I am entering the field. What do I do to make a success of it?
After years of clamoring for a seat at the table, C-levels are increasingly intrigued by what we can do for them. Pressure for growth, technology, and a competitive landscape create abundance and opportunity for workplace learning people. Every sector, from higher ed to pharma, is seeking candidates whose heads are screwed on right. What do I mean by right? I am talking about heads with an unrelenting focus on performance and results.
Several years ago, I served on a committee to review submissions for awards at an international conference. We considered a four-day course for engineers soon to be tasked with serving as instructors. The course devoted itself to teaching them Instructional Design 101, with half of the first day spent writing letter-perfect, four-part objectives. And so on and so forth. My eyes glazed over. The engineers’ eyes would close entirely. Wrong stuff.
A more recent example came from online compliance training I was dragooned into taking. The topic was information security. Screen 3 listed the objectives. Only three of the eight had anything to do with my work and life. How would I endure the next 73 screens? Even animated pandas could not make this e-learning successful. Wrong stuff.
In our business, we begin with the end in mind. Heaven help us when those ends are wrong-headed.
Sounds obvious, I know. But I can’t tell you how often I hear people say they want to put the program in the classroom because they themselves like to learn in the classroom. Or they are going to try out avatars because they are engaging. (Are they?)
One twenty-something told me that she intended to do coaching for supervisors and managers. I asked why. She said she thought she would be good at it and that coaching was a good way to help people. While eloquent about her preferences and capabilities, she never mentioned
evidence. Would coaching work in this case? Shouldn’t she review the literature on that matter? And what of her lack of experience as a supervisor and manager? The fact that she likes people is good but by no means sufficient.
It isn’t what you want to do. It’s what the work, worker and workplace demand. There’s the challenge and the opportunity.
, is the answer. The value of each emerges within systems. Our goal is strategic benefit, such as making information available on demand, tracking performance, reminding of expectations, enabling tons of practice, or helping new customer service reps communicate with peers or coaches.
Take the job of retirement specialist. Consider the stress the topic provokes in customers. Think about how much there is to know to do this job, and then extend your vision to the attention that regulators pay to it. If you are tasked with developing and supporting these professionals, best not throw a single solution at it, no matter how nifty that solution is. Your program must involve intense and graduated lessons, lots of practice with diverse cases, coaching and feedback, assessments and self-assessment—and that’s the development part of it. Surely you would want to provide human and automated resources available on demand to deal with infrequent questions, lengthy procedures and updates.
Mobile? Games? Perhaps. Why not? What’s for sure is that there must be a concerted system. There’s the challenge and the opportunity.
with 75 learning leaders. Our focus was leader development. Eric Paul from Dell said to nods all around, "The soft stuff is the hard stuff."
And not just for leader development. The retirement specialist can’t just know about retirement, she must want to help. Same for the USPS. My postal deliverers know their job and then they do it with gusto. They stop back, wait a moment or two to get a signature, or brighten my day with a howdy. It’s knowing and doing and caring to exert effort. How do we influence that through training and development?
How will you systematize the development of minds AND hearts and bellies? There’s the challenge and the opportunity.
. In the opening keynote at ASTD 2012, Jim Collins reminded us of the importance of humility.
Now, as you launch your career, it’s time to weigh the value of humility. If you are humble, you know that you do not know it all. Your humility opens you up to lessons, messages, ideas and surprises. You seek them.
Don’t just nod at me, graduates. What are you going to do to systematically assess and develop? How will you push yourself beyond your comfort zone? For starters, let me suggest that you join a local professional association, and an international too.
ASTDis a great choice, but not the only one. Consider ISPI and eLearning Guild. Find one I don’t know about.
Take advantage of the idea of a
personal learning network. Tour regularly in domains with which you are not familiar, where you will encounter approaches that are not old hat to you. I did it yesterday. This morning I contemplated allthat went into the development and mobile support that enabled a British tree surgeon to save a tiny finch.
As you refresh your skills and perspectives, you will also inoculate yourself against burn out. There’s the challenge and the opportunity.