To me, this is a pretty twisted view. The transport metaphor is a big part of our problem – it feeds the belief that it’s not difficult to codify and distill the components of learning, box it up, ship it out, and it’ll be received as intended. Everything can be boxed like this, many would have us believe.

Learning is a process, a journey, and something that can only be encouraged by well engineered packaging. Learning is done by the learner:) A far cry from the ‘lightning in a bottle’ view of learning packages in the commonly perceived state.

Surely — learning needs to be viewed in a different light than is typical. Concepts and information (we can facilitate the supply of these elements – but these are acquired by many methods) feed the roots of performance (skills and values). Skills and values provide the foundation for task execution… Branching to the fruit of accomplishment.

Learning is growth.

Does “learning” need to be rebranded? Maybe. Even if you rebrand I believe that the business (some but not all training departments within businesses) mentality will be to “give/train” employees what they need to do the job instead of using some of the exploring techniques facilitators use for allowing employees to be involved in the “learning” process. There is so much change today with the equipment and software that companies can use for educating their employees that I believe some of them just don’t care much about what the next “new gadget.” Yet, there are many businesses who are fully engaged in what is coming next.

I do believe that learning does need to be reengineered. Many businesses are not using the tools available to them in order to engage employees in the learning process. Maybe their thought is that employees need to be given information in order to learn and that they cannot learn unless a “professional trainer” helps them. Granted, there is some information that does need to be given to employees – but not all of it. Their view may be that “this is how it has always been done.” Change is difficult for everyone. Another thought behind this is that they may not believe they have the proper equipment to do the job. I think if they look hard enough, they can find platforms they can use.
Then there are the companies who use nothing but online learning instead of a blended learning mix. If there is no practical exploration and follow-up for what employees do learn, then are they really understanding and applying what they learn? Or are they just turning pages.

In summary – if branding or reengineering of learning is take place, how do we get followers if businesses are not willing to change their point of view of the learning process? I believe that businesses need to participate in some learning of their own in order to keep up with the method of learning that is best for their employees, especially during this economic time of “getting it done faster, cheaper, and better.”