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Risk in the C-Suite It’s time to unleash the power of your people Authored by Laura Overton and Jane Daly October 2016 www.towardsmaturity.org/c-suite2016

Risk in the C-Suite - Towards Maturity in the C-Suite ... talent shortages and capability gaps facing business. ... development and acquisition of knowledge so that it can

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Risk in the C-SuiteIt’s time to unleash the power of your people

Authored by

Laura Overton and Jane Daly October 2016

www.towardsmaturity.org/c-suite2016

Risk in the C-Suite

© Copyright 2016. Towards Maturity CIC Ltd. All rights reserved. Page | 2

1. Introduction

This report is a new addition to Towards Maturity’s longitudinal research series,

investigating trends in modern learning practices at work, with a focus on the

priorities of the C-suite – the most senior executives in each organisation.

Research conducted by the top global thought leadership consultancies pre and post the

Brexit vote has highlighted a number of common and complex challenges facing the C-suite.

A number of the biggest risks and opportunities concern how the C-suite drives,

communicates and sustains a living people strategy. A future-focused business requires a 21st

century agile ecosystem. This report will spotlight how moving from transactional

organisational learning initiatives to a ‘learning organisation’, will be vital for any business

transformation.

The dynamics of these challenges requires a different approach from the C-suite. How they

engage and direct their people professionals will be one of the most critical elements within

their strategy.

Over £130bn (US $70bn) was spent globally on learning and development initiatives in 2013 –

a 15% increase on the previous year with the highest performing companies spending more

per employee.1

In spite of this huge and ever increasing investment, there have never been more critical

people risks, talent shortages and capability gaps facing business. Traditional transactional

approaches to supporting learning and training within organisations no longer adequately

prepare organisations for the future.

A new approach is required

It is imperative that the C-suite challenge their business leaders and people professionals to

create a learning organisation strategy with pace, one that is based on sound research and

delivers the best fit, value and impact for the organisation. Like any strategic investment, the

budget should be analysed and where possible internal expertise maximised to reduce cost.

What does this paper set out to do to help you? We have curated evidence that helps you:

► Explore the risks shared by the C-suite today

► Expect more impact from your people professionals

► Unleash the power of people

We will show you how moving to a C-suite led ‘learning organisation’ strategy helps you

manage risk and prepare for the future.

1 O' Leonard, K. The Corporate Learning Factbook 2014: Benchmarks, Trends, and Analysis of the U.S. Training Market. Bersin, 2014.

Risk in the C-Suite

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CEOs recognize that the lines between industries are blurring. 65% are concerned that new

entrants are disrupting their business models and more than half (53%) of CEOs believe their

company is not disrupting their industry’s business models enough.2

Peter Senge first talked about the learning organisation in his book The Fifth Discipline.3 In a

subsequent interview he stated that a learning organisation is a group of people working

together collectively to enhance their capacities to create results they really care about.

Over the years, Towards Maturity has been tracking outputs that organisations really care

about – indicators of staff and customer commitment, measures of growth, innovation and

the ability to respond with speed. Since 2003, we have been investigating which learning-

related activities are most likely to deliver those outcomes. Following research with over 5,000

people practitioners and 25,000 learners, we see a number of characteristics and traits of an

active learning organisation emerging from the evidence gathered.4

2 KPMG. Now or Never: 2016 Global CEO Outlook. June, 2016. 3 Senge, P. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation. 1990. 4 Towards Maturity. Embracing Change. 2015.

Our Definition of a Learning Organisation (LO)

A ‘learning organisation’ is a living and learning organisational ecosystem that

intelligently facilitates the performance and learning of its entire people

population, continuously transforming itself. It is agile and fluid in nature, with the

ability to move beyond learning interventions (simply training individuals) by learning at

an organisational level. It is a dynamic and trusted people-led organisation model that

allows people to ‘grow and glow’ through a common purpose, the respect of

knowledge and the analysis, development and acquisition of knowledge so that it can

innovate fast enough to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing environment.

