As the chief learning officer, ask yourself, 'Are we investing sufficiently in learning to generate the growth and return we need?' We had a group of graduate students research the topic, plotting long-term shareholder returns against a number of factors. They discovered that investments in training and development were the single best predictor of shareholder return three to five years down the road.

So, just as some companies have a vice-president for total quality or an officer in charge of safety, Argyris explains, the CEO decided to have an executive in charge of organizational learning. He divided the HR function into two sets of tasks: record-keeping tasks and other duties that could be placed in a database, and tasks that involved employee education and retraining. The latter functions were to become the purview of a chief learning officer.