Mike’s Doc Blog

I’ve been following the organizational learning and performance industry for over 10 years now. I am always amazed when folks spin training into something that it is not (like the cure all for every problem we face in a company). In the 10+ years of being a practitioner and leader I have come to one indisputable truth, people know how to learn on their own.

Training, then becomes a convenient one-stop shop for the knowledge required to satisfy the need. In other words, someone has gathered the knowledge objects into one location and developed a delivery mechanism to provide to those in need. That is not how I learn. Sure, I take classes at University of Phoenix and some of the information I need is in the class but the bulk of it requires me to search, collect, label, store, and deliver the knowledge to myself. In Jay Cross terms, this would be the creation of a Personal Learning Environment or PLE (although he did not develop this concept on his own…it is where I read it first).

I don’t think I am special and see people seeking out information and knowledge as needed, when needed, and where needed. For the most part, people know when they need to know. Rory posted a few weeks ago about his own quest for knowledge and how that flies in the face of his job as an instructional designer. He writes,

When I need to learn something I pretty much create my own little PLE of resources and information, documents, bookmarks … you name it. My LMS-of-choice (if I can call it that) is Google.

Now, I’m fond of saying that training addresses knowledge gaps. For the most par this is true. Performance changes come from a different set of solutions, for the most part (no absolutes here). If training is an information delivery system and the need can be met differently (more effectively, cheaper, and faster) then people will go that route.

Harold Jarche talks about the changing role of training to enable the performance of the individual worker and be extension the organization. Harold writes,

I think that a better approach would be for the organisation to focus on measurable performance and give workers the time and support to direct their own learning. The T&D function then provides support, but not direction, and also provides a feedback loop to develop better performance support from the organisation.

I agree, I have agreed, and as recently as this morning I stated the same. As a learning and performance professional my job is to get folks to learn what is needed and enhance their individual performance. I just bid a job where I said the same and you would have thought the seas parted and light shone down on the meeting. The folks in the meeting responded like they thought this is what they had wanted for a long time but never had the words to describe it.

It shows you that the clients of training departments want more than a classroom class that takes workers out of production, costs money, and delivers training in a vaccuum that then slams shut. Instead, training groups need to find and support devices that continue the learning of the individual or group of individuals. If someone can develop a PLE, the training departments job is to be the source of information for that individual’s PLE. It is a transition from delivery of training to the delivery of information or more adptly learning and performance.

In terms of my research, this means that Web 2.0 tools like blogs, wikis, and podcasts can become elements of someone’s PLE. What impact does this have on their performance? A pretty interesting question. It moves beyond my research into the realm of educational psychology. Does the creation of PLE’s increase learning and performance? Maybe that is a question to be answered in my second book (post-dissertation).

Image Source: mushon