From Top to Bottom: Fueling a Winning Organizations’ Strategic Agenda

Where is your company going? Human resource teams likely know their strategic direction and company mission, but they might be putting gas in the wrong tank when it comes to arriving at their final destination – successful strategy execution. Organizations spend big bucks on corporate training each year so that employees are equipped to perform their jobs and a pipeline is set up to gracefully guide a company through role changes. However, organizations mistakenly invest in the wrong areas, according to Heide Abelli, Skillsoft Vice President of Leadership and Business Skills. Instead of aligning training programs with the company’s strategic direction and including employees at every level of learning, Abelli says organizations exclusively look to top-level leaders to direct its strategies. Successful skills training is all about priorities. Strategic agendas are driven from the middle and lower organizational levels, so Abelli believes those workers should be among the first to learn new skills. Supported by research by Don Sull at MIT’s Sloan School, the lack of talent with proper skill sets is the top reason why companies don’t make the most of new opportunities. For example, Abelli says a healthcare organization facing significant cost pressure can link a strategic objective to a gap in skills by expediting service delivery processes and improving patient experience strategic priorities. “Without adequate training, they just aren’t equipped to connect the dots,” Abelli says. “Too many training initiatives rest on the idea assumption that one size fits all.” To take the right route, an organization must fully understand its market, know how it stands out among competitors and how to protect its comprehensive advantages. “It’s about focus and making tradeoffs,” Abelli says. “What you choose to forego with respect to a training agenda is just as important as what you choose to emphasize."