What's in my head today?

I still feel bad about the lateness of my submission for last month’s Learning Circuits Big Question, so I’d better get the current one up nice and early in the month. You can find #LCBQ here: http://learningcircuits.blogspot.com/.

The prevalence of mobile data in smart phones, laptops, tablets and other mobile devices means that every day we become more accustomed to being able to locate information and have our questions answered immediately. Honestly, I struggle to remember what we did before everyone was contactable at a moment’s notice. Obviously, work still got done, but I can barely remember the time when calling the office while you were out meant finding a public phone.

Our ability to locate required (and simply “nice to have”) information, as well as completely useless/unreliable information, at a moment’s notice has helped drive the assumption that everything should be available at the time it’s needed. That view can cause problems for trainers, instructional designers and those of us charged with managing the learning function. When the expectation of an immediate, quick “fix” runs up against the learning professional’s traditionally cautious approach to needs assessment and content creation, tension is almost guaranteed.

Managing the dual expectations of having something available ASAP while also providing a solution that meets the genuine needs of the work group can be likened to walking the hire wire without a net. Take a step in the wrong direction and unpleasant consequences will follow. There are a number of strategies we can use to help prepare our organisation for these situations in advance, and which can aid our development of options and solutions at short notice. First, though, we should consider a couple of points of caution:

1. Don’t assume that training is the answer. When most people think about learning needs they start to think about formal training – that is, courses, whether traditional group training in a room or online modules that can be completed individually. In previous blog posts, we’ve discussed how ineffective these types of interventions can be when they are not properly utilised and supported. If only 20% of what most people learn about how to do their jobs is learned from formal training, you can bet that forcing people to attend or complete courses that have no relation to the core need that must be addressed will not have a positive impact. Don’t waste people’s time (and your organisation’s time) by rolling out training simply because someone is demanding that something be done.

2. Even if some kind of training is reasonable, don’t assume the stakeholder in question has identified the right solution. Even in cases where you agree that there is a learning gap that some form of training intervention can address, you need to be sure you’ve identified the core need, not just some symptom of a deeper issue. For example, it would be a shame (to say the least) to roll out the world’s greatest time management course to help people manage their time better in order to achieve their targets only to find later than a bottle-neck in the flow of information of material elsewhere is the real cause of the performance gap.

So, with those two points out of the way, let’s look at some practical things we can do. The best way to meet requests for some kind of action at short notice is to encourage an environment where good learning practices are built into the work that is done. Doing so will certainly help head off many requests for formal assistance. Here, we’re talking about the kind of things we looked at when we discussed what’s become known as “social learning.”

As we’ve discussed previously, and as Jay Cross and the members of the Internet Time Alliance and other thought leaders continue to show, formal training courses play a minor role in the working knowledge of most of us. They are important for bringing novices up to speed and can be useful for helping people navigate new practices and systems, but organisations are much better served when they encourage a more natural form of ongoing learning, and cater for this in the work environment. Social tools such as expertise locators (use to identify the right person to ask when a question comes up), wikis, blogs, discussion groups, etc. are all excellent resources for learning at the point of need. At the moment, at TSAEP, we’re taking our old manuals and guides that are produced in PDF format and converting them to pages on the intranet. Many of these resources will be set up as wikis, so people can update them at a moment’s notice and so they grow and adapt as the business does. Locking information away in PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, etc. simply shuts out users who need quick access to important information to support their performance. Using items such as manuals and guides as the basis of a searchable, user-friendly performer support portal is my top tip for heading off many requests for immediate assistance from the learning and development team. Supporting these resources with good graphics, podcasts, videos, discussion groups, blogs, etc. provides organisations with the opportunity to capture and capitalise on the wealth of knowledge that resides within. Think of how much time and money your organisation may be able to save if a focus on chasing the expert from outside the company were to be transformed into a focus on capturing and making the most of the expertise of those who already work for you.

Another strategy for minimising the chance of short-term, emergency requests for training interventions is something that simply flows naturally from the approach discussed above. If learning is seen as the responsibility of the learning and development team, then of course people are going to look to them any time a need is perceived. Learning (and teaching) is a responsibility everyone should share – from the top of the organisational chart to the bottom. When you nurture an environment where people share their best practices and ideas, and where these things can be discussed openly, you are on the path to making the most of the incredible potential of the workforce within the organisation. Those who abdicate responsibility for learning to the L&D team are simply going to fall further and further behind those who take a more realistic and natural view, where learning is simply another aspect of their day-to-day work.

