Blog

“They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” – Andy Warhol

Organizational change can make people feel uneasy and vulnerable. You may worry about the security of your job role, your new co-workers, or your revised job responsibilities. 

As your organization transitions to its new changed state, you are likely being asked to change as well. That’s difficult given these two key reasons why:

• No one can paint you a crystal clear picture of the future, and—more importantly—what that future means for you, personally.

• No one is placing a roadmap in your hands and saying, “Here’s exactly what you need to do to get there.”

In the absence of a final destination and a roadmap for getting there, you can still move forward. Here are some suggestions for doing so:

Focus on the elements that you can control.

It’s natural to feel stuck, frustrated, and overwhelmed. When these feelings arise, acknowledge them and make a conscious decision to control your reaction. Look upon organizational changes as opportunities to position yourself as a key contributor to the change. Identify new processes to create, new people to meet, and new strategies to implement. In essence, take account of what is while optimistically considering what could be in the future.

Plan for success.

Once you’ve identified opportunities to enact change, it’s time to plan for taking action. Ask yourself: How, specifically, would you introduce yourself to new colleagues—or reposition yourself to existing colleagues if the scope of your job has changed? What are the necessary steps in the process for helping your internal clients achieve their business goals? How might you educate your internal clients on this process? In short, put together a game plan for action that outlines the steps you can take in the near-term and long-term to ensure your success.

Put your plan into action.

It may appear to make sense to wait until the organization has evolved into its final changed state in order to put your plan into action. If you do this, though, you lose valuable time to build relationships, shape people’s perceptions of your talents, and demonstrate your skill set. Think about it this way…significant bonds are created when you’re in the trenches with people working together to address a challenge. Don’t lose time. Begin to implement your action plan amidst the change. If you do, you will impress others by showing them that you’re committed to building the roadmap with them and travelling together to the final destination.

by Dawn Francis, Ed.D.

One of my last blog entries prompted a reader to ask how my research on transformative learning can apply to organizational transformation. She specifically wondered how it can apply to organizational transformation that occurs through the merger and acquisition of companies. What a great question! When two organizations become one through a merger or acquisition, this creates an intense change in culture. The way you used to work…well, it’s different now. The people you used to work with…well, they’re different now. The assumptions governing your performance on the job…well, you’ll need to change them now. It’s hard to fathom a more disorienting dilemma. Suddenly, you have to unlearn old behaviors, and relearn new behaviors. That’s a recipe for transformative learning, to be sure.

How do you survive cultural change and transform your perspective on the change in the process? Here are a few key tips:

• First Things First: Reflect – Changing the way you perform on the job is never easy. Gain strength and clarity by examining your own beliefs and assumptions about the organizational transformation. Ask yourself why you might be resisting change. Consider the opportunities inherent in the change—both for yourself and your team.

• Dialogue with Others: Listen to others’ reasons for resistance. Share your own concerns. Collectively consider the possibilities for personal and professional growth that lie ahead throughout the change process. Create a shared vision of the future that’s in alignment with the strategy being set by leaders within the organization.

• Gain New Skills and Knowledge: New ways of work often require different skills and knowledge. Take account of the revised business goals for your organization. Work with your manager to determine how your performance needs to align with these goals. Proactively identify gaps in your skills and knowledge that will likely inhibit your ability to perform according to these new expectations. Secure the skills and knowledge necessary to change your behavior. In turn, you’ll feel more invested in the change and more empowered to change.

• Build Competence and Take Action: As you apply your new behaviors on the job, request the support you need to perform to expectations. This support might be in the form of performance support tools, coaching/mentoring, and process improvements. Ask for feedback and engage in continuous learning.

As these tips illustrate, your survival through personal and organizational transformation depends on your willingness to embrace new perspectives, your desire to gain new skills and knowledge, and your ability exhibit new behaviors.

by Rich Mesch

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of delivering a session on Virtual Worlds at the eLearning Guild’s Online Forums with Susan Hendrich of AstraZeneca. The title of the session was “10,000 Reasons Virtual Worlds Won’t Work for Your Organization…And 10 Good Reasons They Will.” I titled the presentation that way because the more I talked to organizations, the more I heard, “Yeah, we looked at Virtual Worlds, and we realized it wouldn’t work for us.” Now, that’s not too surprising—in a recent post, I talked about Gartner’s Hype Cycle, and how Virtual Worlds were in the Trough of Disillusionment. And the reality is, like any new approach and new technology, there are significant barriers to success. So my thought was, let’s be upfront and honest; let’s talk about all the good reasons why organizations feel they can’t implement Virtual Worlds, and then let’s talk about some things you can do to help drive success.