6 Characteristics of the learning organisation:

1. Clarity of purpose: a shared vision of outcomes that matter

2. Holistic staff experience: a trusted brand that expects and facilitates continuous

learning from start to finish

3. Thriving ecosystem: individuals, managers and the extended enterprise working

towards common goals

4. Agile, digitally enabled infrastructure: supporting and enabling a fluid

exchange of ideas and skills

5. Continual engagement: self-directed, connected, accumulating collective

understanding

6. Intelligent decision making: using performance analytics to inform and adapt

Risk in the C-Suite

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Towards Maturity has been tracking top performing learning organisations via the annual

Benchmark since 2004. Organisations who are in the top 10% of the Towards Maturity Index

(the ‘Top Deck’) consistently report better business results than their peers. They are over 6

times more likely to report improved productivity, respond faster to changing business

conditions and deliver great value for money. They are also leaders in harnessing technology

within their learning strategy.

Whilst 80% of businesses cite digital transformation as a priority, only 35% have a ‘clearly

defined’ strategy to achieve this.5

5 IDT. Talent strategies are the first step to productivity solution. 2016.

Risk in the C-Suite

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Top C-suite Risks

Over 100,000 business leaders and people professionals have recently been

interviewed and surveyed (or both) by the top global thought leadership

consultancies. These reports contain invaluable insights into the voice of the

C-suite and their major challenges and opportunities. Their reports have

highlighted four forces of complex challenges facing the C-suite:

Organisational (External complexity forces)

► Growing in a complex world

► Managing the demands of over-regulation

Organisational (Internal complexity forces)

► Driving digital and the need for a new business model

► Investing in intelligent data analytics

People (External complexity forces)

► Continually innovating and exceeding the customer experience

► Addressing major talent and capability gaps

People (Internal complexity forces)

► Leveraging value from more demanding employees

► Unleashing the power of people

41% of CEOs anticipate that their company will be significantly

transformed over the next 3 years. That number has risen significantly from

the 2015 survey, in which 29% of CEOs held that opinion.6

There has never been a more critical time for the C-suite to demand more

from their business leaders and people professionals.

6 KPMG, 2016.

Risk in the C-Suite

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2. Organisational (External complexity forces)

The primary organisational success measures for the C-suite are growth,

transformation, profitability and productivity. They have highlighted two external

forces that they believe will significantly disrupt how they achieve these

organisational goals – ‘growing in a complex world’ and ‘managing the demands of

over-regulation’.

72% of CEOs believe the next three years will be

more critical for their industry than the last 50.7

Growing in a complex world

Complex external forces are beyond the control of the C-suite and are becoming increasingly

hard to predict. In fact, most of the intelligence sources for business are increasing what they

publish but delivering intelligence much closer to the future than ever before, making it much

more complex for business leaders, as they need to continually refocus and redirect their

workforce.

Managing the demands of over regulation

Concern about over-regulation in particular is still highest, cited by 79% of CEOs – making it

the fourth year in a row that it has risen. Seven years on from the global financial crisis, the

business landscape still hasn’t really returned to what it was. Will it ever?

Last year, regulation, skills, national debt, geopolitical uncertainty and taxes topped CEOs’ list

of concerns about threats to business growth. None of these have gone away. In fact, the level

of worry is higher today than at any point in the past five years.8

The C-suite must prepare the workforce to cope with these external complexity forces if they

are to succeed. Creating a corporate university or academy where the learning organisation

strategy can be hosted will give the workforce an environment to succeed at the pace

required.

Becoming a learning organisation. Corporations must prepare their employees to cope with

the complexities and accelerated speed of an increasingly global economy. This action is

particularly important since some national education systems are failing to arm new workers

with the skills that they will require to keep pace. In such an environment, companies will

succeed or fail based on how well they link employee training to their business strategy.9

7 KPMG, 2016. 8 PwC. 19th Annual Global CEO Survey. January 2016. 9 Boston Consulting Group. The Future of HR in Europe. 2015.

