A practical starting point for HR and L&D leaders who want outcomes, not activity
There is a step in English capability development that most organisations either rush through or skip entirely. It is the step that determines whether everything that follows it will produce a genuine outcome or simply generate activity.
The step is definition. Not of the program — of the outcome. What, specifically, should be different after this investment? Not in general terms — not more confident, or more fluent, or more effective — but in terms that are precise enough to observe and, eventually, to evaluate.
For a senior manager who presents quarterly results to a regional leadership team: does she enter the room with her argument fully prepared and deliver it without losing precision under questioning? For a risk professional who needs to escalate a concern to a governance committee: can he phrase the concern with the specificity the committee needs to act? For a client-facing team working with international partners: are misunderstandings decreasing, and is the team managing them without defaulting to email when a direct conversation would be faster?
These are not abstract aspirations. They are observable behaviours. And they are the kind of outcome that a well-designed program can actually be held accountable for producing.
The problem is that arriving at this level of definition requires work that happens before the program — not during it, and not after. It requires conversations with line managers, examination of the specific situations where communication is currently falling short, and a clear decision about which of those situations the investment is being targeted at.
Most organisations move directly from budget approval to vendor selection. The definition step is either assumed to have been done or treated as the vendor’s job. It is neither. It is the most important decision the HR or L&D leader makes in the entire process — and it is the one that most directly determines whether the investment produces anything worth reporting.
The most important document in any English capability program is not the curriculum. It is the definition of what success looks like — written before the program begins.
ELC Coaching begins every engagement with a diagnostic phase — defining the specific communicative outcomes the organisation needs before designing any program to produce them.
