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D1 Define Business Outcomes

In her book, Strategic Learning Alignment, Rita Smith (2010) succinctly summarized the core concept of D1: “The only reason that learning organizations exist is to drive business outcomes” (p. 10). In other words, organizations invest in training and development with the goal of improving performance in areas critical to their strategy and objectives. Thus, training is valued to the extent to which it visibly and convincingly contributes to improved performance. When training consumes resources (time and money), but fails to demonstrably improve performance, it is seen as wasteful and expendable.

Therefore, the first ...

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