Risk in the C-Suite

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Assess the calibre of all the enterprises in your ecosystem. Are you leveraging all their contacts,

skills and assets? Are there any weak links? Are there any missing skills? Ask yourself whether

your ecosystem has the right expertise to exploit new trends and technologies and boost its

power to compete. If not, where should you look? The fate of your organisation now rests on

the collective abilities of the ecosystem in which you operate, including its ability to read – and

prepare for – the future.10

A C-suite-led learning organisation strategy gives the C-suite a platform to create a living and

thriving workforce ecosystem. The C-suite demanding that all people development activity

should be channelled, focused, directed and measured against the critical areas of growth,

profit and productivity would trigger increased investment in people development.

55% of executives surveyed believe increased productivity

is one of three business outcomes that would justify a

substantial investment in workforce development.11

There is no doubt that the C-suite believe a different approach to workforce development is

required, as only 57% of the respondents believe that their academies are “very or fully

aligned” with corporate priorities. Even fewer, 52%, reported that these institutions enable

their companies to meet strategic objectives.12

Insight into a 21st century learning organisation must be a priority for the C-suite. Modern

learning environments are intrinsically linked to business performance analytics. They are

fluid, agile, digital, global, sustainable and every leader should educate themselves on the

endless possibilities.

10 IBM. Redefining Boundaries: The Global C-suite Study. 2015. 11 CrossKnowledge. The C-suite Imperative. 2014. 12 McKinsey, Learning at the Speed of Business. May 2016.

Risk in the C-Suite

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Key Action for People Professionals

What is the best learning organisation strategy

for your brand?

Key Question for the C-suite

Why does this learning organisation

strategy add value to your brand?

Expect more impact...

Towards Maturity has been tracking how synchronising

learning with the needs of business impacts business

performance. Across a minimum of 300 organisations, the

modernisation of learning interventions has:

► Increased organisational revenue by 10%

► Increased organisational productivity by 14%

► Reduced costs by 18%

Risk in the C-Suite

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3. Organisational (Internal complexity forces)

The C-suite have highlighted two internal forces that they believe they need to

invest in to create new business models and working styles – ‘driving digital and the

need for a new business model’ and ‘investing in intelligent data analytics’.

80% of businesses cite digital transformation as a priority.

However, only 35% have a ‘clearly defined’ strategy to

achieve this and a shocking 83% say they have an

insufficient number of employees to make it happen.13

Driving digital and the need for a new business model

The pace and complexity of these two forces are huge risks for the C-suite. It needs a modern

learning organisation model which is driven on intelligence, that utilises a blend of learning fit

for the organisation, is self-perpetuating, leveraging social and digital learning and learning

from the best in the organisation, driving those standards across the organisation with pace

and impact.

“The major trend that all industries face is the impact of technology on every single aspect of

a company. Whether it’s your operational efficiency in applying technology to traditionally

manual processes. Whether it’s enhanced intelligence, from big data analysis to help

managing marketing, risk, product creation, or assessment of ideas... technology is going to

lead to sea changes in how companies are organised and run across all industries, and ours is

no different.” Brian Moynihan Chief Executive Officer, Bank of America Corporation 14

13 IDT, 2016. 14 PwC, 2016.

Risk in the C-Suite

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Investing in intelligent data analytics

IBM report that organisations need to prepare for digital invaders:

72% believe technology and 71% market factors are by far the biggest of the various external

forces buffeting their organisations. CEOs put technology at the top of the list, as they have

for the past four years. But now, for the first time ever, the other members of the C-suite also

see technology as the main game-changer. 15

An intelligent C-suite led organisational strategy can align all investment in people

development with the business goals. Modern learning demands investment in intelligent

data sources that highlight business performance analytics of the learning organisation

activity. Digital is disrupting all areas of business and people development urgently needs

transformational investment.

