The current coronavirus crisis is necessitating major changes in how many learning businesses meet existing needs. For example, a change like investing in expanding and improving your online learning portfolio as so many organizations are currently considering.
But before making any major changes or investments, it’s important to first have a solid understanding of where you are as a learning business.
That’s why in this episode, we are revisiting the Learning Business Maturity Model, a simple yet powerful tool we created to provide a framework for helping organizations assess the maturity of their learning and education businesses.
And in case you aren’t already familiar with it, we explain what the Learning Business Maturity Model is and why we created it. We also discuss how you can get value from using it, particularly amid current circumstances surrounding COVID-19.
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Listen to the Show
Read the Show Notes
[00:18] – A preview of what will be covered in this episode where we revisit the Learning Business Maturity Model.
Note this is a topic we have covered before—way back in episode 56 and then again in episode 147—and it’s one that definitely benefits from ongoing review and reflection since there is value in reassessing your learning business.
Reflection Questions
[01:21] – You might consider the reflection questions below on your own after listening to an episode, and/or you might pull the team together, using part or all of the podcast episode for a group discussion.
- How clearly and consciously have you and others at your organization thought about the necessary capabilities of a successful, mature learning business?
- How are you making decisions about investing in your learning business in the current climate, and how will you measure the impact of those decisions over time?
Background on the Learning Business Maturity Model
[01:58] – In case you’re not familiar with the Learning Business Maturity ModelTM or you simply need a refresher, we’ll start with an overview.
The model articulates the characteristics and practices of a mature learning business, as well as the stages that typically precede full maturity.
It is intended specifically for market-facing organizations that focus on lifelong learning, continuing education, and professional development.
It is not intended for corporate training departments or degree-granting programs, for example.
We developed the Learning Business Maturity Model and first released it back in 2016 because, over our years of working with market-facing learning businesses, we’ve seen common problems and issues.
We’ve also seen significant opportunities for those learning businesses, opportunities that are often common across organizations—and opportunities that those organizations often don’t see because they’re too mired in their problems.
And, lastly, we haven’t seen enough collaboration—within or among organizations—or enough innovation.
The goal of the Learning Business Maturity Model is to provide a framework to assess capabilities and to help surface problem areas, and then provide a clear way to move from problem to opportunity and then, we hope, to innovation.
To help with trajectory to opportunity and innovation, we created an assessment to help learning businesses gauge their maturity and better understand their strengths and weaknesses in the areas like leadership, strategy, resources, products and services, and marketing. Click the button below to request the Maturity Model assessment.
The model aims to move beyond the theoretical and address the practical questions about how a learning business can improve.
The Four Stages and Five Domains and of the Learning Business Maturity Model
[04:06] – The Learning Business Maturity Model spans four stages of maturity:
- Stage 1: Static
- Stage 2: Reactive
- Stage 3: Proactive
- Stage 4: Innovative
In each stage, we gauge maturity according to characteristics and performance in five domains we’ve found to be critical to the success of the businesses we have been involved with over the years: leadership, strategy, capacity, portfolio, and marketing.
When talking about these domains, we ask questions for each (outlined below) like:
- Leadership
How clear is the vision for the learning business? How is accountability for achieving the vision shared and sustained over time? Is there a culture of learning throughout the organization and the audiences that it serves? - Strategy
How clearly articulated is the strategy? Has it been communicated and embraced broadly throughout the organization? Are clear metrics established and tracked, and does the organization adjust strategy based on the data captured? - Capacity
Does the organization have sufficient capacity, in terms of human resources and technology, to pursue the vision and strategy effectively? - Portfolio
Are the content, methodologies, and modalities aligned with well researched, thoroughly understood learner needs? Is the impact of learning assessed at multiple levels over time? - Marketing
Is there a validated understanding of the overall market and competitive environment? Are appropriate marketing methodologies used consistently and tracked for effectiveness?
Getting Value Out of the Learning Business Maturity Model in the Current Moment
[06:15] – Most learning businesses will perform better in some of the domains and worse in others. Your organization, for example, may perform at a stage 3/proactive level for leadership, strategy, and marketing but at a lower level, stage 1/static or stage 2/reactive, for capacity and portfolio.
