David Grebow KnowledgeStar

It’s been awhile …. I’m back from what became a long journey, working with a number of leading research and consulting firms on what they defined as “corporate education”. Our little secret … it was all about the money.

I spent hours every day focusing on developing paid for webinars that were thinly disguised marketing messages for the sponsor’s products. Writing white papers that were paid for by companies looking to justify their approach or methodology to corporate education. Developing charts, diagrams, infographics and more that proved the current prescribed vendor approaches to learning were absolutely correct.

So the assumption that I’ve heard many times – corporate education analysts are too often paid lobbyists for vendors – turned out to be true. I was living on the wheel, climbing up and sliding down the spokes, avoiding the hub of things. This is a report from that hub.

The key message is simple. Change or die. Corporations that do not “get it” will go out of business and be replaced by those that understand the following:

• The research tells us that high performing organizations, the type many aspire to become, are driven by a learning culture.
• Enabling and empowering everyone so they can find what they need to know, whenever and wherever they need it, is critical to the success of a company
• Becoming a learning culture is the only way a corporation can succeed every day and win in a highly competitive almost Darwinian global marketplace.
• Finally, if you’re not scared, you’re not listening, and if you are not building a learning culture, you’re falling further behind every day in terms of sales, profits, customer satisfaction levels, innovations, service, and everything else that comprises your business.

So from this point forward this blog will be about  building a learning culture. We’ll define what it is, help you assess where you are (pdf), and recommend changes you might need to make. We will explore the relationship between leaders, learners and technology. And provide examples of learning cultures in action, from exciting new companies like Tesla and established organizations like the WD-40 Company, to not-for-profit organizations like Doctors Without Borders.

In addition, since we don’t have all the answers, we will be sure to add any links to books (Creating a learning Culture), other posts, whitepapers (At the Water Cooler of Learning),workshops, webinars and other resources that might help. As a starter. here’s one from my friend and colleague Stephen Gills 16 Signs of a Learning Culture and another great resource from Marcia Conner Introduction to a Learning Culture.

I will be working with many of the most experienced and brightest minds in our field, and the areas of learning psychology, neurosciences, sociology, learning theory and more. People who have come to the same conclusion. We need to stop looking at the pieces – the spokes – and start to focus on the real problem at the hub. We can no longer spend ridiculous amounts of money and time on point solutions, and not try and solve the real problem – how to create learning cultures.

Looking forward to learning together.

 

The Endless Immensity of the Sea

 Once we get past the outmoded ideas of school – there’s only one answer, in the back of the book, take the test, and don’t look that’s cheating – we begin to see that learning and collaboration is an art and a science. We know more today about the science than ever before. We still tend to overlook the art.

A few weeks ago, my nephew asked me what the words “Subject Matter Expert” means. I told him it was all about learning. The expert was a team of people who each learned a lot about something, and learned more every day, until people agreed that team was The Subject Matter Expert. He listened carefully, then nodded and asked, “So, are Tommy and I the Subject Matter Experts about superheroes yet?” It made me pause and think about how that question would translate in the companies I consult with and what it meant for building successful collaborative teams who learn as they go.

Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab, writes about “neoteny,” the retention of childlike attributes in adulthood. This ability to learn is like the compounding interest on an investment; after two or three years, a relentless learner stands head and shoulders above his peers. It stands to reason that a team of relentless learners is optimized for successful collaboration.

So, why then are so many teams of smart people so stupid?

The answer has nothing to do with their collective IQ. I think the answer can be found in an obscure quote I pinned years ago on my actual pre-Pinterest cork board. It was written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, best known for his work The Little Prince. Here is the quote:

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

The quote focuses on the art of collaboration. And it has a direct bearing on learning, lighting a fire instead of filling a bucket.

Amazing how some people knew so much about learning and collaboration before it became the business word du jour. The key to a great collaborative team is their ability to look outward in the same direction, to share a deeply felt goal or, as Saint-Exupéry wrote, “[…] to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

Seems almost too simple to repeat. Yet I cannot tell you the number of times I listened to team members who had no idea what it felt like to long for the “endless immensity of the sea.” When we build teams to collaborate, we need to make sure that the first item on the punch list is to build a deeply felt desire, a “longing” if you will.

The next time you bring a team together, ask yourself a question: What is the longing — the deeply felt longing — which will drive the team to learn and perform, even if they do not have all the tools and knowledge to “build a ship”? What will wake them up every day and make them want to go wherever they dream of going? When you can articulate that longing, then you are on your way to a great collaboration and learning that will just happen.

Here are some examples that punctuate this idea:

We want to be the ones to really feel what it is like to step onto the surface of the moon.

The team will take the very first pictures of life on the bottom of the ocean.

We will actually see the proof of the ‘god particle’ that started all creation.

In the beginning, it is not all about the wood and the work. It’s about the art of collaboration, describing that longing that drives learning and collaboration forward. I spend a lot of time researching and studying, thinking and writing about the science of collaboration as a crucial part of learning. I just want to make sure I never lose sight of the art, of that longing for “the endless immensity of the sea.”

Forget About Level 4? Never!

