Our industry spent much of the '90s striving to create learning organizations -
companies that facilitate the learning of their employees and continuously
transform themselves. Thought leaders such as Peter Senge and others helped
refine and guide our thinking in this discipline. Because of the fast pace of
change and the ever-expanding global economy, the thought was that we needed to
become learning organizations to excel. But have we become that?
Many of the organizations I've worked with are still mired in traditional
approaches to instruction and supporting their learners. The technologies may
have changed, but the cultures and approaches haven't. Sometimes I think we get
overly concerned with learning. Don't get me wrong, learning is a critical part
of the overall journey, but it's only the beginning. As a colleague of mine
always says, "If our efforts aren't ultimately about improving and sustaining
performance, why are we putting people through any of this in the first place?"
I would challenge each of us to move our organizations beyond learning and to
focus more on performance. What if our goal for the new millennium was to
create performing organizations?
In doing so, here are a few approaches to consider:
1. Lead with a performance strategy, not a learning strategy.
For far too long we have designed learning approaches to every problem. When a
business unit approaches us with a new learning issue, be it technology- or
business skill-based, we immediately begin thinking of ways that fall back on
traditional approaches such as the classroom, be it virtual or
bricks-and-mortar, and e-learning. What if we first considered strategies that
enabled knowledge gain, sharing and maintenance in the workplace and then
backfilled with the appropriate training to support the gaps that remained?
We do an amazing amount of overtraining and put too much pressure on what has
to happen in the formal learning domain. Many learning initiatives are doomed
before they begin because the strategy is focused entirely on training with
little to no sustained performance tools and approaches back on the job. We
need to reverse the traditional approach and challenge our learning departments
with first designing performance tools and frameworks that may ultimately
eliminate the need for training in the first place.
2. Build learning tools that both support and teach.
To acquire knowledge is only a small part of the overall learning journey, yet
many of our learning strategies focus only on this small portion. These tools
are not equipped or designed to support and enable learning at the desktop.
They are designed for upfront knowledge gain, not back-end knowledge
application. E-learning, for example, has been touted as a just-in-time
learning approach and even incorrectly categorized as performance support. Just
because it's accessible at the desktop does not make it a performance tool. The
distinction is found in the design of the tool, not how it's accessed. Desktop
learning is not desktop support. We have many performance tools - such
electronic performance support, Web 2.0 technologies and mentoring programs -
at our disposal these days. These are but a few of the performance tools that
can be integrated into traditional learning approaches to create a more robust
and sustained performance strategy.
3. Foster understanding of performance strategy with front-line managers.
It always amazes me that front-line managers will allow their learners to leave
the workplace for up to five days for training, but won't allow them five
minutes in the context of work to apply and sustain what was learned. We need
to educate our organizations that learning is a journey and not an event.
Learners are not sent to training to become an expert in anything. The journey
only begins there. Expertise is learned on the job through a sustained support
strategy. Many of these strategies involve tools that appear to take time away
from work, when in reality they accomplish the exact opposite if they're
allowed to create increases in workforce efficiency. It's our job to help
front-line managers understand the benefits of a total learning approach.
We are in the performance business, not the knowledge-gain business. The
learning leaders who understand the difference are the ones who succeed.
[About the Author: Bob Mosher is global chief learning and strategy evangelist
for LearningGuide Solutions and has been an influential leader in the IT
training space for more than 15 years.]
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