Still, even with these strategies and supports in place, any organisation is going to come across a situation where someone, whether it be a senior manager, a team leader, member or a subject matter expert, sees a performance gap and calls for some kind of training or additional support. In these cases, the traditional ADDIE model can be found wanting for the time it takes to step through the stages that come before implementation, and for the formality of many of the processes within. You’re likely to need to short-circuit the formal processes and develop a quick and effective way to identify the core needs that need addressing. However you do this, it’s likely to revolve around discussion with those who know the tasks in question and gathering some kind of data to support the argument that a gap exists and that it can be addressed through some form of training. This topic would take another blog post or two (it could just about fill a book, though it wouldn’t be the most gripping read), so I’m not going to go into detail here. Suffice to say that maintaining a positive relationship with as many of the team leaders and managers in the operational part of your organisation will certainly make your job easier, here and elsewhere, in many ways.

After the needs in question are identified, recognise that, as Jay Cross puts it, everything these days is in “perpetual beta.” Work up your material to the point where it conveys the skills and knowledge needed and where it is professionally presented and fit for purpose. Don’t chase perfection, because it’s more likely your information will be out of date by the time you have it ready. Certainly don’t waste time hunting down pretty graphics that serve no purpose other than looking nice – make sure the graphics you do use contribute to the content in a meaningful way. The work of Richard Mayer & Roxana Moreno, Ruth Colvin Clark, and Jane Bozarth can help you here.

It’s also important to remember that learning is not a once-off event bounded by unrelated “work stuff.” Make sure you plan whatever your intervention is so that it includes direct application immediately in the workplace. Show people what they need and no more – just-in-case training simply muddies the waters and clutters heads. Finally, make sure support is available on the job when the inevitable questions arise. Compile a FAQ, publish a wiki, use blogs where they can add value – and note which people can be relied upon to provide accurate information when answers can be found nowhere else. Record podcasts and videos where they add value as well - most people much prefer their information in a format other than pages of text.

So, in summary, it’s not realistic to aim for an environment where no short-notice training requests arise – ever. We can, however, encourage an environment (a “Workscape”, in Jay Cross’ terminology) where learning is catered for within the day-to-day functions that make up people’s jobs. This will certainly help reduce the number of requests that should be coming in to the learning and development team. Such an environment is really the only way an organisation can become adaptable and flexible enough to thrive in the face of increasing change – and the increasing speed of change.

Having nurtured an environment where learning=work and work=learning (thanks, Harold Jarche and Clark Quinn), when short-term requests do come in, we need to be able to investigate and verify performance gaps that learning can address as quickly as possible. Open and honest relationships with line managers and subject matter experts involved in the day-to-day work of your organisation will help speed this process. Involving these people in the design of the information and resources that you plan to use to address the needs identified will also help ensure key front-line stakeholders are on board with you from the start. Work up your content until the messages you need to convey are clear and unambiguous as possible, and the presentation is professional. Finally, plan to support the learning when your people return to their desks. Viewing learning as discrete instances of formal courses bordered by work is one of the key reasons that formal training has been so ineffective in helping people come to grips with the requirements of their jobs.

The following article is reproduced from ASTD’s website. It provides some interesting thoughts and suggestions for why social learning (mediated by electronic tools) is useful for organisations and how it can be used. At The Salvation Army Employment Plus, we use social learning software to support our more tradition forms of training and development activities. Although I wouldn’t advocate using social learning software by itself to induct new staff (the onboarding process Pacalin talks about in the article) there are definite advantages in using it to reinforce learning and to provide staff at all levels of the organisation with access to timely and relevant inforamtion. As Pacalin notes, it also allows us to identify people who can act as subject matter experts (SMEs) in certain fields. We’ve also found that online communities built around wikis, blogs, etc. quickly become self-correcting, as users identify and correct inaccurate information posted by others. This has completely removed one of the chief fears of our executive group with the utilisation of social learning tools - that people will spread practices and inforamtion that is outdated or simply incorrect, and jeopardise standards. 

We have certainly found social learning tools to be an excellent addition to our learning and development toolkit. 

Why Organizations Need Social Learning
By Laurent Pacalin

 The world has changed — people now live and work in a world where Google gives the answers, where a mobile phone is the lifeline to the Web and to your GPS location, and where Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter link people to each other in their own way. By leveraging these tools and putting them into meaningful parts of the learning experience, social learning tools enable organizations and their people to make sense of this radically changed day-to-day world and achieve their business and learning objectives.

