The cost of training in North American companies exceeds $60 billion per year. Try to visualize that. Picture a stack of 1,000,000 $1 bills. Now try to picture 60,000 of those stacks. Amazed? Then consider this fact: estimates of training costs worldwide approach a quarter of a trillion dollars ($250,000,000,000) when indirect costs and opportunity costs are included. Do you find those numbers as difficult to comprehend as I do?

Understandably, senior executives are concerned about the ROI (return on investment) on these massive investments. Many executives are not convinced that the benefits of training exceed the costs.

Corporations are now looking for organizational learning (OL) consultants who can serve as partners in the strategic decision making about these large investments of resources. These OL consultants will be expected to help improve not only learning, but ultimately performance.

To serve as strategic business partners, OL consultants must have expertise in adult learning theory, methods to promote self-directed learning, usage of learning and development agreements, knowledge capture, knowledge transfer, management and professional development, expatriate training and support, corporate universities, and what I call