The Learning Circuits’ Blog Big Question of the Month is whether and how get ‘unstuck’, when you’ve got a lot to offer and it’s well beyond what they expect you to do in your job.

This actually resonates with two separate things, some thoughts around ‘being revolutionary’, and a previous post based upon a similar complaint that triggered this month’s question (must be a lot of understandable angst out there).   The previous post was about trying to meet unreasonable expectations, and the individual wasn’t getting the support they needed to do the job the way it should be done.   Similarly the big question was triggered by someone knowing what should be done but feeling trapped.

The thread that emerges, for me, is that training departments can’t keep operating in the same old way, despite the fact that formal instruction doesn’t have to die (just improve).   Incrementalism isn’t going to be enough, as optimal execution is going to be just to stay in the game, and the competitive advantage will be the ability to innovate new value to offer.   It’s just too easy to copy a successful product or service, and the barriers to entry aren’t high enough to prevent competition.   You never know when a viral or chaotic event will give someone a marketing advantage, so you’ve got to keep moving.

Trying to keep to the status quo, or slowly expand your responsibility is going to fail, as things are moving too quickly. You have to seize the responsibility now to take on the full suite of performance elements: job aids, portals, social learning, content and knowledge management, and more, and start moving.   It still has to be staged, but it’s a perspective shift that will move you more strategically and systemically towards empowering your organization.

And back to the tactics, what do you do when your clients (internal or external) aren’t pushing you for more and better?   Show them the way.   While I’ve learned that conceptual prototypes don’t always work (some folks can’t get beyond the lack of polish, even when you’re just showing the proof of concept), try and mock up what is on offer, and talk them through it. Help them see why it’s better.   Do a back of the envelope calculation about how it’s better.   Bring in all the factors: outcomes, performance, engagement, learner experience, whatever it takes.

Then, if they don’t want it, do your best within the constraints to do it anyway (write better objectives, practice, etc. even if they won’t appreciate it), and live with what you can do.   And, truly, if you’re capable of more (not more work, better/smarter work), and it’s on offer but continually not accepted, it probably is time to move on.   Don’t give in, keep up the fight for better learning, your learners need it!

After having been on the board of a not-for-profit (NFP) for several years, essentially because they’re in education and weren’t using technology, we’re finally seeing some progress.   An update call today with their internal IT strategy team had me finally feeling like we’d turned the corner.

It’s taken several steps, as just advocating wasn’t enough.   While I had to educate some of the board, they were supportive enough, but it wasn’t enough to penetrate the leadership of the NFP.   An outside initiative that would’ve made significant progress didn’t occur, but raised enough awareness that things got easier.   Along the way, several initiatives were started, but lost focus and died.

The final step was the Board finally choosing to have, as one of it’s standing committees, an IT Committee.   For obvious sins, I chair the Board’s IT committee, and raised the NFP’s awareness that the Board was serious. Finally, the Board’s IT committee asked the NFP to create an IT Strategy, and that catalyzed effective action.   It took some work to get them to identify what an IT strategy should be (despite resources like TechSoup, though their original good document disappeared), but led to them hiring a key person, and things have really turned around.

A team of young folks along with the existing IT staff, savvy and scattered around the NFP have been selected to lead the initiative.   They’re thinking strategically now, and today on the phone talked about the success one portal is having, about their three phase plan to redevelop the website and IT infrastructure, and their thinking about how to leverage technology more effectively.

I really felt that they’re finally pulling a) together and b) in the right direction.   I can’t take credit for it happening, but I reckon I played a role in catalyzing the work and in coaching the direction, and it’s wonderful to see the outcomes.   It’s been frustrating at times as it seems to have taken so long, but my learning is that these things take time when you don’t have direct control.

The nice thing is that the culture of the NFP is positive and supportive of learning, it’s just that they’ve been so successful with the old model that it’s hard to see a need to change.   But change happens, and fortunately it’s happening here, now.

There’ll be some missteps, undoubtedly, and some waste of effort, but I do believe they’re on the right path. Now, to get the Board to start using IT more effectively…

I was contacted yesterday by a relatively new ID person, who was in a tough spot.   This person understood the principles of Tony Karrer’s “Before You Ask” post, as the situation was well laid out.   Some help was asked for (clearly no expectation other than, perhaps, a thoughtful reply; the circumstances were quite clear).

The situation is that this person is the support for an LMS across multiple geographic locations.   The ID was hired to do ‘training’ on the system, but access to SMEs is limited at beast, the uses in the different contexts were different enough that a course model isn’t a viable solution, yet this person wasn’t clear on what alternatives to take: “I am beginning to think that the position is flawed in its design.”

