Chief Learning Officer - June 2008 - (Page 46) Centralization and Decentralization: The Need for Coexistence BY LINDSAY EDMONDS WICKMAN To be effective in today’s global business environment, companies are embracing elements of centralization and decentralization that allow them to act quickly at the local level while leveraging best practices at the corporate level. emember calculus, chemistry and American literature? In high school and college, every class had its own instructor and its own unique curriculum, and as students grew more specialized, so did their courses and respective teachers. This is the definition of decentralized learning — dispersing responsibility and control throughout an organization. However, many companies deviate from this standard and tend to be centralized, where one learning function develops the curriculum for the sales, engineer and support teams. While CLO WEBINARS such a structure eliminates duplication and Want to add agility leverages best practices, the local flavor and to your learning nimbleness may be lost. organization? Check As a result, no learning plan should have out the CLO Webinar a one-size-fits-all strategy, and pockets of “‘Simplicate and decentralization should be cultivated in Add Lightness:’ even the most centralized strategies, as the Driving Change in need for learning typically has an element the Organization” on of immediacy. June 19. For more information, go to The Dichotomy: www.clomedia.com/ Centralized vs. Decentralized events/webinars. While some may believe these two strate- R gies are mutually exclusive, they can and do operate in harmony at Scotiabank, where elements of both centralization and decentralization are what make the system work. “Scotiabank’s model is a hybrid — what [Josh] Bersin calls a ‘federated’ model. It’s really the best of 46 Chief Learning Officer • June 2008 • www.clomedia.com both worlds,” said Linda White, vice president of the global performance and learning office at Scotiabank, which offers personal, commercial, corporate and investment banking services. “We are a global company and a highly matrixed organization. This model allows us to be nimble enough to respond to the needs of the business quickly and efficiently. [But] at the same time, because we have a centralized unit, we can make sure economies [are] of scale. We [can] identify and use synergies wherever possible, and it allows us to provide an infrastructure to make the whole thing run.” In the federated approach, the central training unit provides support to each of the smaller learning units in the business lines, and together they work to develop learning strategies for the bank’s 60,000 employees, who are dispersed across 50 countries. The strategy mirrors that of the training relationship and is navigated through goodwill and influence, meaning that the independent learning units aren’t required to collaborate with the central office but do because of the expertise it provides. “Our role is to make sure that there are synergies and some consistency,” White said. “How we make that happen is through influence. I can’t tell [the training units] to give me a learning strategy each year. I have to influence them and show them what the benefit is for them. It’s creating a partnership.” The central office maintains the big picture — the infrastructure, processes and standards — and the independent learning units work within that frame- http://www.clomedia.com/events/webinars http://www.clomedia.com
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