Chief Learning Officer - December 2007 - (Page 22) tactics Driving Organizational Effectiveness: Performance Consulting at Work Joyce Thompsen and Linda Moran As a new budget year approaches against a backdrop of economic fluctuation, senior executives are posing more frequent and pointed questions about return on investment to the learning and development community. Unfortunately, the reality is that many executives remain unconvinced of the value of learning and development initiatives. Other priorities such as new product development or new advertising and marketing initiatives often may take precedence in the budgeting process. December 2007 Making the Move Historically, performance consulting involved a heavy focus on numbers and the management of the business. But today’s organizations have already become nearly as lean as they can be. So, rather than simply tasking fewer people with more work, performance consultants help increase efficiency without increasing the workload. They are looking for pockets of effectiveness within a business and examining ways to replicate that success. Most larger organizations already have identified opportunities for improvement and come to outside resources to seek specific assistance that they themselves cannot or prefer not to provide, perhaps lacking the time, resources, manpower or strategies to design or deliver solutions. In other cases, organizations have tried various tactics and aren’t getting the necessary traction or performance lift. In such situations, there are usually deeper-seated organizational development or strategy execution issues that have not been uncovered or fully addressed. Faced with scrutiny of their operational effectiveness, CLOs must remain focused on key business goals and priorities, along with what needs to be in place to achieve the expected results. By deploying internal performance consultants who help keep the proverbial eye on the ball, CLOs can ensure that the focus remains on performance, not just on the learning process. A performance consulting strategy can propel the organization toward those business goals and help the CLO establish stronger relationships with executives and line management. To be fair, everyone is asking performance questions. Performance produces results. It’s not that these questions shouldn’t be asked — in fact, these are the same questions a good performance consultant would ask about learning. I www.clomedia.com I Chief Learning Officer 22 http://www.clomedia.com
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