The Business Case for Learning: Using Design Thinking to Deliver Business Results and Increase the Investment in Talent Development

Executives recognize that learning is necessary to meet the challenges of a complex and global economy, to drive change, and to create greater stakeholder value in short, learning is critical to an organization's present and future prosperity. Unfortunately, there are some persistent concerns within the learning and development community around the importance of learning as well as both how and when it should be provided.

The Business Case for Learning, by world-renowned authors Jack and Patti Phillips, helps to put those concerns to rest by highlighting the reasons why learning is an absolute necessity, how it adds value to an organization's bottom-line and, through a methodical, 8-step, results-driven process, how to enhance the learning and talent development investment.

The book concludes with a call to action; offering tools, templates, assessments and guides to enrich application. It is an engaging book every training professional should have on his or her shelf, and is the perfect companion to The Bottomline on ROI, also authored by Patti Phillips.

What this book will do for you:

Explore trends and challenges of learning and offer ways to overcome the top 5 learning dilemmas:

1. Learning is the best solution, but first to be cut in a downturn.

2. Most training is wasted.

3. The success of a learning program must be defined by application and impact.

4. The learning results desired by executives are rarely measured.

5. Some learning is not necessarily better than none.

Identify 8 steps that will enable teams to protect and increase budget:

1. Start with Why

2. Make It Feasible

3. Expect Success

4. Make It Matter

5. Make It Stick

6. Make It Credible

7. Tell the Story

8. Optimize Results

Dr. Patti P. Phillips is President and CEO of the ROI Institute, the leading source of ROI competency building, implementation support, networking, and research. A renowned expert in measurement and evaluation, she helps organizations implement the ROI Methodology in 70 countries around the world. She serves as Principal Research Fellow for The Conference Board, board member of the Center for Talent Reporting, and 2015 ATD CPLP Certification Institute Fellow. Patti also serves on the faculty of the UN System Staff College in Turin, Italy, and The University of Southern Mississippi's Ph.D. in Human Capital Development program. Her work has been featured on CNBC, EuroNews, and over a dozen business journals.

Before co-founding the ROI Institute, Patti served as a researcher and manager of market research for a large electric utility. Patti's academic accomplishments include a Ph.D. in International Development and a Master's Degree in Public and Private Management. She is certified in ROI evaluation and has been awarded the designations of Certified Professional in Learning and Performance and Certified Performance Technologist.

Patti contributes to a variety of journals and has authored or edited over 75 books on the subjects of measurement, evaluation, analytics, and ROI, including the award-winning The Bottomline on ROI. Patti Phillips can be reached at patti@roiinstitute.net.

Dr. Jack J. Phillips is chairman of ROI Institute. Phillips is a world-renowned expert on accountability, measurement, and evaluation. Phillips provides consulting services for Fortune 500 companies and major global organizations. The author or editor of more than 100 books, he conducts workshops and presents at conferences throughout the world.

Phillips has received several awards for his books and work. On three occasions, Meeting News named him one of the 25 Most Powerful People in the Meetings and Events Industry, based on his work on ROI. The Society for Human Resource Management presented him an award for one of his books and honored a Phillips ROI study with its highest award for creativity. The American Society for Training and Development gave him its highest award, Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Development for his work on ROI. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Fortune magazine. He has been interviewed by several television programs, including CNN.

His expertise in measurement and evaluation is based on more than 27 years of corporate experience in the aerospace, textile, metals, construction materials, and banking industries. Dr. Phillips has served as training and development manager at two Fortune 500 firms, as senior human resource officer at two firms, as president of a regional bank, and as management professor at a major state university.

Dr. Phillips regularly consults with clients in manufacturing, service, and government organizations in 70 countries in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and Asia.

Dr. Phillips has undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering, physics, and mathematics; a Master's Degree in Decision Sciences from Georgia State University; and a Ph.D. in Human Resource Management from the University of Alabama. He has served on the boards of several private businesses including two NASDAQ companies and several nonprofits and associations, including the American Society for Training and Development (now ATD), the International Society for Performance Improvement, and the National Management Association. Jack Phillips can be reached at jack@roiinstitute.net.