In this interactive roundtable discussion, we will explore the importance of creating leading partnerships with the business.

As longstanding businesses are being disrupted and new businesses are being formed at record pace, it has never been more critical for companies and teams to update their skills and sharpen their capabilities. At the heart of this transformation is the critical need to develop Talent around the business, teams and individuals and be competitive. There are significant variances on how companies embrace Learning and Development including where it reports, priorities, how it is funded and relationship with the business. The opportunity we have as learning leaders is to be that Strategic Business Partner to further the skills, strategy and growth of the company through People.

To help guide the roundtable discussion, our facilitator will focus on 4 key vantage points for being a strategic business partner:

• Priorities and Alignment: Gain a perspective on how other organizations discover their CEO’s priorities and how they then align their key learning initiatives to those priorities. We will compare different models on where Learning reports to as another data point on business alignment.
• Reaching Upfront Agreement with Goal Owners: Once it is agreed that learning has a role to play, L&D and the goal owner need to agree on measures of success. We will discuss potential outcome measures.
• Roles and Responsibilities for L&D and Goal Owners: One critical component of forming a strong partnership is clarity about the roles and responsibilities of both parties. Neither L&D or the goal owner can guarantee an impactful program on their own.
• Governing Bodies: Last, we will discuss how high-level and program-level governing bodies can help build partnership and have greater business impact.