The secret skill L&D should steal from marketing

When you think about marketing for learning®, what comes to mind? Adverts? Emails? Promotion? Maybe if you’ve followed us for a while, you might be thinking about personas, or the value proposition canvas. But in this blog I’m going to reveal the secret skill all marketers have, that L&D really should adopt…

Drum roll please… 🥁

Networking.

No, I’m not talking about awkward networking events, where you’re forced to go and share one interesting fact about yourself with a complete stranger. I’m talking about true networking across the organisation. And this deeper, more strategic approach to networking is known as business partnering.

Business partnering is about building relationships beyond a specified need to increase L&D value, raise visibility, improve reputation and contribute to the employee value proposition. And it’s a skill that all the best marketers have in their arsenal.

THE POWER OF BUSINESS PARTNERING IN L&D.

You might be thinking “yeah, Han, we have Learning Business Partners, we’re fine!” But we need to think beyond that. In fact, here at MAAS, we believe that every single L&Der should have business partnering in their repertoire. This is a strategic shift in how we operate, instead of being an order taker, e-learning development monkey or the ‘yes’ team. Business partnering enables L&D to drive business value, by becoming closer to the business and catering to actual business needs. Say goodbye to working in an L&D silo, it’s time to become best friends with people across your organisation.

“Business Partnering will stop L&D being order takers.”

I don’t need to tell you about L&D’s history of being an order taker. Someone in the business comes to us and says “we need a course on XYZ” and L&D passionately nod their heads and crack on with the hard work. We know this scenario is not conducive to impactful learning. We know we can do more than that, and business partnering is the solution.

Instead of only speaking to our colleagues across the organisation when they need something, or vice versa, business networking takes a proactive approach to developing relationships. Booking regular check-ins, aligning ourselves to the wider organisational strategies and understanding the pain points of different business functions, will not only transform what we do in L&D, but how we’re perceived in the business.

HOW TO BUILD BETTER RELATIONSHIPS ACROSS THE ORGANISATION:

1. TRULY COLLABORATE WITH YOUR COLLEAGUES.

Often when trying to prove the impact we can have as learning professionals, we can often end up being a little defensive. And truthfully, that’s just because we’re all so ruddy passionate about what we do! But when trying to establish meaningful relationships across the business; we need to put our emotions to one side. Go into these relationships with an open mind, ask the right questions and listen more than you talk. There’s a reason collaboration is one of the 10 C’s of a modern marketing mindset; and that’s because it is the root of fantastic business partnering.

2. GET TO KNOW PEOPLE ON A PERSONAL LEVEL.

There’s nothing worse than someone you don’t know asking you for a favour, right?! The same goes for business relationships. As a critical business function, there is going to come a time when we need a favour from everyone in the organisation. We might need insights from finance, data teams, internal comms and so on. So before you need that favour, build the relationship!

Remember, you don’t need a business reason to talk to your colleagues from other business functions. Grabbing a coffee in the office kitchen, going for a lunchtime walk, attending team bonding events are all great ways to get to know your colleagues. And it works. Seriously… think about the best marketer you know, they have friends in an array of departments, don’t they? See… I told you so!

3. ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS.

In a similar ilk to point one, you need to make sure you’re being truly inquisitive and asking the right questions. Asking a department manager “what learning do you want?” is going to result in more order taking. Instead, ask questions about their challenges, pain points, and what they do in a typical working day. Once you have this deeper understanding, then you can offer more practical solutions to their challenges – which doesn’t result in being an elearning development machine!

4. SCHEDULE REGULAR CHECK-INS AND STRATEGY ALIGNMENT.

L&D should have regular catch ups with critical business functions, such as Internal Comms, HR, Talent, Marketing and so on. Each of these different functions will have their own strategies that are based on the business strategy. And as a people function, it’s not enough to just know the business strategy. You need to understand each functions’ game plan, and how you can support them with that. Sometimes that’s due to learning needs; for example, upskilling employees in different units. And other times it’s more practical; for example, you don’t want to launch a huge marketing for learning campaign on the same day internal comms are launching an initiative, do you? So regular catch ups with other departments is key.

However, when a specific project arises, that impacts other departments, or requires their help, build a squad. Within this squad you should have a range of individuals from different business functions working together as one unit – to ensure effective execution of the project, in line with all business units’ needs.

EMBRACING A COLLABORATIVE FUTURE

Like much of marketing for learning; business partnering is not a quick-win or a one-time initiative. Instead, it’s a long-term commitment to changing the relationship between L&D and the wider business – that will unlock new opportunities for innovation, efficiency and success. And as the business world continues to evolve, more eyes are on L&D than ever before. So now is the time to break the status quo, prove our value and demonstrate the impact we can have on the bottom line.