How to leverage social learning

Enterprise social networking provides organizations with an unprecedented level of knowledge about its talent. Management can look at who are the most valuable contributors and where knowledge lies. It provides the organization greater agility in responding to a changing business environment.

Onboard new hires: how long does it take for people to get up to speed?

Onboarding via social learning provides a getting-started experience tailored to the need and role of the individual. Supplemented by search, social learning enables new employees to discover and succeed almost immediately.

Cultivate knowhow through sharing informal knowledge: why wait for people to figure out what is trusted information and what is most important to learn?

What it takes to succeed in a job is more than a job description. After all, why don’t people just read the instructions and then immediately know what to do? The reason is that knowhow is transferred through insight, behavior, and trade knowledge not necessarily reflected in a formal training document.

Accelerate effectiveness and increase performance: what can be done to create additional levels of success for high performers?

High performers produce 10x or more the business results of average employees. They have learned that the law of success includes knowing what to ask and of whom, rather than ―knowing it all‖ themselves. Connecting people of deep knowledge on specific areas of interest makes the strategies and efforts of high-performing employees multiply in the business outcome. If a high performer can produce more effectively by networking with just a handful of key connections, imagine what can be accomplished through access to groups of hundreds of other high performers.

Harness informal learning: why spend money to create content when the highest-quality and most trusted content can be incorporated into learning for free?

The industry is aware that 70 to 80 percent of training budgets are spent on formal learning, but as many studies indicate, nearly 80 percent of what people actually learn within a job role is achieved informally. Learning is ultimately a change in behavior — and people learn through a triangulation of people, context, and need. Social learning funnels trusted content to the fore of learning’s view and can even be used to transition key informal learning objects into formal processes.

In other circumstances, a community’s knowledge need flares up and is a hot topic for but a few short days, weeks, or months, and then burns out. Formal objects will never meet the needs of these flares. But informal schemes of user-generated content, wikis, blogs, threaded conversations, and ad hoc virtual connections via meetings and conversations can meet the demands of these transitory learning experiences.

Transform your workforce: Do hierarchies really reflect the “wirearchy” of your business?

Identify key nodes in your organization by analyzing your social networks using dynamic network analysis. Who used what resources with what frequency, and with whom did they share? In the maps of teams, see what competencies and skills map to those teams and networks. Get beyond the skill level of individuals and start to identify team, group, and organizational competencies. Identify which collections of people are most skilled at solving the problems of the day. The hierarchy can’t reveal the difference between two regional groups of identical solutions consultants, but network analysis can reveal that one group excels at user interface customization while the other group excels at CRM integrations.

Prepare for succession: Why can’t organizations figure out who will succeed when they are advanced in the organization?

The formal measures of slating people for advancement miss the key textures of why people succeed at the next level. Creating a social fingerprint of the type of person that succeeds at the next level and then matching that pattern against those that meet your formal criteria is a start. In addition, social learning fast tracks people to connect to the networks and sources of learning that will accelerate the right people. For example, in nominations for leadership development, people can learn these skills from mentors with matching learning histories. Internal recruiting can match social learning experiences with transcript and profile information to meet internal need for talent.

Nurture employee networks: Why don’t people connect inside their current organization with people formerly in their role? In the learning they are undertaking? With people who went to the same school they did? With those who want to achieve the same career goals?

From the unified profile made visible as the hub of interaction in social learning, the workplace opens up because now instead of people seeing their world as a job role with colleagues and a manager, they see their workplace as a world of connections to people who share their experiences. For example: 

• If I am a new hire, then I may want to connect to recent new hires.
• If am taking on a new role, I can access people across the organization who currently or previously held my role.
• Through “alumni” of different types, I can pursue the learning that was most effective for those before me and I can discover learning experiences that interest me most.

People and social learning 

No aspect of people’s careers is untouched by the social learning experience. In today’s world, the shelf life of knowledge is short. People understand that what they learn, the knowledge they harvest, is perishable. People seek modern working environments where they are encouraged to stay current and connected. Business outcomes depend on the speed of such knowledge transfer and sharing of knowhow. Social learning tools keep employees engaged and empowered through the most powerful learning tool in the marketplace—each other.

Laurent Pacalin is senior vice president and general manager of People Learning at Saba. As SVP and GM of People Learning, Pacalin is responsible for driving the strategy and global execution of Saba’s Learning offerings, including Saba Social Learning solutions that leverage Saba Centra web conferencing and Saba Live business enterprise networking platforms for a social and collaborative learning experience.