A colleague of ours sent me an issue of a newsletter (it included the phrase ‘make it meaningful‘ ;). In it, the author was touting a four letter acronym-based model. And, to be fair, there was nothing wrong with what the model stipulated. Chunking, maintaining attention, elaboration, and emotion are all good things. What bothered me was that these elements weren’t sufficient! They covered important elements, but only some. If you just took this model’s advice, you’d have somewhat more memorable learning, but you’d fall short on the real potential impact. For instance, there wasn’t anything there about the importance of contextualized practice nor feedback. Nor models, for that matter!

I’m not allergic to n letter acronym models. For instance, I keep the coaster I was given for Michael Allen’s CCAF on my desk. (It’s a nice memento.) His Context-Challenge-Activity-Feedback model is pretty comprehensive for the elements that a practice has to have (not surprisingly). However, learning experiences need more than just practice, they need introductions, and models, and examples and closings as well as practice. And while the aforementioned elements are necessary, they’re not sufficient. Heck, Gagné talked about nine elements.

What I realize as I reflect is that I like models that have the appropriate amount of complexity for the level of description they’re talking about. Yet I’ve seen far too many models that are cute (some actually spell words) and include some important ideas but they’re not comprehensive for what they cover. The problem, of course, is that you need to understand enough to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. I’ll suggest to look to vetted models, that are supported by folks who know, and there are criticisms and accolades to accompany them. Read the criticisms, and see if they’re valid. Otherwise, the model may be useful.

Ok, one other thing bothered me. This model supposedly has support from neuroscience. However, as I’ve expressed before, there have yet to be results that aren’t already made from cognitive science research. This, to me, is just marketing, with no real reason to include it except to try to make it more trendy and appealing. A warning sign, to me at least.

Look, designing for learners is complex. Good models help us handle this complexity well. Bad ones, however, can mislead us into only paying attention to particular bits and create insufficient solutions. When you’re looking at simple models and complex problems, you need to keep an eye out for help, but maybe it needs to be a jaundiced eye.

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The problem is that organizations have a structure that is largely to meet short-term needs. For instance, there are pressures to return short-term shareholder benefits, at least in publicly traded companies. Even private organizations are liable to want to reward the founder. There are few enough examples of folks that are taking a bigger perspective.

And, to be clear, I’m not denying the need for efficiencies. That’s a given. The issue instead, to me, is one of whether those efficiencies generate short-term returns, or instead will yield long-term benefits.

For example, when the pandemic hit, lots of orgs were struggling to find ways to continue operations when suddenly everyone had to stay remote. I argued that if you’re going through a digital transformation, you should start with an organizational transformation. My reasoning was that digitizing an old way of doing things was only going to be a short-term fix. What I saw was that this big upheaval was an opportunity for redesign. Not surprisingly, this wasn’t an effective pitch. People needed to fix things now! Yet, the orgs that survived the pandemic best were the ones that had a good culture to survive the enforced digital operation.

Similarly, I see many orgs focusing on ‘leadership development. That’s not a bad thing, mind you. Well, if you get past the Leadership BS (thought I’d written about this, but I can’t find it ;). Yet, most of what we see is expensive and highly interactive. Which sounds great, but it doesn’t scale. Our colleague JD Dillon is starting a book for frontline workers, which I laud. Yet there’s an intermediate level we’re guilty of neglecting. Again, a short term perspective.

Managers, data says, are the biggest reason people leave. Als0, most managers are promoted from the front line, and yet pretty much all of them are novices when it comes to management. Yet, our management training is idiosyncratic. More, our colleague Will Thalheimer recently suggested in an LDA event, that little in leadership development covers how to facilitate learning for your folks. Yet, hat’s one of the best things to help employees think their managers actually care for them (c.f. Self-Determination Theory). Moreover, there are so many managers that can benefit from training (and increasingly, leadership is viewed as something that needs to be present throughout the organization).

