Learning is an endless journey that one never really completes. However, to embrace the idea of continuous learning, leaders need to realise that things are changing so fast that no single individual can possibly understand everything in depth, and that complicated issues are best resolved with input from many sources, many backgrounds and points of view. This applies not only to the individual but also to organisations.
I often hear the phrases “learning organisation” and “continuous learning” and, let’s face it, they have become virtually meaningless management clichés. In reality, relatively few companies effectively embrace the idea of building a home for continuous learning as it is extremely difficult in practice unless you’re equipped with learning resources that encourage such improvement processes.
I have done my best to always encourage continuous and ongoing learning in my own consulting firm. In our work, APMGroup needs to constantly learn many techniques to effectively help clients improve their business performance and at the same time unlearn those that no longer add value or are out of date. We have learned that there is no standard model or best practice that can be implemented as a universal panacea for every organisation; thus, every strategy and every process in delivering solutions to our customers requires customisation.
One strategy that I have seen organisations have considerable success with and create tangible benefits is an “academy approach” to accelerate business development. While training has a place, we have come to realise that training is a poor answer to bring about genuine and lasting behavioural change. As a result, we have worked with leading organisations to introduce an academy approach: an integrated and tailored form of organisational development designed specifically to deliver the desired business results aligned with the organisation’s culture and direction.
This approach means no more time and money is wasted on ineffective development processes that do not positively affect the bottom line because they are not 100% focused on organisational objectives; now they are focused on producing the staff essential to achieving them.
It sounds great, but the key question is how to differentiate; when do we use training and when do we use an academy approach? Traditionally, if an organisation needed to improve its people, a training session or group coaching would be offered for skill improvement. However, we’ve all been through training but think back and try to remember how much you remembered and applied from those sessions and whether they really change your behaviour. The answer, unfortunately, is likely to be “not much”.
Moreover, there is considerable research that confirms that the budget an organisation invests in development through training sessions is not worth the results. An academy approach, on the other hand, is a change process and development evolution focused on building capabilities and behavioural changes that will eventually ingrain the desired DNA into people.
In short, an academy approach is not just a physical entity, but a strategic instrument with the primary purpose to translate strategy in developing people’s performance so that is focused on the organisation’s objectives while safeguarding the organisational culture.
The benefit of an academy approach is obvious – delivering competitive advantage (in selected areas or functions or topics such as leadership, sales, or customer services) to deliver the organisation’s strategy and better business results. An academy focuses and strategically creates development for critical units and functions and simultaneously prepares the organisation’s people, processes and systems according to the predetermined mission and vision in order to sustainably build the desired cultures and achieve business objectives.
Not only that does an academy approach advance systems, leadership, processes and, most importantly, the professional knowledge, skills and attributes that distinguish excellent performance, but also it is intended to ensure your organisation has the qualified personnel with the embedded cultures in place to respond to whatever challenges or opportunities arise and to make objectives a reality.
Additionally, an academy approach will help engage staff and make them aware of any influences in executing their roles and responsibilities while changing the way people learn and work for improved business performance.
Most importantly, this method ensures a transformational process in an organisation, its people, and systems throughout their customer interfaces to achieve business objectives and finally achieve competitive advantage.
The benefits of an academy approach in developing business results are indeed obvious. In the next column I would like to share how this approach works in practice and some examples of success stories and organisations with a strong track record of using it to develop long-term success.
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Arinya Talerngsri is Group Managing Director at APMGroup, Thailand’s leading Organisation and People Development Consultancy. She can be reached by e-mail at arinya_t@apm.co.th