Not too many years ago I remember the words of an L&D VP to whom I reported. We were talking about measuring the effectiveness of a very expensive training program we just delivered.

“Just focus on the first three. Forget about this Kirkpatrick level four,” he said. “It’s too hard and too expensive to figure out.”

As a refresher, here are the four levels of Kirkpatrick’s evaluation model (I’m avoiding the argument about Level 5 on purpose):

1. Reaction – what the learners thought about the course
2. Learning – what the learners remember as well as any new skills and attitudes.
3. Behavior – How much the learners transfer knowledge, skills, and attitudes from the schoolplace to the workplace
4. Results – the final outcome, months down the road from the event, which was initiated by the course.

The first 3 levels are relatively easy to measure. They include the smile sheets (Level 1), demonstrations of what was learned (Level 2) and improvements in performance back at work (Level 3). The first two can happen during the training event; the third can be reviewed and assessed by a learner’s manager.

It’s Level 4 that’s more difficult, even though it’s the level that measures real learning. Let me back up a bit. Rote learning is what ‘skill and drill’ teaching gets you. It’s perfect for a Level 1 and 2 evaluations. You can even get by if the Level 3 evaluation is done soon enough after the course is finished.

If no one checks in after that you will probably not get a “Pass” on Level 4, unless you have adopted what you do every day and adapt it under a constantly changing set of circumstances. Level 4 is gated by the idea that “Practice Makes Perfect”. So it’s the down the road assessment that really tells you if the learning has become a new part of the learner’s way of doing their job.

Level 4 is a longitudinal study or assessment. It can be done at intervals that range up to one year from the learning event. It’s usually not done at all because it is the most costly and time consuming of the four. What’s changed is that new technology can make it easy.

LCMS Learning Objects to the Rescue.

The LCMS is usually thought of in terms of their ability to author learning objects. These objects can be stored in a repository and used to deliver a custom learning program. The learning objects are assembled by an individual learner who can tailor them into a personal learning path. On the other hand, a course that is SCORMed and developed as one-size-fits-many can be seen as one big learning object fixed in space.

When people are done with either a course or their personal learning path, it looks like the pellets flying out of a shotgun. All the learners go off in their own direction, and have separate and individual experiences. In short, they learn to adapt the knowledge and know-how they acquire in a multitude of different ways.

The course object can only measure the mean or average since it was designed for many people. Most Level 4 measures I’ve seen look at corporate data as if it was functionally related to what the learner knows or has learned to do. For example, an increase in employee retention can be the result of wage increases or an improved management style. Reduced waste is an old manufacturing metric that has little validity in today’s manufacturing processes. Increased customer satisfaction results from a constellation of factors. Fewer staff complaints in a tough economy are to be expected (add in increased retention as well). So the standard measures used at Level 4 are virtually useless in today’s workplace and economic environment.

Learning objects on the other hand can be turned around as a one-to-one assessment down the road because they were assembled by each learner who proscribed their own learning path. Learning objects that state “What I need to learn” can be flipped to ask “Did you learn what you needed?” Turn a learning object around, add a question mark, and you have a Level 4 assessment. If the learner six months later has really learned a new skill or behavior, you can easily find out by assessing them on what they decided to learn. If the learner is struggling with what they tried to learn, you can determine that as well and provide whatever support is required.

Learning technology changes the equation. In the same way that elearning removed the barriers of time, space and the four walls of the traditional classroom, LCMS can provide an assessment of a learning event ‘down the road’, and really start get to that formerly unobtainable Level 4. It can measure the degree to which the learning has been adopted and is being adapted.

 

 

They get lost too easily as the New Year rapidly progresses. The forests we each inhabit. We quickly find ourselves racing through the trees like Luke Skywalker on a speeder bike. This is a good time of the year to step back and reflect.

So before I plunge headfirst back into my forest, I want to remember to remember “Why” I do what I do, and what the Big Problem is that needs to be solved.

I started thinking about the “Why” a few weeks ago after watching a great TED presentation by Simon Sinek on “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”.

Then I happened to read a blog post by Kaihan Krippendorff about how “Great Companies Solve Problems That Matter” by focusing on the Big Problems. The two put my brain into overdrive. As I stepped further back from the trees, the forest I inhabit became even more distinct, and the “Why” of things and the Big Problem came into greater focus.

No one disagrees that we are all in an increasingly competitive global race. It’s an odd race in the sense that the finish lines keeps moving off into the future. I try and discover ways my clients can use learning and development to help their companies catch up, keep up and then lead the way. Find the best practices in learning from around the world, and then teach what I discover. Learning and Development in corporations is an ongoing and continuously changing process. Not the learning part, which happens in the brain and is unchanged for millions of years. But the most current methods of learning, new techniques, updated technology and continually improving best practices. Part of solving the Big Problem these days is keeping up with all that is changing and get out in front of the curve.

I used to hear Learning and Development referred to as the “800 pound Gorilla in the room.” These days it’s more like 1,000 nattering and chattering monkeys.

So “Why” and the Big Problem are connected: To make companies smarter and improve their performance. That’s the “Why” and the Big Problem all rolled up into one.

I just hope someone reminds me to read this next June while I’m thrashing about in the forest again.