Too often, L&D operates reactively, delivering training without clear business impact. You can change that when you anchor learning to strategic aspirations. Houra Amin explains how to drive measurable success
Business leaders are increasingly recognising learning as a strategic driver of outcomes like retention, internal mobility and leadership development. Yet, many L&D teams struggle to translate this recognition into aligned, impactful initiatives. This article explores how anchoring your strategy to a clear aspiration can turn L&D into a powerful engine for measurable business success.
L&D isn’t just about delivering content; it’s about enabling change
What is strategy, and why is it crucial for L&D?
Strategy, as Roger Martin defines it, is an integrated set of choices that helps you win where you choose to play. For L&D, this means making deliberate decisions about where to focus efforts and what to prioritise, just as importantly as what to say no to.
Many assume that strategy is the domain of corporate leadership, with L&D playing a passive, executional role. However, successful strategy operates as a web of interconnected decisions made across corporate, business units and functional levels. L&D plays a pivotal role in this web, shaping and refining strategy to ensure its initiatives align with broader organisational priorities. In practice, this often involves navigating complex trade-offs, such as balancing the demand for quick training solutions with long-term capability-building efforts.
L&D isn’t just about delivering content; it’s about enabling change. And that needs a good strategy under a unified aspiration that bridges employee empowerment and organisational success. Without one, L&D risks being relegated to a reactive support function.
Start with ‘why’: Define your winning aspiration
Every effective strategy begins with a clear “why.” For L&D, this is your “winning aspiration”, a guiding star that informs all decisions and ensures alignment with organisational priorities. Without a winning aspiration, L&D risks delivering disjointed activities that fail to drive meaningful impact.
Here’s a common example of a weak aspiration: “We aim to inspire employees to engage with learning opportunities.”
While well-intentioned, this aspiration assumes engagement automatically leads to competence and growth. It focuses on activity and tools over outcomes: high-quality content, user-friendly platform, successful launch. But does it address real capability gaps? Does the completion of courses equate to actual competence and expertise? Does it translate into improved performance metrics?
Employees want to feel empowered, competent and confident in their roles, while organisations need to trust that their employees can deliver on the company’s strategic objectives. Strong aspirations are outcome-focused and explicitly tied to strategic priorities.
For instance: “We aim to close critical capability gaps to ensure employees are confident and competent in delivering on the organisation’s strategic goals.”
This aspiration shifts the focus from participation to enablement, emphasising measurable outcomes that matter to both employees and the organisation.
Beyond engagement: Why activity alone won’t drive impact
A common pitfall in L&D is focusing on activity – course completion rates, platform views or engagement metrics – rather than impact. To drive real business value, L&D must adopt an enablement mindset.
This involves:
- Tying initiatives to outcomes: For example, instead of launching a broad “leadership development programme”, focus on specific leadership behaviours tied to desired business outcomes, such as improving decision-making speed in high-stakes scenarios.
- Customer-centric alignment: Identify your primary stakeholders. Are they specific business units, functions or the entire organisation? Tailor your aspiration to their needs to ensure relevance and buy-in.
- Evaluating existing efforts: Assess whether your current initiatives align with your winning aspiration. If not, pivot to focus on what delivers measurable results.
Turn strategy into action: The key steps
If your L&D initiatives aren’t driving business impact, these steps will help you pivot towards success:
- Identify your organisation’s top three priorities: Pinpoint what matters most to the organisation. These could include customer satisfaction, market share, retention, innovation, etc.
- Define a winning aspiration that ties L&D efforts directly to these goals: For instance, if customer experience is a priority, focus on building skills in customer service or product knowledge. If retention is a challenge, aim to enhance career mobility and employee upskilling.
- Prioritise initiatives: Be willing to make tough choices. Resist the urge to accommodate every request, as spreading resources too thinly dilutes impact. Focus on a few high-priority initiatives that align with your aspiration.
- Measure and communicate impact: Establish metrics that track not just activity but outcomes. Use these data points to demonstrate L&D’s contribution to organisational success and secure continued investment.
Being strategic requires courage and discipline. It involves saying no to distractions and committing to incremental improvements over time. A 1% shift in focus can yield significant, long-term benefits.
The courage to be strategic
While strategy doesn’t guarantee success, it positions you on the right path. Without it, L&D is likely to remain a support function, far removed from the strategic conversations shaping the organisation’s future.
A clear aspiration transforms L&D into a competitive advantage. It unlocks employee potential and drives meaningful business outcomes. The path to alignment requires courage, focus and collaboration, but the rewards are immense: a more capable, confident workforce and a competitive edge in your market.
This journey begins with one question: What is your winning aspiration, and how will it transform your organisation?
Houra Amin is Director and L&D Consultant at Blue Jay Learning