I wanted to talk a little bit more on the blog about what those 10 good reasons were. So let’s start in the middle, with #5.

Reason #5: Virtual Worlds encourage human interaction, instead of replacing it.

Once upon at time we primarily used classes to teach. Experts had information, and they gave it to others. The model looked like this:


 

That worked for about ten thousand years. About thirty years ago, we started using computers. Except, instead of creating something new, we just allowed the computers to replace the expert. The model looked like this:
 

Pretty familiar, right? Information was still one-way.

Just a few years ago, the concept of Web 2.0 came along. The biggest difference with Web 2.0 was that technology was now encouraging participation. The truth is, everybody in an organization has valuable information. And that information needs to flow between everybody, not just from experts outward. And the technology needs to support that and provide the conduit for the communication, not replace it. Whether it’s social networks, mobile applications, or immersive learning, technology needs to keep information flowing from people to people. The model looks more like this:
 

One of the great things about virtual worlds is they can create the same kind of one-to-one or group-to-group interaction that works so well in real life; the benefit, of course, is that virtual teams that can’t necessarily be in the same room can communicate more effectively. Sure, they could jump on a conference call or a WebEx, but that would eliminate the a lot of the visual and emotional cues that create effective communication… and we’ll talk about that more in my next post!

by Sherry Engel

I recently read an article titled Talent Intelligence: Cut Through the Chaos. So much of this article resonated with me. As learning professionals, we have started to talk about measuring the impact of learning.  However, as performance consultants, have we considered the overarching value of talent? This article discusses how to develop a strategy that answers two questions.

1.  What are we trying to impact and improve?

2.  What talent levers can be triggered to affect the desired outcome?

The article examines a Talent Intelligence Framework which when implemented helps organizations more strategically align their talent for business results. 

So how does a company begin implementing this framework? The article outlines the following five steps:

1.   Identify client stakeholders with talent decisions to make.

2.  Beg, borrow, and steal people with sufficient analytic and performance consulting competencies.

3.  Keep HR and non-HR stakeholder’s engagement through the talent intelligence life cycle.

4.  Standardize metrics and analytics definitions.

5.  Pick the most cost-effective tools to deliver metrics and analytics to stakeholders that need them.

Check out the full article! http://tiny.cc/YCd27

by Reni Gorman

Wikipedia describes Twitter as "a free social networking and micro-blogging service" that allows users to send "updates" (or "tweets"; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service (e.g. on a cell phone), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook." Twitter asks the following question: “What are you doing?” People can sign up and “follow” each other to submit and read these short updates in just a few seconds. In a work setting, such as that of a training consulting firm, I may find out that someone is “designing a new curriculum for advanced pharmaceutical representatives."  I may read such an update from a colleague I would not normally reach out to. However, upon reading such an update I may contact this person to learn more because I may be doing something similar. This could open up an opportunity to brainstorm, learn and share. Maybe my colleague has a great research paper or framework they are using as part of their engagement that I could learn and benefit from. Maybe the person who shares a research paper is an industry guru or expert in another organization. Maybe they share knowledge with me indirectly: meaning they update their status message with something interesting like: “5 key qualities of leaders.” Perhaps they run searches to see who is talking about a topic of interest such as “astd” (American Society for Training and Development) and reply to my update because I “tagged” it "ASTD." Maybe they respond directly to a question I post: “How do people find each other through Twitter?” There are many possibilities but these are some examples of how useful, helpful interactions can happen with Twitter. “Imagine a world where everyone was constantly learning, a world where what you wondered was more interesting than what you knew, and curiosity counted for more than certain knowledge.” (Locke, Levine et al. 2000)

How does Twitter as an informal learning tool apply to people in organizations? When knowledge workers are “stuck” in the task at hand, they seek advice and guidance from many places, one of them being colleagues and experts around them. In turn, their access to information and knowledge is only as good as their sources, generally only within their organization. What if knowledge workers could easily build networks of experts across organizations? What if they could access gurus in their field? What if they could create their own community of expert peers and gurus who they can reach out to for brainstorming or answering questions?