Organisations with good data and strong technology infrastructure will be able to adapt more

rapidly to the post-Brexit world. Brexit may create data and technology risks for your

organisation (e.g. where you house data, how you can use it etc.).16

The success of analytics comes down to measuring

the value of people to an organisation – analytics

is the key to unlocking that value.17

The entire future workforce will require some level of up-skilling around digital. The C-suite

should demand to see an experienced people development leader’s transformational strategy

and measures to mitigate these risks.

Cultivate your cognitive capabilities. There’s no technology that can tell you exactly what will

happen in the future. However, using predictive and cognitive analytics to scrutinize the real-

time data you receive from the marketplace and your partners will help you forecast the future

with a greater level of confidence. It will also enable you to generate “what-if” scenarios and

risk assessments, allowing you to prepare for different outcomes before they occur. 18

15 IBM, 2015. 16 PwC. Brexit: A Key Role for HR. 2016. 17 Deloitte. 2016 Human Capital Trends. 2016. 18 IBM, 2015.

Risk in the C-Suite

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Expect more impact...

Towards Maturity has been tracking how a modern approach

to learning can deliver business impact and below are extracts from

the 2016 report highlighting how learning organisation interventions

delivered results:

► Improved pace of change to procedures or products by 24%

► Increased speed of rollout of new IT applications by 25%

► Increased reach and volume of e-learning delivery by 27%

► Reduced learning delivery time by 27%

Key Action for People Professionals

What is the best learning organisation model for

you to drive sustainable value?

Key Question for the C-suite

How does our learning organisation strategy drive

value for our business, customers and people?

Risk in the C-Suite

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4. People (External complexity forces)

People external forces will continue to grow in complexity and become the most

important external risks for the C-suite. The two forces that the C-suite have

highlighted are ‘continually innovating and exceeding the customer experience’ and

‘addressing major talent and capability gaps’.

Over half of CEOs (53%) define their organisation

by the value created for customers.

Continually innovating and exceeding customer experience

But of those CEOs, over a third 35% also talk about value for wider society, employees and/or

supply chain partners, redirecting a clear recognition of the changing expectations of their

customers. CEOs are using technology to get closer to consumers but are being challenged to

align all parts of their operating model behind customer strategies. Some companies are

bridging what we call an ‘execution gap’ by shaping their entire value proposition, strategy,

operations and capabilities tightly around a strong commitment to what they stand for.

They’re also looking to build better innovation and people capabilities to address changing

customer expectations.19

72% of CEOs are concerned about the availability of

key skills, particularly with 48% planning to

increase headcount in the coming year.

Addressing major talent and capability gaps

The C-suite are and should be concerned about concerned about the availability of key skills.

And it explains why by far the most CEOs 75% say that a skilled, educated and adaptable

workforce should be a priority for business in the country where they’re based.19

The UK has the largest digital economy in the G20, with UK consumers spending more per

annum online (£1,175 per head in 2013) than other developed economies. But only 14% of UK

SMEs are selling online – the figure for Norway is 30%. The sooner businesses recognise the

benefit of investing in upskilling their entire workforce, not just IT professionals, the sooner

they can unlock the potential that being truly digital can bring.20

19 PwC, 2016 20 CBI/Accenture. Growth for Everyone: CBI/Accenture Employment Trends Survey. 2014.

Risk in the C-Suite

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The skills issue will not be solved overnight and the C-suite need to utilise their people

professionals and business leaders to take an innovative modern approach as part of their

learning organisational strategy (e.g. partnerships with universities, apprenticeships,

internships and reverse mentoring).

Concerns about low levels of skills (63%) have overtaken employment regulation (61%) as the

biggest perceived threat to the UK’s competitiveness as a place to employ people. Businesses

recognise the long-term nature of the issue, with low levels of skills anticipated to remain the

biggest threat in five years’ time (by 54% of respondents).21

21 CBI/Accenture, 2014

Risk in the C-Suite

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Expect more impact...