And it’s precisely that more nuanced understanding of your capabilities and strengths (and yet-to-be-strengths) that can be helpful in moments where you need to reassess and adjust course because of emerging opportunities or constraints like a pandemic or economic downturn. Because the model looks at five domains, it helps to keep you balanced.
A lot of tactical changes are happening now because of the novel coronavirus—folks pivoting in-person events online. That’s impacting the capacity domain very clearly—your technology needs, for example.
But taking a maturity model approach reminds you that you also need to look at the strategy behind that shift to online and the marketing needed to make those new online offerings really sing, the leadership skills to understand the new landscape, and the adjustments needed to your portfolio of offerings.
And the model’s stages also help you think through the effectiveness of your pivots and changes in the current moment.
We’re seeing a lot of stage 2/reactive thinking now. Organizations responding to changes forced on them as bans or limitations on in-person gatherings rolled out.
The model reminds you that you want to move beyond that as quickly as you reasonably can—you want to get to proactive responses and then eventually innovative responses.
The competition is fierce now, so you need to get beyond being reactive ASAP. Learners are fatigued from Zoom meetings, and an online learning offering that’s the product of a reactive pivot from in-person is unlikely to succeed for long. You need and want to be thinking about what you can do that is innovative online, so you’re using the medium as effectively as possible and standing out from other options.
So, in terms of how to do this, it may mean simply using the Learning Business Maturity Model visual as a conversation-starter with your team—talking through the domains and getting folks to do a gut-level assessment of your organization’s maturity.
In many cases, we find stakeholders haven’t previously thought clearly and consciously about the necessary capabilities of a successful, mature learning business.
And then you can think about what you need to do to increase your learning business’s maturity.
What’s holding you back?
Sometimes it’s the hard thinking that goes into formulating good strategy or the hard work that goes into making sure the good strategy is understood at all levels in the organization.
Sometimes what’s holding you back is a lack of staff and dollars.
And, if that’s the case, using the maturity model with your board or other leadership may help.
In many cases board members and other leaders haven’t thought of the learning business in the terms used by the model. Focusing on the five domains can clearly identify areas in which resources are needed and help justify the organization’s investment in those resources.
If you want to get more formal in your assessing, you can use the assessment and scoring sheet that we created to accompany the maturity model to get as clear an understanding as possible of current strengths and weaknesses and to develop plans for addressing appropriate domains.
In fact, we do strongly recommend using the assessment because it will provide you with benchmarks against which you can measure your progress. Just use the button below to request the assessment.
As a brief case study, we’ve worked a national trade association for a number of years that first conducted a maturity assessment in March 2017 in combination with work to formulate its strategy for the coming years. The assessment was conducted again in October 2018—so, about a year and a half later—and we were able to see how the assessment score shifted overall as well as within each domain.
Just as importantly, we were able examine these shifts against the backdrop of the specific strategic and tactical moves the organization had made during that time period and get a much better sense of what seemed to be working and what didn’t.
In one of our earlier episodes about the maturity model we talked about how it helps to support three key activity areas, the three Ds: dialogue, diagnosis, and direction, and in the case we just highlighted, the model was very valuable in all three areas.
It provided a clear basis for dialogue about the organization’s progress, it provided a tool for diagnosing whether progress had actually been made and how much, and it helped with adjusting the direction for moving forward.
So often strategic discussion can feel too vague, and decisions about where and how to invest in resources feel like a shot in the dark. The maturity model doesn’t provide all the answers, of course, but it can bring a lot of clarity to the process—and in the chaotic and confusing times we’re facing right now, that seems particularly valuable.
[11:59] – Wrap-Up
So that’s our offer of help in this time of great upheaval—make use of the Learning Business Maturity Model. And if you do, we’d love to hear how it goes. You can reach out to us at leadinglearning@tagoras.com.
Reflection Questions
- How clearly and consciously have you and others at your organization thought about the necessary capabilities of a successful, mature learning business?
- How are you making decisions about investing in your learning business in the current climate, and how will you measure the impact of those decisions over time?
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[14:25] – Sign off
See Also:
The Adaptation Advantage with Heather McGowan
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