When the going gets tough the tough get going - applying it to Learning and Development

When recession set's in, training department budgets get slashed and sometimes, severed. The last few years have been challenging for all , except for those who thrive on complexity and uncertainity. Most training managers and professionals have responded in predictible lines - scaling down activity and meeting expense budget. Many chose to deploy technology and evaluated options to use Communication and collaborative tools to prevent non-classroom expenses like travel, board lodging etc. The technology companies have used this cycle to push in their products to highlight importance of trackeability ,measurement and content creation.

Are these examples of real innovation in L&D which can meet the needs of learning, and performance?

Learning manager of a small sized financial company in the USA has chosen to follow a unique approach. His mandate was to make learning and development integral with minimal or no cost. Using creativity, and leadership buy-in, a program was carved out for high potential talent development. The CEO mandate, was to ensure that performing talent especially senior management, is developed and retained. A program was designed for a 18 month duration which covered all subject and domain areas that was considered neccesary to groom these performers. The curricullum was designed by inhouse subject matter experts with executive management group taking lead incharge. Faculty was inhouse developed and the executive managers conducted these sessions (90 minutes duration) on a pre-scheduled calendar. A graduation ceremony concluded the program. Participants were selected by a screening process cmparable to a university admission program involving detailed response on the interest, essay writing and senior management interaction , manager recommendation,and a buzz got evolved. Did this porgram succeeed , the answer is premature for final impact , but some benefits did accrue:-

• The executive buy in was high as they themselves developed and delivered classroom sessions
• Mutual expectations of role and performance got clarified.
• Executives indicated that their line of thinking got clearer
• Potential awareness of people capability through classroom interaction
• Porgram buzz created competition for getting in the program
• People could align learning with everyday performance

ALL OF THIS AT A MARGINAL COST

Who says innovation does not exist ?

The person is Robert Friedman - Dean Learning and Development of Motley Fools

listen to him here

http://www.humanresourcesiq.com/video.cfm?id=348

The missing links of performance

In one of his talks,Elliot Blaise opined, that the way people learn will determine how performance will be impacted. Among other things, he highlighted the concept of nano-learning. As we all know, that nano-technologies will have disruptive impact on what we do and how we do, meaning as Thomas Friedman says that through these technologies we are making the world flatter. Post the fall of German wall, India unshackled from a license based regime to a globally integrated market based free economy , setting exemplary standard for the world to notice.So how did we achieve this performance. We had to learn and learn fast. How? We learn while we work by slotting some time out of that schedule. It could be for a whole day, or several days or it could be for an hour or less. The scale of time will be determined by needs and priorities of the skill and it's potential impact on success requirements. The complexity may increase given that a Gen Y learner may have high levels of impatience and distraction . Therefore , we cannot have learning and development tracks that do not respond to these current challenges. This calls for having nano-design, of instruction material , which can provide bite size learning chunks. Performance is less of an event and more of a process. Therefore, addressing the process milestones with a variety of learning tracks ranging from a formal course to a discretionary audio talk or a quick tip needs to be balanced for providing more access to a wide range of content repository and links for seeking expert coaching when needed. The organisation needs to move out of a training only focus to a learning for performance impact. This calls for a paradigm shift from how we see training today to what we can do better and diffirently. Think nano, think learner and think performance. Remember , we have moved from hierarchy to wirearchy.