“Learning is that which enables you to participate successfully in life, at work, and in the groups that matter to you. Informal learning is the unofficial, unscheduled, impromptu way people learn to do their jobs.” (Cross 2007) Using a tool like Twitter, we may be able to foster knowledge sharing and ultimately learning. We can possibly use tools like Twitter to create connections with others and potentially form communities of practice. “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” (Wenger, McDermott et al. 2002) It always benefits people when they come across another person who has experience and knowledge in a given area—there in lays the value. If knowledge workers are getting support and learning through the use of tools like Twitter, perhaps organizations would embrace the use of such tools.

References:

Cross, J. (2007). Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance.

Locke, C., R. Levine, et al. (2000). The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual.

Wenger, E., R. McDermott, et al. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice.

by Rich Mesch

I remember years ago, sitting in a presentation by Nicholas Negroponte, where he insisted that in the not-too-distant future, we would all be wearing our computers. He was envisioning complex eyepieces and finger sensors with wires running up your sleeves. He had the right idea but the wrong form factor; he didn’t foresee that we’d be carrying our computers in our pockets and calling them “phones.” 

Mobile learning is on everybody’s to-do list, and why not? Who wouldn’t want learning that could follow an employee no matter where she went? But like so many emerging technologies, we need to look past the gloss of the possible to the reality of the useful. Today’s smart phones have nearly as many capabilities as our desktop computers, but that doesn’t mean we use them the same way. And when we try to deliver learning to a mobile device the same way we deliver it to a desktop computer, we miss the point of having a mobile device to begin with.

When it became clear mobile learning was a reality, the first thing many organizations did was look at “re-chunking” their current content. If something made sense as a 30-minute e-learning program, they reasoned, it could be broken down cleanly into, say, 5 bite-sized e-learning programs for a mobile device. There’s a bit of tortured logic going on there; if something is brief and bite-sized, people will be happy to use it on their phones. And while there’s some truth to that, it misses the point. Mobile applications aren’t just about brevity, they’re about applicability. People “learn” from their mobile devices all the time, they just don’t call it training. Whether they’re pulling sports scores, GPS-ing the next leg of their trip, or sending some quick texts, people use their mobile devices to gain knowledge. So as learning professionals, why would we think they should get little e-learning courses? Why not leverage the methods they’re already using?

The re-chunking people weren’t really wrong, they just sort of missed the point. Rather than creating mini-courses for mobile devices, we need to design learning for each venue in a method that fits it best. People tend to use mobile devices:

• In short intense bursts

• When they need information right away

• In down-time, such as between appointments

• To retrieve information that may not be at their fingertips, or

• To get information that may be so current or time-sensitive, there’s no other way to get it other than right now

So when we look at how our audience performs, we need to ask not what can we teach people on a mobile device, but rather how can we use mobile devices to provide information to help them perform better.

In the next few weeks, we’ll take a look at different applications of mobile learning, both the good and the bad, so we can start thinking about mobile strategies for our organizations. Hope you’ll come along for the ride!

How do we expand our relationships with our clients from “order-takers” to trusted advisors? First, and foremost, we need to begin by changing our mindset that we always need to say “yes” to our clients. When our clients approach us about a specific training need, transition the conversation from solutions to open-ended probing questions, targeted to identify the true performance and business need. After all, what value are we providing to our clients if we provide learning solutions that do not impact their business results? 

Try something like this….

“I want to be sure that we provide you a solution that solves your business need. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions so I can fully understand the performance concerns that you have?”

To engage in a consultative interaction, we must think like our clients. Check out the book titled What the CEO Wants You to Know by Ram Charan. This book provides insight into the business acumen necessary for learning professionals to think like their clients and “talk their talk”. 

Becoming a trusted advisor doesn’t happen overnight. We must gain credibility and trust with our clients through proven results. Don’t let your relationship with your client to “chance”. Plan how to grow and nurture your relationship. Think of ways to demonstrate the value add you can provide to them. Check out David Nour’s book, Relationship Economics for techniques on how to grow and nurture your client relationships.

Peter Henschel, former director of the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL), said: “People are learning all the time, in varied settings and often most effectively in the context of work itself. ‘Training’—formal learning of all kinds—channels some important learning but doesn't carry the heaviest load. The workhorse of the knowledge economy has been, and continues to be, informal learning.”

The Institute for Research on Learning found that 80% of learning in organizations takes place informally and only 20% takes place formally. Yet, corporations spend 80% of their training budget on formal training and only 20% on informal. Deepak (Dick) Sethi, the CEO of Organic Leadership, said: “Informal learning is effective because it is personal, just-in-time, customized, and the learner is motivated and open to receiving it. It also has greater credibility and relevance.” However, in my experience of nearly 20 years in corporate learning and development, I have observed that implementing informal, just-in-time learning continues to be a challenge in many organizations.

