Innovation is no longer a ‘nice to have’. The increasing rate of change is suggesting that organizations need to become more agile, and that comes from moving to a state of continual innovation. The question then becomes: what’s the role of learning and development (L&D) in innovation? And I will suggest that there’s a lot L&D can do.
Let’s be clear. When you’re innovating – when you’re problem-solving, designing, researching, troubleshooting, etc. – you don’t know the answer when you start. So, inherently, it’s learning. It’s not formal learning, but it is learning. And this means that there’s a potential role for L&D.
It’s easy to abrogate responsibility. L&D can insist that their role is formal learning and stick to courses, but there’s a cost. As organizations increasingly embrace self-directed learning and user-generated content, the role for L&D could shrink. There’s another, better approach with a big upside.
Tags: Articles • enterprise L&D team • enterprise learning • Enterprise LMS • innovating learning • innovation • Learning and Development in the Enterprise • Why L&D needs to innovate