LA28 learning strategy: a North Star
Over the last two years, LA28 has invested lots of time, thinking and effort in designing a learning strategy to build a high-performing OCOG able to deliver an unparalleled Olympic and Paralympic Games experience. Nadia Rivero, the OCOG’s Director for Organisational Development and Training, has played an instrumental role in driving this process. We sat down with Nadia to learn more about the objectives of the strategy, the approach taken, the lessons learnt, and recommendations to other OCOGs.
What’s the objective of LA28’s learning strategy, and why is it important for OCOGs to have one?
The LA28 learning strategy’s key objectives are to build a high-performing team, shorten the learning curve and speed up time to productivity. It’s important to have a strategy because it is our North Star and informs our priorities, what we focus on, and where we allocate our resources and time, and ensures we have a clear path to achieving our objectives. Naturally, it will continue to evolve over the lifetime of our OCOG.
What does learning mean to LA28 in the context of the Games?
It is a critical component to delivering on our mission. If our employees, contractors, delivery partners and volunteers do not have the right knowledge and skills at the right time, we may miss the mark, which requires costly rework, or we may get delayed in delivering on our commitments.
What will people get from LA28’s learning programme offering?
The knowledge and skills they need to be successful in their role at LA28 – but this learning will also be something they take with them to the marketplace to create value beyond our Games.
When and how did you start?
We started framing the objectives and high-level approach in late 2021 and used the learning strategies from previous OCOGs as a jumping-off point to inform the scope, structure and key elements of the LA28 learning strategy. We also met with some of the teams to learn more about the specific contexts and decisions that shaped their learning strategies.
What were the most exciting and most challenging parts of this journey?
We decided to frame the learning strategy around Tuckman’s 5 Stages of Team Formation, which was exciting because it was an innovative approach to thinking about learning and performance in an OCOG. These stages are commonly known as: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning. Tuckman's model explains that, as the team develops maturity and ability, relationships establish, and leadership style changes to more collaborative or shared leadership.
Meanwhile, the biggest challenge was balancing thoroughness with articulating a cohesive and easy-to-understand strategy.
What key lessons did you learn?
The biggest learning was certainly how similar and different building a learning strategy for an OCOG is. While the key elements are similar, the context is very different from a regular non-profit organisation or a company that will be driving their mission indefinitely. It therefore requires thinking differently. The other interesting element is that there are phases to the lifecycle, and each phase requires a different approach to learning, so the strategy is really several strategies in one.
It's also important to consider that the learning strategy for an OCOG is extremely complex: while you can certainly borrow best practices from other OCOGs, each one is unique and requires creation in the context of the location, point in time and culture of the OCOG.
What would be your recommendations to other OCOGs in this space?
Don’t wait too long to frame out your learning strategy! Without it, your organisation runs the risk of being behind in gaining critical knowledge required to deliver on the mission and/or will waste precious time and resources because the efforts are not focused.