Towards Maturity has been tracking how modern learning in

sync with the needs of business impacts business performance.

Below are some of the outcomes leading organisations have

reported. Learning organisation interventions have:

► Improved customer satisfaction by 18%

► Reduced staff turnover by 7%

► Reduced learning study time (off job) by 21%

Key Action for People Professionals

What team investment is required to create and drive

the learning organisation strategy and intelligence?

Key Question for the C-suite

What intelligence is required within our learning organisation

strategy to mitigate our future capability risks?

Risk in the C-Suite

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5. People (Internal complexity forces)

The C-suite have highlighted two significant forces: ‘leveraging value from more

demanding employees’ and ‘unleashing the power of people’.

94% say that workforce development requires continuous investment

and improvement. More interestingly, 82% believe workforce

development has contributed to the success of their business.22

Leveraging value from more demanding employees

There are huge business commercial benefits from a productive and engaged workforce.

Businesses already have four generations working together within their organisations’ that

work, learn and demand different things. People want, deserve and demand more from their

relationship with work. The gig economy and changing nature of work are two conflicting

forces but areas where employees could help design how they could thrive within a living

ecosystem and how a learning organisation strategy could be utilised on demand.

From the employers’ perspective, the major benefits of high levels of engagement are seen as

improvements in productivity and performance (80%), along with increased customer/client

satisfaction (65%).23

The holistic workforce experience is becoming increasing critical for people professionals.

Creating an environment that is empowering, engaging and self-driven will increase

employees’ sense of purpose and well-being.

As the boundaries between private and work life blur, employees are increasingly selecting—

or rejecting—jobs based on how well they can help the individuals achieve work-life balance

or advance personal goals and values. In order to attract and retain highly talented individuals,

companies will therefore need to offer flexible work arrangements. They will also need to

appeal to employees’ growing desire to derive a sense of greater purpose from their work.24

22 CrossKnowledge, 2016. 23 CBI/Accenture, 2014. 24 BCG, 2015.

Risk in the C-Suite

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Unleashing the power of your people

Over 50% report skills gaps in key business functions. 37% said giving

employees the chance to innovate and work in an entrepreneurial or

collaborative environment is seen as the most effective way to attract

new employees. 39% said non-financial incentives are seen as the

best way to retain employees.25

Empowering the workforce is key: The pressure on organisations to improve learning and

development continues to intensify. Advances in technology, shifts in demographics, and the

constant competitive necessity to upgrade workforce skills are disrupting corporate learning.

These forces are pushing companies to develop new ways to put employees in charge of the

learning experience and foster a culture of learning throughout the organisation. More than

84% in this year’s survey view learning as an important (40%) or very important (44%) issue.

Employees at all levels expect dynamic, self-directed, continuous learning opportunities from

their employers. Despite the strong shift toward employee-centric learning, many learning and

development organisations are still struggling with internally focused and outdated platforms

and static learning approaches.26

Many C-suite leaders are critical of their people professionals and often cite them as order

takers. Now is the time to demand more and invest in them: The current HR capabilities should

be assessed by both HR executives and their business partners within the company. Even

though only about one-third of HR departments reported having the support of top managers

behind their projects, those that garnered support appeared to benefit from it considerably.

These HR functions received performance scores that were 65% higher on average than those

received by functions lacking such support.27

Unleashing the power of your people professionals is also critical: Nearly 30% of executives

said a lack of skills, resources and experience with analytics within the HR function was diluting

HR’s effectiveness inside an organisation.28

People professionals need to step up their transformation and unleash their talents. It is

critical they create a holistic workforce experience with a learning organisation strategy a key

priority. Chief People Officers need to recruit and develop people development leaders who

are experienced in creating and sustaining a future-focused, innovative, business aligned and

intelligent/data-driven learning organisation model and can develop a tenacious talented

team.

