Alignment: Key Component in the Validation Phase of Change Leadership

I recently purchased a new set of tires for my vehicle. The purchase price included some incremental charges for mounting, balancing, valve stems – all the components and automatic installation extras one would expect. I mean really – what good is a new set of tires if not mounted to the rims? Who would drive away without all four tires in perfect balance? Almost as automatic was a four-wheel alignment – a process having less to do with the primary function of a new set of tires and more to do with the operational integrity of travelling down the road. Despite being an optional add-on to a new tire purchase, alignment is mandatory to maximize performance and life expectancy of new tires. Is introducing Change within the organization that much different than installing a new set of tires?

Re-Thinking HR-based Training Organizations: A Break from Tradition?

I like the concept of “re-thinking” training organizations based in HR, and I say this from personal work history primarily based in the training space over the last thirty plus years. The blended perspective I have comes from working both inside and outside of HR in training organizations. I found them to have a very different focus.

Learning Discovery – The Art of Defining Work Context

Work context? Why not the art of defining knowledge and skill requirements? After all, we are talking about learning here, and training is obviously a part of that, right? Certainly, it is…and that is exactly the point of this writing – training is indeed a part of learning – and in some cases, only a very small part. Josh Bersin of Bersin & Associates referenced in July 2009 on the “The Future of the Business of Learning” webinar that training organizations spend upwards of 80% of their time and resources focused on formal training activities. He also noted that there was a dramatic increase in the use of informal learning. Training organizations will not keep pace with that trend unless their discovery efforts include the work context where informal learning opportunities surface.

The False Promise of Training as a Driver of Performance

Certainly, this title may sound like blasphemy to some of us in the training business. On the other hand, it may be even more of a shock to those who depend upon those of us in the training business to drive performance in the organization. Following is a deceptively simple formula that illustrates why a successful training solution may render a false promise of improved performance:

Covert Consulting: A Survival Competency for Today’s Training Organizations

What do you do when a client makes a request for training, and you are unsure that a comprehensive solution will actually be rendered via a training intervention? Certainly, you want to honor the request for training, but somehow you must articulate that training may only represent one component of a fully effective solution.

LMS Envy: The Love-Hate Relationship with Technology

In a recent dialog on the CLO-Network, we discussed why so many LMS owners were not happy with their systems – that there seemed to be a “disconnect” between what they envisioned they would own after GoLive and what they actually wound up owning. Why is there such a love-hate relationship with LMS (and other) technology? Why does it seem that someone else always has the better system? Truth is, “better” is a relative term.

The Art of Training People and Bears Using a Learning Continuum

Have you ever been to the circus and watched a bear ride a bicycle? For this to happen, that bear experienced formal learning and acquired some significant skills training; the very same skills you and I learned in our youth. The bear’s classroom is a hundred-foot diameter circle that doubles as their workspace. Our learner’s “circus ring”, defined by the classroom, is where they demonstrate proficiency either by doing something successfully or by passing a test of one sort or another. If their classroom doubled as their workspace too, our training effort could stop there. Unfortunately, it does not, and if our contribution to their learning stops there, we may as well be training bears.

Change Leadership: When Change Management Is Not Enough

Ask any IT professional if they have a repeatable process for Change Management (CM) and you can expect an unequivocal “Yes we do!” as the response, and likely suffer a sideways glance wondering what motivated such a ridiculous question. Actually, they have no other choice when we consider the nature of Change in the scope of their IT world. Systems constantly change to meet new business demands, and/or software applications need frequent additions or modifications. Rigorous testing procedures, validation, and documentation are required. Timelines and project management accountabilities assigned, synchronized, monitored, and jeopardy situations identified to activate contingencies (planned in advance). This all makes perfect sense, right? Now consider this question: “Is IT the only organization in your enterprise involved in Change?” Of course not! Why then are they the only ones with a formal, repeatable Change process?

Harvesting Learning’s Fruit: A Downstream Training Investment

Nothing beats rave reviews in level one verbatim comments and nothing better than everyone scoring perfection on level two assessments; therein lay the most common criteria for measuring the effectiveness of our training efforts. Unfortunately, the real value of our efforts – confirmation of sustainable performance - is manifest downstream from where we earn our accolades. As such, our greatest opportunity to prove our worth to the organization is found outside of our formal training focus. Without addressing downstream performance, we are limited to crowing about training activity - about how busy we are. What really matters is – training impact - about how effective we are - and that happens downstream.

Living in Learning is Resource #100 @ eLearningLearning

I’m anxiously awaiting a shroud of balloons and confetti at the news of being number 100. Living in Learning is a new blog that renders rants, raves and ramblings of one who wakes up every day living in learning. Recent momentum centers on the evolution of training departments into business partners who create continuous learning environments. The current of learning matching the flow of business should yield a single velocity where learning and work are part of the same motion.

PDR Design Model Supports Shift to Learning Design in the Work Context

The concept of a learning shift represents a course correction by the USS Training Department. We are under full steam and headed into the shallows, and are in danger of running aground. We are trying to fight an insurgency with an army equipped with tactics and weaponry that do not fit the field of battle. Choose a metaphor of your own; bottom-line is painfully clear – the learning game has changed, and our tactics and methodologies that worked so well in a traditional “training war” are not as effective in a non-traditional battle called “informal learning”. Our tactics need to shift because we no longer serve the expanded scope of the knowledge worker’s environment. In fact, we face the challenge to re-shape, and in some cases, create a continuous learning environment. Our rules of engagement have to expand (or shift) to accommodate a new field of battle and a potential imbalance of focus.

