Blog Post: An Evolution for Training

"Evolution rather resembles a wandering artist, who takes a walk on earth, picks up a thread here, and a tin there..."  I'll try to find the entire quote by Humberto R. Manturana -- the presenter moved on before I could copy it all down.  However, I believe the essence of the message is there.  You can't point to something and say: change for the better!  Conditions for innovations and improvement aren't created in a flash-pan, but a petri dish.

This turned out to be a bit of a theme in ICE Day 2 (depending upon how you looked, what you heard, and which seminars you chose).  Malcolm Gladwell spoke in the morning about how human talent takes more than one form.  He chose an analogy from the music business: remarking that Fleetwood Mac spent 16 years of musical evolution until they created Rumors.  Check out their history some time; it's quite impressive.
The Eagles, on the other hand, spent a meteoric 3 years until they created Hotel California, and even their earlier albums were relatively instant hits.

Malcolm Gladwell likened Fleetwood Mac to Cezanne, an artist who developed his skill and masterpieces over time, and after a series of bad art.  He likened the Eagles to Picasso, bursting out onto the scene, enthralling the art world.  He then bemoaned that the music industry today was filled with people who wanted Picassos; labels spend the length of one single to determine whether they want to invest in someone.  What, then, does that do for the Fleetwood Macs of the day and age?  How do they evolve, how do they develop to create their masterpieces?

Malcolm suggested that HR could focus on picking Cezannes (not that Picassos are bad, but don't we have a soft spot for the post-impressionist?), and that our role as learning and performance professionals would be to find ways to help them develop.

That, of course, leads to the next discussion of evolution in training.  You can't throw a stone in a learning conference anywhere without hitting someone touting the wonders of Learning 2.0.  One seminar, not on eLearning, but on "Evolutionary Management," asked: "Is your organization ready for environmental changes?"  Check and consider enhancing:

• your product portfolio
• your internal and external networks
• your corporate brand

Then the facilitator asked us to consider how our organization might be preparing for a changing environment.  And in a room full of trainers, we all considered the environmental changes in the learning function.

Michael Rosenberg, another presenter, did share this brilliant piece of information.  It's not that Instructor-Led training is bad.  There's still a place for it.  It's just that Instructor Led training by itself CAN be bad.  And plain on-line training isn't bad.  But plain on-line training by itself MAY be.

So:  are you evolving?  Are you taking a walk in the world, picking a thread here and a piece of tin there and learning how to incorporate it into your product portfolio?  Does your corporate brand represent one that engages with the world around it, or that has hitched its bandwagon to a trend that is slowly winding down?

"We have to develop the future, otherwise we get one that we don't want."  Josef Beuys.