25 KPMG, 2016. 26 Deloitte, 2016. 27 BCG, 2015. 28 KPMG, 2016 and CIPD. How can HR help the C-Suite Drive Innovation? 2016.

Risk in the C-Suite

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Expect more impact...

Towards Maturity has been tracking how modern learning in sync

with the needs of business impacts business performance. Below are

some of the outcomes leading organisations have reported:

Learning organisation interventions have:

► Increased employee satisfaction/engagement by 18%

► Improved speed to competency by 15%

► Increased qualifications gained by employees by 16%

Key Action for People Professionals

What is the best way to lead, analyse and report on how

our LO intelligence is adding value to the people plan?

Key Question for the C-suite

What intelligence is required within our LO

strategy to unleash the power of our people?

Risk in the C-Suite

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6. Expect more impact: the learning organisation

A C-suite-led learning organisation must play a vital role within each of the four

forces. Creating the strategy based on intelligent insight and data whilst aligned to

business outcomes will add future-focused value to the organisational growth,

transformation, profitability and productivity targets.

In 2015, Harvard Business Review challenged CEOs not to look at their people teams as just

administrative functions, but to elevate them to a role where they can build and assign talent

and work to unleash the organisation’s energy.29

The evidence shows that learning innovation, done well, delivers the business impact needed

at the C-suite today. Making the shift to becoming a learning organisation requires that

business leaders and people professionals create transparent future capability plans, analytics

and leadership debate on which critical capabilities will drive business, customer and

employee value.

C-suiters from Top Deck learning organisations are already driving intelligent ‘people’ related

conversations with their board, business leaders and demanding strategic, aligned and data-

driven initiatives. As a result, they are experiencing the impact quoted in this report - 14%

improvements in productivity, 10% increase in customer engagement, 7% reduction in staff

turnover and more.30

Transforming learning at an organisational level must automatically eliminate unnecessary silo

learning initiatives, reduce unnecessary cost and create a living and learning ecosystem.

Creating a learning organisation where all learning initiatives are intrinsically linked to

business, customer and employee value will require the C-suite to expect more and to invest

in their people professionals.

The partnership between C-suite, finance and people professionals will be critical and this

should be led by intelligent conversations and data that joins up with the business operating

model and financial cycle.

A learning organisation strategy must be a key element of the organisation’s business plan

and not just an enabler. Communicating the strategy throughout the organisation must

increase people engagement and creating social platforms for them to influence the strategy

would empower your teams. People focused organisations are starting to capture and create

holistic people's experiences and insight in as much detail as their customer experiences and

using this intelligence to drive impact, value propositions and efficiencies.

29 Charan, R., Barton, D and Carey, D. People Before Strategy: A New Role for the CHRO. Harvard Business Review, July-August, 2015. 30 Towards Maturity, 2015.

Risk in the C-Suite

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The C-suite should have visible future critical capability analytics and a living people plan.

Business leaders and people professionals should be able to report on their team’s critical

capability plan status, spend, productivity, learning assets, knowledge transfer risks and their

speed to competence rates.

Reporting progress at board level is critical, and therefore, so is the use of intelligent data to

highlight how the organisation’s knowledge assets and knowledge transfer risks are managed.

It is also critical for the C-suite to insist on investment in their people professionals. Driving a

learning organisation model via a Corporate University, Academy platform, steering groups

etc. requires agility and future-focused learning capabilities. The leading learning

professionals make it look easy to create holistic learning experiences for all the organisations

critical capabilities, but like any expert professional, it takes a highly experienced learning

leader and team together with business consulting partnerships built on trust to deliver the

dynamism required. The use of the most effective learning model, communication,

intelligence, analytics, data, technologies and how people learn best within their organisation

are capabilities your people professionals will need as a minimum.

