Praise for BUILDING AN INNOVATIVE LEARNING ORGANIZATION 

"To succeed in today's turbo-charged environment, organizations must innovatively learn. Sarder's??book incorporates the best ideas of leaders from around the world and skillfully crafts them into a highly practical narrative that enables readers to build their own innovative learning organizations. This book will become a classic." 

—Dr. Michael Marquardt, President of the World Institute for Action Learning, Professor at George Washington University, and author ofBuilding the Learning Organization 

"The true heartbeat of competitive advantage is learning the ability to live the learning in real time, apply that learning to drive exceptional performance, and teach that application to others. Russell Sarder, our most passionate CEO of Learning, understands this because he has lived it in his business and in his life. Building an Innovative Learning Organization takes us deep into the heartbeat of learning to deliver greater value for our businesses while we grow greater value within ourselves." 

—Roseanna DeMaria, Former Chief Learning Officer at Merrill Lynch and Former CLO at NYU SCPS Leadership & Human Capital Management 

"Building an Innovative Learning Organization takes the best experiences and expertise from leading practitioners and makes them available to everyone. This book encompasses valuable insights from leaders who have built highly successful learning organizations [and] sustained them through complex, turbulent times." 

—Karen Kocher, Chief Learning Officer at Cigna 

"Innovative people are at odds with the unspoken dictum of so many companies that 'it is better to do nothing than do something wrong.' [But] without continuous innovation, organizations are doomed to failure. [Our] challenge is how to learn from our innovations and innovate responsibly. Russell explores these issues in an eloquent and innovative way." 

—Atti Riazi, CIO at United Nations 

"Russell Sarder's passion for learning oozes off every page of Building an Innovative Learning Organization. I am confident that the book will change millions of lives for the better by inspiring countless numbers of CEOs to embrace learning as a primary corporate value and engage young people through learning programs predicated on meaningful internships, apprenticeships, and mentorships." 

—Gary J. Beach, Publisher Emeritus of CIO Magazine and author of The U.S.Technology Skills Gap

Institute a culture of learning to boost organizational performance and agility

What makes organizations successful? Today, most successful companies are learning organizations. Building an Innovative Learning Organization shows you how to join their ranks and bring your organization up to the head of the class. This book is a practical, actionable guide on how to boost performance, successfully manage change, and innovate more quickly. Learning organizations are composed of engaged, motivated employees who continually seek improvement, which leads to organizational agility and the ability to innovate ahead of the curve. When you encourage learning at every level, from the intern to the C suite, you gain a more highly skilled workforce with a greater ability to act in any situation.

Building an Innovative Learning Organization shows you how to create this culture in your organization, with detailed explanations, practical examples, and step-by-step instructions so you can get started right away. Written by a recognized thought leader in the training industry, this informative and insightful guide is your roadmap to a more effective organization. You will discover how to:

• Attract, retain, and motivate the best employees
• Become a more innovative and agile organization
• Create a culture of continuous self-improvement
• Encourage learning at all levels and translate it into action

Learning and education doesn't end at graduation—it's a lifelong process that keeps you relevant, informed, and better able to achieve your goals. These same benefits apply at the organizational level, making the culture self-sustaining: learning organizations attract top workers, who drive the organization forward, which attracts more top workers. If you want the best people, you have to be their best option. Building an Innovative Learning Organization gives you a blueprint for building a culture of learning, for a stronger, more robust organization.

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Why you should read this book

In our rapidly changing, increasingly knowledge-based economy, lifelong learning is more important today than ever before - go beyond the walls of your own organization to promote and support learning for everyone, at all ages and at all levels of society. 

In this book, you will learn...

• What a learning organization is, why investing in learning is good business, and what it takes to build a learning organization.
• How to recognize a learning culture and how to transform your organization’s culture.
• How to develop and implement a learning plan that is aligned with the organization’s mission, values, business needs, and strategic goals.
• How to develop the “goals cascade” that helps link and align the organization’s learning activities, recognize goals that meet the S.M.A.R.T. criteria, distinguish between learning goals and performance goals, and develop organizational, team, and individual goals
• What competencies and competency models are, why competency models are better predictors of success than traditional selection criteria, and how to develop the  competency models that will guide the organization’s recruiting, selection, and performance management efforts.   
• The five primary types of learning methods, criteria for determining which method is best for specific learners, and how to decide which method or combination to accomplish the objectives in a given situation.
• The importance of evaluating learning plans regularly to see how well they are working, identify improvements, and determine whether you are getting the expected return on your investment.
• Why you need a system for managing all the “moving parts” of your learning plan, what a Learning Management System (LMS) is, and how to develop an LMS to manage the administration, delivery, tracking and reporting of your learning programs.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

What do all of today's most successful organizations have in common? How are they able to compete in a rapidly changing, highly competitive, increasingly global environment? They are all learning organizations, and Building an Innovative Learning Organization shows you how to join their ranks and bring your organization to the head of the class.

Learning organizations are composed of engaged, motivated employees who continually seek improvement, which leads to organizational agility and the ability to innovate ahead of the curve. However, in order to thrive, the highly sought-after employees in these businesses need a sophisticated learning environment, and this actionable guide gives you the practical know-how and techniques for turning any type of organization into a magnet for innovators who will drive your profits.

The author is an industry expert who devel??oped this same approach at his own learning organization, which he built from the ground up when he was just 21 years old. Over a 17-year period, his award-winning company trained more than 90,000 people from 10,500+ unique companies over a 17-year period and has helped 80% of Fortune 100 companies build, maintain or modify a learning culture. Now he will show you how learning can give your organization the ulti??mate competitive advantage. The step-by-step guid??ance in this book walks you through a repeatable framework of industry-leading practices—from developing a learning plan to assessing that plan to managing organization-wide learning. Leaders in every industry know the value of being able to boost performance, successfully manage change, and innovate more quickly, all through the ability to learn. Keep your company at the leading edge by discovering:

• The key changes affecting an organization's ability to succeed.
• What it takes to build a culture that attracts the best employees and helps the organization continually improve.
• How to create a goals cascade that aligns organizational, team, and individual learning goals with the business's values, mission, and strategic goals.
• The four primary types of competencies an organization needs.
• The five primary learning methods for guiding people to strengthen their existing competencies and develop new ones.

Never lose a step toward forward progress again by building a self-perpetuating learning culture with the proven blueprint in Building an Innovative Learning Organization.