What Do Chief Learning Officers Do? An Exploratory Study of How Chief Learning Officers Build Learning Organizations

Abstract

This study was designed to determine what it is that Chief Learning Officers do to build the learning organization by examining interview data from current Chief Learning Officers using the constructs of change and leadership. The study sample included current Chief Learning Officers who work for U.S. based organizations within the U.S. and have been in their current Chief Learning Officer position for at least two years.

The study used a qualitative, exploratory methodology combined with phone or face-to-face interviews in order to gather data. The data was analyzed using the Systems Learning Organization Model (Marquardt, 2011). 20 Chief Learning Officers were interviewed for approximately 60 minutes each and asked the same series of questions in order to further explore how Chief Learning Officers use leadership and change to build the learning organization.

The study findings show that Chief Learning Officers do four things to build the learning organization: 1. They themselves collaborate with others inside and outside of the organization, and encourage others to do so as well; 2. They assess and measure their learning and development programs on a consistent basis; 3. They seek and secure funding and other resources for their learning and development opportunities; 4. They have a vision for their learning organization, and realize that vision through strategy development and implementation.