As marketing professionals most of our working lives, we have spent a lot of time looking for differentiation. What is this product’s differentiation? How does our company differ from our competition? How does our story set us apart? And how can our story be meaningful over time, not just until our competitor copies us, or worse, comes out with something better?

Most of the time we think of differentiation as a product’s feature, the ability to tout a big client or even our brilliant strategy to market. While all of these things are differentiators and some of them good ones, in themselves they are about as sustainable as bringing the first car to market with an iPod jack. The product feature that is going to change the world may be obsolete in 6 months. Our biggest and best client loved us, until the company re-orged and now our new contact has a friend who works for our competitor.

So is there such a thing as SUSTAINABLE differentiation? If so where is it?

It’s in your company’s PEOPLE! In the speed of today’s highly competitive business environment product features come and go, but the people BEHIND the product are the sustainable force.

So why then is the investment in the development of people the first budget to get cut, while the practically useless blinking light that differentiates our product from the competition never comes under scrutiny? Does that light really have a better ROI, or is that just what we like to think because it takes more effort to demonstrate the value of continuity and great talent to our business?

We’re not suggesting to drop product innovation, but rather to look beyond product features to the people who made them possible. The engineer who had an idea at 4:00 am and spent the next 72 hours perfecting it. The team who spent the weekend in the office to finish the project which keeps the big client coming back. The sales person who gives the marketing campaign life and stays to make just one last cold call on Friday evening.

Invest in the development of people and you invest in the one true sustainable differentiator that will weather your company through any competitive storm and lift your organization to prosperity through the worst of economic downturns.

In developing a learning strategy, a critical aspect is how engaged the people are, and how they will play a role as the strategy builders and as the recipients of the strategy successes. People simply are the driving force behind every part of the strategy. Basically, as learning and performance professionals we state that the development of programs, courses, lessons, and knowledge objects is for the overt use of an individual who has a specific need to learn, refresh, or teach while engaged in a performance-measured task or function. This individual is our end user. A focus on the principles “Simple is better and less is more” is one over-arching objective when developing a learning or an e-Learning strategy. When faced with the building of a strategy, selection of key people from across the organization will be the most important decision to ensure success. For this reason a teaming approach seems to be best when developing a learning strategy.

Why involve people from Accounting, Operations, or even Sales for that matter? It’s simple, really… they are the people who will bring focused attention and a level of importance to the rest of the organization. This is an organization-wide strategy, and, as such, needs to have key people across the organization and within the executive level involved. Executive level sponsorship, ownership, and understanding are the single greatest assets for successful development and implementation of a learning strategy, as well as an e-Learning strategy. It is how you allocate resources, and it will enable
access across the organization.

In the past it has always been apparent that development and implementation of a learning strategy is established largely through a push from the top down, rather than from a user-focused, bottom-up approach. The reason for the top-down push has been for cost reduction, human capital realignment within the organization, large technology purchases, or to capture knowledge and information before it leaves the organization. Any learning and performance systems approach will begin to show significant return on value when the process is user-focused.

The job roles and functions of individuals and groups within the organization drive this approach. Learning and performance content developed from the users will have a significant impact on how work, and workers, are perceived and valued in the decisions they make and their role in the organization. This focus is directly associated with involving people from across the organization in developing the learning strategy.

In tomorrow’s article we will lay out a roadmap for you to follow. This map will help to insure that your organizational performance increases dramatically.

Related Articles
- Why Your Company Will Succeed With A Learning and Performance Strategy
- Your e-Learning Strategy Checklist