There are problems trying to deliver manager training at scale. We see demand, but it’s hard to deliver, particularly cost-effectively. Technology is part of the solution, but to make it work takes (wait for it) a long term perspective. These are only two examples, from the area of learning and development that I largely work and play in.  I’d argue that, for instance, the shift to a learning organization would be one of the best investments you could make. Well, for the long term ;). That’s the type of transformation that would be greatly augmented by a subsequent digital enablement. But without that initial refocus, the digitization will continue to support hierarchy, lack of transparency, and other factors that interfere with ongoing innovation and success.

I’d welcome hearing that most organizations are working on both the short- and long-term, but I’m skeptical. And more than willing to be wrong!  I’ll merely reiterate the point the late Jay Cross would make; investing in your people’s ability to learn is probably the best one you can make. In the tradeoff of short term thinking versus long term benefits, it seems obvious to me that playing the long game is the right way. That, at least, makes sense to me. What am I missing?

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To start, the notion is that it’s learning at the moment of need. Which sounds good. Yet, do we really need learning? The idea Jay pointed to in his book Informal Learning, was talking about Gloria Gery’s work on helping people in the moment. Which is good! But is it learning? Gloria was really talking about performance support, where we’re looking to overcome our cognitive limitations. In particular, memory, and putting the information into the world instead of in the head. Which isn’t learning! It’s valuable, and we don’t do it enough, but it’s not learning.

Why? Well, because learning requires action and reflection. The latter can just be thinking about the implications, or in Harold Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery model, it’s about experimenting and representing. In formal learning, of course, it’s feedback. I’ve argued we could do that, by providing just a thin layer on top of our performance support. However, I’ve never seen same!  So,  you’re going to do, and then not learn. Okay, if it’s biologically primary (something we’re wired to learn, like speaking), you’re liable to pick it up over time, but if it’s biologically secondary (something we’ve created and aren’t tuned for, e.g. reading) I’d suggest it’s less likely. Again, performance is the goal. Though learning can be useful to support comprehending context and  making complex decisions, what we’re good at.

What is problematic is the notion of workflow and reflection in conjunction. Simply, if you’re reflecting, you’re by definition out of the workflow! You’re not performing, you’re stopping and thinking. Which is valuable, but not ‘flow’. Sure, I may be overly focused on workflow being in the ‘zone’, acting instead of thinking, but that, to me, is really the notion. Learning happens when you stop and contemplate and/or collaborate.

So, if you want to define workflow to include the reflection and thoughtful work, then there is such a thing. But I wonder if it’s more useful to separate out the reflection as things to value, facilitate, and develop. It’s not like we’re born with good reflection practices, or we wouldn’t need to do research on the value of concept mapping and sketch noting and how it’s better than highlighting. So being clear about the phases of work and how to do them best seems to me to be worthwhile.

Look, we should use performance support where we can. It’s typically cheaper and more effective than trying to put information into the head. We should also consider adding some learning content on top of performance support in times where people knowing why we’re doing it as much as what we should do is helpful. Learning should be used when it’s the best solution, of course. But we should be clear about what we’re doing.

I can see arguments why talking about workflow learning is good. It may be a way to get those not in our field to think about performance support. I can also see why it’s bad, leading us into the mistaken belief that we can learn while we do without breaking up our actions. I don’t have a definitive answer to “is workflow learning a myth” (so this would be an addition to the ‘misconceptions’ section of my myths book ;). What I think is important, however, is to unpack the concepts, so at least we’re clear about what learning is, about what workflow is, and when we should do either. Thoughts?

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What are the essential elements of feedback? Well, it should be on the performance, not the individual. It should be model-based, in that you should be using models to explain how to perform, showing examples of the model being used in context, and then asking the learner to use them. The feedback, then, uses the model to explain why what went right, or what went wrong. Also, it should be minimal other than that.