For what it’s worth, here’s what I replied (slightly modified for clarity and anonymity):

First, I’d offer a pointer to John Carroll’s minimalist instruction (via “The Nurnberg Funnel”).   He taught a word processing system via a set of cards that trumped the instructionally designed manual by focusing on the learners’ existing knowledge and goals.   It’d be one way to ‘teach photography’ instead of ‘the camera’.

Of course, I also recommend teaching ‘the model’, not the software *nor* the task. That is, what is the LMS’s underlying model, and how does it lead you to predict how to do x, y, and z.   If you can teach the model, and through a couple of examples and practice get them to be able to infer how to do other tasks, you’ve minimized ‘training’ and maximized their long-term success.   Your lack of access to SMEs means you have to become one, however, I reckon.   Doing good ID does mean more responsibility on the designer in any case.   Sorry.

On top of either approach (common tasks, or model-based learning) consider that your role is to put out some basic materials (don’t think training, think job aids), and then serve as a ‘consultant’.   Have them come to you to ask how to do things, and either create FAQ’s or more job aids, depending on their need and your assessment of the value proposition in either.   So don’t think your only solution is ‘training’.

Also consider gestating a ‘community’ to surround your wiki, and grow it into a self-help resource that people can get into to the level they can handle.   Have discussion board where people can post questions. You’ll be busy at first, but if they find value, it can grow to be self-sustaining.   People will often self-help, if it’s easy enough.

BTW, another organization had some success many years ago starting with a central office, bringing in and training local ‘champions’ who gradually moved the locus of responsibility back to their unit.   Of course, they got buy-in to do so, but you might try to work with your early adopters and help them become the local resources.

Overall, don’t try to accomplish everything with ‘the course’, but look to the broader range of performance ecosystem components (if you’ve followed my blog, you know I’m talking job aids, ecommunity, etc) and balance your efforts appropriately.

The response was that this was, indeed, helpful.   I feel for the person in the situation of having to do a particular role when the ‘received wisdom’ about how to do it is at odds with what really is useful, and is underresourced to boot. A too-frequent situation, and probably not decreasing, sigh.   But taking the broader performance perspective is a useful framework I also found useful in another recent engagement, professional development for teachers.   Don’t just worry about getting them the basics, and develop them as practitioners, even into experts, as well.   Moreover, help them help themselves!

This is just the type of situation where taking a step back and looking at what is being done can yield ways to rethink, or even just fine-tune the approach.   I typically find that it’s the case that there *are* such opportunities, and it’s an easy path to better outcomes.   Of course, I also find that years of experience and a wealth of relevant frameworks makes that easier ;).   What is your experience in adapting to circumstances and improving situations?

While I’ve lots more to say, I put a short version of my vision of elearning strategy in Michael Allen’s 2009 e-Learning Annual.   It’s about both getting the individual elements right, and establishing the connections between the elements to achieve synergy, not irrelevance (or worse).

This doesn’t include assessments, action plans, or more (I’m planning that for my pre-conference workshop on strategy at ASTD’s International Conference & Exposition), but it does lay out some of the reasoning and history behind the approach, the elements and some of the ways they go right (and wrong), and why they need to be tied together.

The whole book has a wonderful collection of articles.   It includes authors like Jay Cross, Karl Kapp, Lance Dublin, Bob Mosher, Ruth Colvin Clark, Marc Prensky, Saul Carliner & Margaret Driscoll, just to mention the ones I’ve met.   And important topics like Appreciative Inquiry, Performance Support, ROI, implementation, the value of research for design, virtual world design, and more.   It’s a great collection, and recommended.

However, I did want to make my chapter available, and am happy to say that I’ve done so. You can download the article (PDF).   I’d welcome your thoughts and feedback.

Over at the TogetherLearn site, I’ve added a post about ‘what it takes‘.   I guess it’s the ‘how do we make this work’ in me, but I wanted to wrap some concrete definition about their ‘the future of   the training department‘.   I very much agree with their view, but was concerned it could be viewed as too difficult.

Note that they are largely talking about a move to a self-help environment, as I discussed in my last post on the training department of the future.   I reckon, however, that a truly deep revisit and rethink will look at formal learning, portals, content governance and more, as well as the social learning component.   Still, the process is largely the same, it’s just that the scope is larger.   Just doing the social component, however, is likely to be the best short-term investment to get large benefits from a small step.

Realize that the roadmap isn’t going to be as specific as might be desired, but it helps to take an objective look from an experienced perspective and at least line up some near-term goals as well as some long-term desires, and figure out some steps that will take you there.   I can’t see an alternative, can   you?