Designing Adaptive Learning as an Organizational Strategy Operating System

Associations lean on executives’ expertise to effectively steer strategic goals to mission impact. Even as new challenges appear, we draw upon accumulated experience to navigate organizational strategy. However, years of working don’t automatically amount to professional growth. To ensure we are building leadership experience, it’s imperative that professionals lean into learning. By using an organizational framework, or an “operating system,” to guide professional development, associations don’t leave learning opportunities to happen by chance and instead intentionally create them.

We must design a system of adaptive learning, not as a technology platform, but as a continuous learning process applied to strategy execution, assessment, and improvement. This is crucial for preparing executives with facilitating anticipatory, rather than reactive, responses when implementing organizational strategies in analysis and planning, knowledge management, and digital strategy. Learning leaders guide professionals through the system’s learn-measure-adapt steps to realize day-to-day learning moments. A natural and necessary evolution of the leader’s own development is a shift in focus from tactical to strategic execution.

Adopt a Progressive Analysis and Adaptive Planning Framework

Leaders must be able to exercise critical analysis and careful planning when driving associations toward strategic goals. Instituting a process with a progressive series of checkpoints opens numerous opportunities for adaptive learning. For example, strategic plan execution requires constant recalibration. Scanning your current operating environment in conjunction with reviewing business plan key performance indicators (KPIs) at regular intervals, such as quarterly, enables you to consider in a timely way whether issues could significantly impact the success of your strategic plan. Should environmental factors cause you to adjust your strategic priorities, goals, or objectives at this time? This analysis allows you to amend strategic pillars and goalposts, if needed, in response to environmental conditions throughout each year of your plan, not just when developing a new one.

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