So, here I tried to show that the individual (or group, hmm) produces output. That output is evaluated by the model to ascertain correctness, or not. (Not the individual!) If the answer’s wrong, you say why, and then the right answer. If it’s right, you just reinforce the right answer.

Of course, this representation doesn’t convey the minimal aspect. It’s also not clear about using the model in the feedback. Still, so far it’s a representation I can talk to. So, this is my first stab at diagramming feedback. I welcome same!

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Besides Kahnemann’s Fast & Slow book, I’ve also talked about fast and slow innovation. Fast is where you have a specific problem to solve, or product to design, or thing to research, and you do so. Slow is the innovation that happens because you create opportunities for new ideas to flourish: making it safe, keeping the ‘adjacent possible’ open, facilitating creative friction, etc. Similarly, in my writing, I use both marathons and sprints. What do I mean?

So, I tend to have reasonably long time-frames for writing. I now blog once a week, and I tend to queue these up a week or two in advance. My books, of course, when I’m working on them, have deadlines months ahead. Presentations, too, are a form of communication. Overall, I tend to have months between proposals and when I have to deliver them. Occasionally, I’m asked for something on a short time frame, but even that’s several days.

And, in my life, I tend to have time (typically, in the morning) to respond to short term requirements, and also time to nick away at the longer term requirements. I’ve become relatively good at leaving projects open to contribute to them as I can. So, largely, this is the ‘marathon’ life. That is, I take care of details, and then take time to polish off the bigger projects. Which, I acknowledge, is a luxury. The tradeoff is that I haven’t had a secure income for most of the past 2.5 decades ;).

What also happens is that, at some point in my nicking away at a project, it comes together. The picture that’s been gestating finally emerges. Then, I tend to suddenly find myself grinding it out. It could be a chapter, a book, a presentation, or just an article, but ultimately it takes shape. That said, for my most recent tome, an iterative process emerged. I kept sending out the latest version to someone else, and rearranging it based upon their feedback. That is, until I realized that the latest rearrangement felt truly right, and I was done!

This varies, of course. Sometimes I’m asked for something short term, and then I tend to fall back on things I’ve already thought through. This blog, as I’ve mentioned in many ways, forces me to think through things (looking to keep it fed and not repeat myself too much). I don’t mind this, as it still forces me to rearticulate, which often forces me to rethink, which is a good thing! In my reprocessing, I’m not only cementing my understanding, but frequently deepening it!

Overall, however, this cycle of marathons and sprints works. The longer term processing provides the basis for the short-term sprints. As it is, I’m usually as productive as anyone else (possibly more), yet it seems like there’s a lot of time of me just musing. Percolation (fermentation, incubation, pick your metaphor) is a good thing! As a reflection, this strikes me as right. It also strikes me as a prescription: break things up, ensure you have enough time for the big things, and take time to reflect. It works for me! And, I realize, it’s contrary to much of organizational life, which to me says more about organizational life than how you (should) think.

(BTW, in real life, I was always better the longer I had to run; I was usually the slowest person in my phys ed classes in sprints! At least on land…) 

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Google Docs. I write, a lot. And, increasingly, I want others to weigh in. I am cranky that I have to choose a tool instead of just going to one place to collaborate,  and I struggle with the file structure of Drive, but the feature set within Docs is good enough to support collaborative writing. And collaborative work in general is something I strongly advocate for. Collective intelligence, as Nigel Paine refers to it. For myself, however, – articles, books –  I still use…

Microsoft Word. I’m not a big fan of the parent company (they have glommed on to the current plan for subscriptions, which makes financial sense but is a bad customer experience), and it’s not the writing tool that Scrivener is, but I’m so familiar with it (started using circa 1988) and the outlining is industrial strength (a feature I love and need). It’s the start of most of my writing.