Risk in the C-Suite

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About Towards Maturity Research

Learning organisation impact data in this report has been taken from the 2016 Towards

Maturity Benchmark Study, an internationally recognized longitudinal study on the effective

implementation of learning innovation based on the input of 5,000 senior people

professionals and 25,000 learners in the last 14 years. Towards Maturity continuously surveys

and studies how people learn at work. This data is used to help organisations assess and

improve the appropriateness, effectiveness and efficiency of their learning provision.

Our research into has been ongoing since 2003 and is published in a suite of reports that can

be downloaded at: www.towardsmaturity.org/2016benchmark.

The Towards Maturity Index™ is a single benchmark of implementation maturity

across all six of the workstreams in the Towards Maturity Model. Those in the Top

Deck are in the top 10% for the TM Index.

Benchmark values in this report represent the average from a minimum of 300 respondents

taking part in an annual review.

Acknowledgements

The 2016 Benchmark research has been made possible thanks to the support of the Towards

Maturity Ambassadors who share our passion for ensuring that independent research and

advice is freely available. www.towardsmaturity.org/ambassadors

Risk in the C-Suite

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0-385-26095-4

Towards Maturity. Embracing Change: Improving Performance of Business, Individuals and the L&D Team. 2015. http://www.towardsmaturity.org/2016benchmark

Further reading

Gartner. 2015 CEO Survey: Committing to Digital. 2015.

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3033618 and

http://www.gartner.com/document/3026817

Gartner. 2016 CEO Survey: The Year of Digital Tenacity. 2016.

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3287617

IOD. First Signs Brexit will Hit Jobs. IOD Poll, June 2016.

http://www.director.co.uk/news-iod-poll-first-signs-brexit-will-hit-jobs-27-june-2016/

Ipsos Mori and Cirrus. Leadership Connections, HR and the C-suite Driving Innovation. 2015.

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/publications/1730/Leadership-

Connections-HR-and-the-Csuite.aspx

Risk in the C-Suite

© Copyright 2016. Towards Maturity CIC Ltd. All rights reserved. Page | 23

About Towards Maturity

Towards Maturity is an independent benchmarking practice that provides

authoritative research and expert advisory services to help assess and improve

the effectiveness and consistency of L&D performance within organisations.

The Towards Maturity portfolio includes:

The Towards Maturity Benchmark Study™

www.towardsmaturity.org/benchmark The Towards Maturity Benchmark Study is an internationally recognized longitudinal study on the

effective implementation of learning innovation based on the input of 5,000 people professionals and

25,000 learners over 14 years. Towards Maturity continuously surveys and studies how people learn at

work. This data is used to help L&D leaders assess and improve the appropriateness, effectiveness and

efficiency of their learning provision. Previous research and sector-specific reports are available through

the Towards Maturity website.

Towards Maturity Benchmark Centre™

www.towardsmaturity.org/mybenchmark A dedicated centre to complete your Benchmark and apply everything we know about good practice to

gain personal, practical time saving advice in one place. Follow the online three-step continuous

improvement process and Benchmark your current approach with your peers.

Towards Maturity Strategic Review™

www.towardsmaturity.org/strategicreview The Towards Maturity Strategic Review is a deeper analysis and comparison of your Benchmark against

those who are already utilising learning innovation to deliver bottom line results and success. It helps you

analyse and interpret your personal benchmark report to establish a base line and identify the next action

steps for performance improvement leading to good practice within your organisation.

Towards Maturity Learning Landscape™

www.towardsmaturity.org/learner

The Towards Maturity Learning Landscape provides critical insights to help you understand the

behaviours of your staff so you can design learning solutions that can be embedded more

effectively into the workflow. It supports new learning technology strategies whilst mitigating

risk when introducing new programmes or models of learning.

Towards Maturity Sector Benchmark Groups

www.towardsmaturity.org/benchmarkgroups Join senior L&D leaders in your sector three times a year to use the Towards Maturity Benchmark to

support performance improvement, prioritise action planning and accelerate progress. Attendance

supports faster business results, strategic and tactical insights and an invaluable opportunity to network.

Visit www.towardsmaturity.org for more information.

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