Jay Cross, author of Informal Learning (2007) said: “If your organization is not addressing informal learning, it’s leaving a tremendous amount of learning to chance. Is that okay? Not any longer. This is a knowledge economy.” Social media tools like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are some examples of great tools organizations can begin to use to foster informal learning for people who work inside corporations that also offer formal types of learning interventions.

So, how do you create informal learning opportunities? Stay tuned, that's what I'll be talking about in Part 2!

by Dawn Francis, Ed.D.

In my previous entries, I defined transformative learning and discussed how companies can apply it. This entry will focus on examples of transformative learning in practice. 

First, I’ll briefly review transformative learning in case you’ve just joined this series. 

For learning to be transformative, it must provoke a shift in mindset. Acquiring knowledge, developing skills – these pursuits serve an important function in any training curriculum. However, if an organization wants to foster a change in culture, establish new ways of working, and grow its managers into leaders, then knowledge acquisition and skill development are only two components of the overall equation. What’s missing is the third and most crucial component—critical assessment of one’s own frame of reference. 

Think about it…if our frame of reference or mindset is based upon our unexamined assumptions and expectations…and this mindset guides our behavior…we will continue to behave in the same way and come up with the same results. But if we challenge this mindset, call into question our assumptions, dialogue with others about the validity of our assumptions, shift our mindset, and act accordingly – well, we’ve just changed our behavior and came up with very different results. Real business value can be achieved through transformative learning. 

So, here are some examples taken from an article entitled “Transformative Learning in Human Resource Development” (Fisher-Yoshida, Geller, and Wasserman, 2005).

Leadership Development: An international organization wanted to create a program to prepare leaders for rapid economic, social, and political changes. A relational leadership development program was developed, which incorporated psychological surveys (e.g., Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), measures of leadership (e.g., situational leadership survey), and 360 feedback assessments to provide managers with insight into themselves. Managers who reviewed the feedback and discussed it with their peers were prompted to critically examine their existing beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors, and revise them. The experience transformed these managers into leaders who were more mindful of others, empathetic, and conscious of the impact of their actions on business results.

Managing Conflict: An organization experiencing conflict in the workplace enrolled its employees in a conflict resolution workshop. Typically, conflict had been addressed through a problem-solving approach where the focus was on the issue. The strategy failed to consider the origin of the conflict or why it came to exist. Participants in the workshop used storytelling to convey information about the conflict to a fellow participant, while that individual listened and questioned the assumptions underpinning the conflict. The result is that the storyteller was able to see the conflict in a different light and regard others as different, but not as adversaries.

Besides assessment and storytelling, other methods of fostering transformative learning include simulations, coaching, critical incidents, role plays, and group projects.

 Thank you for your interest in this series!

by Dave Darrow

For the longest time, we've had to avoid using the "g-word" when describing things like business simulation and virtual worlds. As proved by Clark Aldrich and Karl Kapp, the tide is turning and the value in game-like experiences for learning is becoming more evident. This mindset is somewhat obvious for people like me who have played video and computer games since grade school so it's nice to see it being validated. Because of this, I often try to look for common ground between game development and e-learning design.

Recently, I read an article on The Escapist, a gaming blog, titled The Incredible Disappearing Teacher that described the challenges that game designers face in training end-users on how to play their games. The problem they faced was that the end-users don't want to go through tutorials, yet would be unable to enjoy the game unless they obtained the information contained in the tutorial. With a catch-22 situation like this, they have devised clever ways to engage the end-user and keep them motivated to finish the tutorial. Sometimes the tutorials are woven into the storyline of the game, other times they are incentivized with in-game currency, additional in-game inventory, or rewards like badges of achievement. One particularly good example was Valve Software's excellent Portal, which spends nearly half the game teaching you all the skills you need to complete the second half. It does not play like an extended tutorial, since the levels are carefully designed to help lead the player into discovering skills and solutions without spoon-feeding them the answers. This gives the player a sense of accomplishment each time, which does not seem much like "training".

Do businesses face similar challenges? I think they do. Like game players, employees clearly benefit from the knowledge and skills they can learn in their employers courses yet are often reluctant to do so. If game designers have discovered ways to make training enjoyable, we should be examining them and finding new ways to do it for our own design challenges.