We believe this lack of alignment is also behind the recent trend toward increased learning analytics and the desire to more effectively measure the return on human capital. In our conversations with Executives, Human Resource Professionals, and
Line Managers, they tell us that they need to measure learning initiatives to justify budgets, approaches, and opportunity costs. We believe, however, that most companies would be better served by focusing their resources not on measuring, but
on managing and fully implementing their learning initiatives in alignment with their key strategic priorities.

Two Steps to Connect the Disconnects™ of Alignment and Adoption

In order to "Connect the Disconnects™" necessary to transform learning into improved on-the-job performance and real business results, we recommend two key steps – starting with alignment.

1. Alignment: Begin with the business objectives in mind

We believe in a deep and fast analysis of business priorities and performance objectives to ensure that training initiatives target key results. While "deep and fast" may seem contradictory, we know that in today’s competitive landscape an effective analysis needs to be:

I. Timely enough to keep pace with the rate of change within an organization.
II. Deep enough so that it identifies the few key levers needed to achieve the specific desired results.

When training initiatives have a clear line of sight to guiding business objectives, teams are able to move fast, learn, and adapt their approaches to produce defined results. The more actions are aligned with critical business drivers, the greater the impact. This is especially true if the organization views "training" as just one of many arrows in their solution quiver. Unfortunately, many organizations either spend their time and money attempting to measure results of a process that has not been properly managed or executed in the first place or they "push out" training events linked to "competencies" that have minimum impact on job performance and business results.

Alignment, the key connection between Application (Level III) and Results (Level IV), creates the foundation for skills to transfer to on-the-job performance and eventually manifest themselves in tangible business results. Without this alignment, organizations can only hope that their investments make sense. This feeling of "guessing" is what drives companies to decrease their investments in learning or to increase their attempts to measure ROI.

Once you have clarity around the strategic priorities, success metrics, and alignment, it is time to fully manage
and implement the learning solution in conjunction with other interventions – in other words "finish what you
start." That brings us to step #2 – Adoption.

2. Adoption: Support individuals and teams through the learning transformation To be successful, each learning initiative must employ internal and external levers that enable the successful application of learned skills to job- specific tasks.

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