The strength of an organization's learning culture can be the single biggest driver of business impact.  In a learning culture, people develop their abilities, their technical skills improve and career advancement occurs. Learning and development professionals are leading the charge to make sure their companies are "learning organizations" – a term Peter Senge coined nearly 30 years ago. In today's ultra-competitive world, knowledge workers have the edge. They search out and apply state-of-the-art learning to advance company objectives, while seeking mastery for themselves. Companies keep pace with them by addressing their learning needs, understanding where they are in their learning process, and providing the tools they need in real time. Learning, like other tools and materials required for people to do their jobs, is integral to success. Executives know this as global L&D budgets are increasing, projected to grow by 11% to $31 billion in 2020.  

Companies are making progress in developing and sustaining learning cultures, but even L&D professionals feel that their learning initiatives are not where they need to be. LinkedIn recently surveyed 500 L&D decision-makers in the U.S. and Canada of which 60% are actually c-suite executives. Ninety percent believe there is a skills gap that L&D can and should address and 80% agree that developing employees is the top priority. However, only 25% of surveyed L&D professionals would recommend their organization's programs to others, and their leadership is having trouble seeing quantifiable impact and return on investment for their learning programs.

What can L&D professionals do to provide real impact and show learning's economic power and impact? The best L&D professionals are transforming their function into that of trusted advisor. They partner with work teams, master the art of listening, ask probing questions and foster clarity around the challenges their teams must address. They delve into the underlying organizational systems to ascertain where change is needed. They experiment and collect data to discover what's working best and what should be discarded. They clearly identify and create learning solutions that best addresses the situation. The results are tracked, quantified and advance organizational goals.