Corporate language “programs”

January 10th, 2008
by Cleve Miller

This has me intrigued.

I’d imagine that most BE professionals working with large corporate programs are like me - spending half their time thinking “There must be a better way”. We work with creative, high energy managers who are passionately engaged with the high-speed challenges of their job. Then we have them stop what they are doing, go sit in a classroom, turn to Unit 4, and read about what Richard Branson has accomplished (”he has started many different businesses, and he has sailed around the world in a balloon”). Then we wonder why attendance is 60%.

Anyway, we’re always looking for a way to connect language training with business goals, and the excerpt below points to a perspective that might contribute to that:

Systems, Not Programs

The HR profession is very adept at program development. Success is most often defined as creating and/or adopting best-practice programs, and HR is organized and managed accordingly. HR consulting firms align their practices with the way their clients are organized: They deliver products and programs for HR subprofessions (such as training, staffing, and compensation). But the data is indisputable: Decades of new and better programs have not delivered great results. The reason is that “world-class programs” cannot deliver performance results. Only systems deliver results.

An automobile engine is a system that requires great parts. All parts must be fully integrated and aligned to the purpose of the engine, whether that be high performance or a fuel economy. A well-built engine uses just the right parts and no more. Likewise, succession planning, training, and appraisal can be viewed as parts. Just as throwing pistons and spark plugs into an engine compartment will not deliver a satisfactory engine, neither will “world-class” HR programs deliver acceptable customer results. More and better HR programs will deliver no better performance in the future than they have in the past. Performance results require a system.

From The New Human Capital Strategy by Bradley Hall. Hat tip to KnowHR.

What would a corporate language system look like? How would it differ from a “program”? Or would there be no specific language system or program, but rather a language training componant that is subsumed within the overall human capital system? Can we emancipate corporate language training from its legacy institutional (school) origins?

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