you left one year before I did. I moved into another learning and development role with a technology related company which was highly innovative and operated in an environment that changed rapidly. There was a necessity for staff to learn quick and I wasn't responding rapidly enough to the organisation's learning needs. Then I spoke to a CEO friend about my challenge. His advice was brief - find out what is important to the C-team, understand clearly what keeps them up at night and support that. Then he said something that really got my attention - and when you support them be quick, adaptable and decisive. I asked him to elaborate and he said, think like an entrepreneur and not a practitioner. Identify the problem and implement a quick, efficient, but effective solution. Don't get caught into writing voluminous training plans peppered with industry jargon. Senior managers are not interested in knowing about responsive elearning or performance support, they just want a learning solution that works. And if you do have to create plans, make them short and simple to read. If I read your plan I should be able to immediately understand what the issue is, how you will support it and what outcome you expect to achieve." "Wow he knew what he wanted," said Larry. "Yes, he was a top man, very successful CEO. Now lives in Canada. After our conversation I thought a lot about what he said and came up with a simple way to gather the information I needed to create a organisational learning strategy. I call my way the six strategy questions."
