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I came out of learning technologies event today (at the extraordinary Kensington Roof Gardens - a wonderful venue!) with a lot of questions rattling around in my head.
Donald Taylor was giving a very succinct overview of the state of organisational learning and development. In it he said:
Yes, courses are necessary - but they are not sufficient.
Wow! Dig into that and you've got the whole problem we have currently with organisational learning summarised in eight words.
Organisations expect courses, managers don't like to pay for courses, L&D teams are funded based on the courses they deliver, learners don't value courses (unless they lead to a qualification).
So, all we get is courses. Which we, in L&D, know aren't the whole answer. (At least, I hope you're at that point. If not, see: Michael Wesch's video "A vision of students today". If you're still not convinced read this article on long term memory - especially the bit about the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve)
As well as courses, L&D should be involved in the following:
| For individual learners | For the organisation | |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | Support systems - demonstrating best practice, without being a bottleneck | Performance consulting |
| Capability & Talent | Coaching, mentoring | Monitoring, assessment, development programmes |
| Learning | Learning to learn programmes - how to search, how to connect with people, thinking skills, note taking, personal knowledge management etc | Developing a learning culture (which, of course, is far wider than L&D as it's just part of the whole organisational and management culture) |
But, who will pay for all this? All the time L&D is seen as a transactional part of the business, supplying products (courses in our case) to order, then no-one.
If L&D is going to be able to drive some of the thinking away from courses, it needs to have a seat where decisions are made. This would allow L&D professionals (not trainers!) to offer solutions that really would make a difference.
To get that seat at the table will take time, and quite a few changes within L&D departments - not least taking the risky position of saying "Why?" when someone asks you to put on a course.