Apple Freeform.  I still use Omnigraffle, but I’m keen to support free tools, and this one’s proprietary format isn’t any worse than any others. I could use Google Draw, I suppose, particularly when collaborating, but somehow folks don’t seem to collaborate as much around diagrams. Hmm…

WordPress. This is the tool I use to write these blog posts. It’s a way for me to organize my thinking. Yes, it’s writing too, but it’s for different types of writing (shorter, more ‘in the moment’ thoughts). While the comments here are fewer, they still do come. Announcements get auto-posted to LinkedIn, Mastodon, & Bluesky.

LinkedIn. This is where I get more comments than, these days, I do on my blog. Plus, we use it to write and talk about the Learning Development Accelerator and Elevator 9. I follow some folks, and connect with lots. It remains my primary business networking tool. Feel free to connect with me (if you’re in L&D strategy ;).

Mastodon & Bluesky. Yes, this counts as two, but I use them very similarly. Since the demise of Twitter (eX), I’ve looked for an alternative, and regularly stay with these two. They’re (slightly) different; Mastodon seems a bit more thoughtful, Bluesky is more dynamic, but they’re both ways to stay in touch with what people are thinking, largely outside the L&D space. Still haven’t found all my peeps there, but I’m Quinnovator (of course) on both.

News Apps/Sites. I’m also learning via news apps, again staying up with what’s happening in the larger world. So, I get Yahoo News because one email is there. Also, I check some sites regularly: ABC (Australia, not US), BBC, and Apple News (because it’s on my iPad). I’m counting this as one because otherwise it’d overwhelm my count.

Apple Mail. I subscribe to a few newsletters, mostly on learning science, and some blogs. They come in email (directly or via Feedblitz). This is all part of Harold Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery elements of Seek – Sense – Share, and these are updated regularly but are part of the seek. Some of the writing I do is the sharing. Making sense is the above writing, diagramming, and…

Apple Keynote. Creating presentations for webinars, workshops, speaking engagements such as keynotes, and the like is another way I make sense of the world. So, having a good tool to create them is critical, and Keynote works more the way I think than PowerPoint does.

So that’s it, my 10. It may not work for Jane’s categorization (sorry!), but it captures the way I think about it. Please do share yours, too! (There are more ways than writing a post, so find the one that works for you.)

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Amongst the things I’ve been doing is serving as Chief Learning Strategist for Upside Learning. That was a role where they had me evangelizing learning science in L&D, and working with them internally to deliver on it. It was a good situation; their CEO, Amit Garg, really cares about learning science, and the folks I worked with were really stellar. We did videos, blog posts, ebooks, conference presentations, and demos. I did internal and external webinars as well. Even some client work!

However, in an announcement this morning, they have been acquired (so I can now say this out loud), and my relationship with them ends. The boost in funding is a good situation for an organization that can benefit from a boost, and for Amit of course earning returns on his hard work.

What this means is, of course, that Quinnovation has a bit more bandwidth than I did before. I’m still continuing in my role as co-director of the Learning Development Accelerator, and board advisor to Elevator9. And, I have existing and some pending business with clients through Quinnovation. If there’s an org that wants to actively promote (and practice) learning science, I’m happy to hear. Otherwise, if your organization has a need for some guidance around the cognitive and learning sciences for L&D and innovation, let’s talk!  Those are the current changes at Quinnovation (but probably not the last ones ;). Stay curious, my friends!

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So, let’s start with myths. These, I claim, are things that have been shown not to have value by empirical research. There are studies that have examined these claims, and found them to not have data to support them. For instance, accommodating learning styles is a waste. Yes, we know people differ in learning, but we don’t have a reliable base. Moreover, people’s choices to work for (or against) their style don’t make a difference in their learning. Some of the instruments are theoretically flawed as well as psychometrically invalid.

What’s the harm? I’ll suggest several ways in which myths harm us. For one, they can cause people to spend resources (money & time)  addressing them that won’t have an impact. It’s a waste! We can also characterize people in ways that limit them; for instance if they think they learn in a particular way, they may avoid a topic or invest effort in an inappropriate way to learn it. Investing in unproven approaches also perpetuates them, propagating the beliefs to others.