The Learning Continuum – Using the PDR Design Model

Many of us cut our professional learning design teeth using the long-held tradition of the ADDIE instructional design (ISD) model. In our blogosphere I have heard how “old school”, and in some cases, how obsolete this foundational design model from the 1960s has become. If age denotes obsolescence, then I am in trouble for sure. Obsolescence can be averted when a willingness to change, a willingness to re-think, to re-apply proven methodologies is baked into the model. With that open-minded mentality, I confess to listening to the debate and wondering if the ADDIE model really is falling short, or if our application of it is worthy of re-examination. Somewhere in my past, I recall a nameless face saying, “If we continue to do what we’ve always done, we’ll continue to get what we always got.” – or something along those lines. Insightful words to be sure, certainly not an overt indictment of ADDIE. I must qualify my defense of ADDIE by recognizing its validity as long as the environment where applied has not morphed beyond the scope of intended use. The “environment” I reference is manifest in the new face of where we learn – our learning environment.

The Death of Training: Rumors Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Chances are good that I have contributed to those rumors, though not with an inkling of anything resembling malicious intent. Several of the professional groups I have joined through LinkedIn yield consistent discussion themes that register concern for the future of training. The concern comes from a cross-section of trainers, designers, training managers, and vendors. You would think tough economic times are a driver behind why this concern exists. I agree, but only in part. We were seeing signs of this before the economy went bust. Tough times have just turned up the light shining on a significant opportunity. Agreed, training budgets are shrinking and free-lance trainers and owners of training companies are wringing their hands searching for the next big thing. So…what is the next big thing in the world of training? Okay, here comes an opinion, not to be confused as rumor – The next big thing will not be manifest in the scope of training.

Training Must Swim to the Current to Survive

Can a training organization be like a river? Believe it or not, there are some amazing similarities, and some shared characteristics require positioning, or re-positioning the organization’s value proposition to remain in the flow. This short post looks at critical need for training organizations to be in the mainstream current or prepare for treatment reserved for flotsam stuck and swirling in the eddies.

Training to Learning – The Impossible Shift

Now that title should generate a ripple or two on the pond, especially when I have been so vocal about the need for just such a shift. So…is this post a confession that I have changed my mind? Not quite. Not even. If anything, I am more passionate than ever, but over the years, I have gotten smarter about moving around obstacles that stifle momentum rather than fight through immovable walls of opposition or resistance. My new approach requires the application of marshal arts – judo – to be more precise. No, not kicking butts, just taking the momentum of my opponents, and leveraging it to my advantage to wrestle them to the mat. Not to pin them in defeat, just hold them down long enough to hear me out – listen to evidence that this “shift” is not a threat.

The Future of Learning is NOT Now!

I realize this may stretch the pretext of a cute catchphrase, but it seems appropriate this afternoon. The future of learning truly is NOT now because we are not ready for it…nor are we at a state of readiness even if it were now. The catalyst for making this statement about the future of learning stems from my good fortune and honor to participate in a virtual discussion yesterday as a panelist in, “The Future of the Business of Learning”, sponsored by Learn Trends, ISA and Training Magazine Network. The program hosted by Tony Karrer with support from Jay Cross, Harold Jarche, and Ray Jimenez, all recognized names in the learning industry, was a successful effort. Over a five-hour period there were as many panels that focused on topics ranging from industry-wide perspective, to internal training organizations, to vendors of training, software, and services. I found it to be an awesome mix of perspectives from an international audience and walked away sensing a common (global) feeling of foreboding for the future.

Work Context Drives Learner Intent

I follow several learning-oriented blogs on a regular basis, and I have witnessed numerous conversations about formal versus informal learning. Discussions range from determining impact to defining strategies around integrating informal learning into a formal mindset. In a span of two weeks I read, “Training is Dead!”, and just this morning that “Training is Making a Comeback”. CLO Magazine had a little blurb last week asking if it the time has come for informal learning to go formal(1). Interesting conversations for sure, but underneath the diverse dialog, I have to ask, “Who cares what we call it?”

Learning Think 2.0

Think back to the emergence of e-learning. Pick any date that is conjured in your memory. My first exposure appeared on the scene as computer-based training (CBT) back in the 1980s. Regardless of when you first experienced it or how it was delivered, the shift was on, and a huge transition of traditional classroom training underwent a retrofit to any of several electronic formats.

What changed?

Learning Agility: Re-Invention with Performer Support

Last November I had the privilege of participating in a panel of experts at the Learning 2008 Conference sponsored by Elliott Masie in Orlando. The focus of the panel, moderated by Dr. Conrad Gottfredson and Bob Mosher, zeroed in on best practices intended to improve accessibility of learning to learners in their moments of learning need. I sat with three other CLO-type learning leaders from Bank of America, Disney, and Sprint. After sitting on a similar panel the previous year, I noticed immediately that the role played by just-in-time learning had increased in these three leading companies. With a standing room only crowd in our meeting room, it was apparent the momentum of interest had also spread more broadly. Why? Two reasons:

Get Your Paws Off My Training Budget

Don’t you wish you could say that? Don’t you wish leadership could understand and value the contribution that your training department makes? Don’t you wish that justifying your existence did not become a distraction to your departmental mission and divert precious time and resources away from being productive? Why can’t they see it?