Engage and Manage Cross-Functional Stakeholders as a Learning Leader

Successful learning programs require strong collaboration between learning teams and stakeholders such as business leaders, subject matter experts (SMEs), and learners—both internal and external. Oftentimes learning programs that fail to achieve desired results—be it participation rates or behavior change—have roots stemming from a disconnect with business stakeholders. From ensuring that the learning strategy is closely aligned to business priorities and metrics of success to verifying the design of learning programs meet the learners’ needs, an outside-in collaborative approach with stakeholders is key to leading successful learning programs.

In this session we will explore how to build a list of stakeholders in an hour or less, then map them into a stakeholder framework that takes into account their power, influence, and interest in one’s learning program or project. We will discuss considerations for selecting key stakeholders, typically 4 to 6 individuals among the many stakeholders, to whom more attention and monitoring need to be given. Using the same stakeholder framework, we will identify different approaches for partnering with stakeholders such as close collaboration (for those with high power and energy), keeping satisfied (for those with high power but low energy), keeping informed (for those with high influence), or minimal interaction (for those with low influence and energy). We will share best practices for driving close collaborations with key stakeholders, such as forming Learning Advisory Councils, participating in business meetings, having a regular cadence for outreach meetings, managing communications across functions, and more. We will close out with examples from the speaker’s 15+ years of in-house learning leadership experience of how these principles were applied in the real world to engage key stakeholders and roll out learning programs successfully.

In this session, you will learn:

• Strategies for working cross-functionally to implement large learning projects
• Frameworks for mapping stakeholders to proactively define the best approach to work with them
• Best practices for staying aligned with key stakeholders