A: Looking up from reading. “Guff!â€
B: Curious. “What‘s guff”
A: “All this social learning stuff.â€
B: “Really, you think so”
A: “Yeah, I mean, learning‘s learning, and who needs to make a ‘social‘ out of it? We‘ve got courses, if they want to be social in the classroom, fine, but all this hype about social learning is just a way for consultants to try to sell old soda in new bottles.â€
B: “So you think learning is about courses”
A: “Sure. What else”
B: “Well, let me defer that answer, and ask you another question.â€
A: “Oh, so you‘re one of those, eh? Answer a question with a question? Ha. Go ahead, shoot.â€
B: “If learning‘s not important, what is”
A: “That‘s easy, nimbleness. We‘ve got to adapt, innovate, create, we need to be faster than the rest. Heck, they can clone a product in months, or less. You‘ve got to be agile!â€
B: “So just executing isn‘t enough”
A: “Heck no! You‘ve got to have the ‘total customer experience‘ locked down, and that means optimal execution is just the cost of entry. Thriving is going to require continually introducing improvements: new products, new services.â€
B: “OK, let‘s get back to your question, what else learning might be.â€
A: “About time.â€
B: “So, think about that innovating, problem-solving, creativity, etc. That‘s not learning”
A: “No.â€
B: “Do they know the answer when they start”
A: “No, or they‘d just do it.â€
B: “Right. The answer is unknown, they have to find it. When they find it, have they learned something”
A: “Alright, I see your game. Yes, they‘re learning, but it‘s not like courses, it‘s not education!â€
B: “Right, courses are formal learning. That‘s the point I want to make, using the term ‘learning‘ to just talk about courses isn‘t fair to what‘s really going on. There are informal forms of learning that are just the aspects you need to get on top of.â€
A: “Oh, okay, if you want to play semantic games.â€
B: “It‘s important, because this ‘social learning‘ you call guff is the key to addressing the things you‘re worrying about! Formal learning serves a role, but there‘s so much more that an organization should be concerned about.â€
A: “So here comes the pitch.â€
B: “And it‘s straightforward: do you want to leave that innovation and creativity to chance, or do your best to make sure it‘s working well? Because the evidence is that in most organizations it‘s nowhere near what it could be, and there are systematic steps to improve it.â€
A: “C‘mon. Can you tell me someone who‘s doing it well”
B: “Sure. Just a few small firms you might‘ve heard of. Intel‘s used a wiki to help people share knowledge. Sun‘s capturing top performance on video and sharing it. SAP‘s getting customers to self-help and contribute to new product ideas.â€
A: “Sure, the tech companies, but how about anyone else”
B: “Caterpillar‘s got communities of practice generating ROI, Best Buy‘s getting a lot of advantage through internal idea generation, the list goes on, and those are only the ones we‘ve found.â€
A: “Ok. I suppose it makes sense, but still, that label…â€
B: “I hear you.â€