Superstitions, as I define them, are beliefs nobody would claim to believe, yet somehow persist in our practices. For instance, few will claim to believe that telling is sufficient to achieve behavior change. Yet, we continue to see information presentation and knowledge test, such as “awareness” training. Why? This is a waste of effort. There aren’t outcomes from these approaches. Typically, they are legacies of expectations from previous decades, yet business practices haven’t been updated. Still, to the extent that we continue these practices, even while decrying them, we’re again wasting time and money. Maybe we tick boxes and make people happy, but we can (and should) do better.

The final category is misconceptions. These are beliefs that some hold, and others decry. They aren’t invalid, but they only make sense in certain circumstances. I suggest that those who defy them don’t have the need, and those who tout them are in the appropriate circumstance. What matters is understanding when they make sense, and then using them, or not, appropriately. If you avoid them when they make sense, you may make your life harder. If you adopt them when they’re not appropriate,  you could make mistakes or waste money.

At the end of the day, the damage done is the cost of wasting money and time. Understanding the choices is critical. To do so best, you can and should understand the underlying cognitive and learning sciences. You should also track the recognized translators of research into practice who can guide you without you having to read the original academese. To be professional in our practice, we need to know and use what’s known, and avoid what’s dubious. Please!

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In this book, she uses examples to vibrantly talk about failure, and how it’s an important part of life. She goes on to talk about different types of failure, and the situations they can occur in, creating a matrix. This allows us to look at when and how to fail. Along the way, she talks about self, situational, and systemic failure.

One of the important takeaways, which echoes a point Donald Norman made in Design of Everyday Things, is that failure may not be our fault! Too often, bad design allows failure, instead of preventing it. Moreover, she makes the point that we have a bad attitude towards failure, not recognizing that it’s not only part of life, but can be valuable!  When we make a mistake, and reflect, we can learn.

Of course, there are simple mistakes. I note that there’s some randomness in our architecture, e.g. To Err is Human. But also, there can be factors we haven’t accounted for, like bad design, or things out of our control. At the most significant level, she talks about complex systems, and how they can react in unpredictable ways. Along the way, what counts as ‘intelligent’ failure is made clear. Some fails are smart, others are not justified.

She also talks about how experiments are necessary to understand new domains. This is, in my mind, about innovation. She also gives prescriptions, at both the personal and org level. Dr. Edmondson talks about the value of persistence, taking ‘good enough’, but also not taking it too personally. She also talks about sharing, as Jane Bozarth would say: Show Your Work. This is for both calling out problems and sharing failure.

Along with a minor quibble about the order in which she presents a couple things, a more prominent miss, to me, is a small shift in focus. She talks about celebrating the ‘pivot’, where you change direction. However,  I’d more specifically celebrate the learning. That is, whether we pivot or not, we say that learning something is good. Of course, I’m biased towards learning, but I’d rather celebrate the learning. Yes, we possibly would do something different, and celebrating action is good, but sharing the learning means others can learn from it too. Maybe I’m being too pedantic.

Still, this is another in her series of books exploring organizational improvement and putting useful tools into our hands. We can, and should expect to not get everything right all the time, and instead should be focusing on failing right. Recommended.

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My late friend, Jay Cross, once wrote a post that said something to the effect of: “if you want to have better health, lose weight…<and a litany of other health benefits>…start walking.”  My reasons are in addition to that, actually. I also believe strongly in sleep. (Let me be clear, not sleep walking, of which I have no knowledge.) So here’re some thoughts on sleep & walking.

First, let’s talk sleep. I don’t know why (self-justification?), but I’ve regularly tracked the research on sleep. And, I find some robust results:

• Most of us really are best off with 8 hours of sleep
• Reading in the same place you sleep means you don’t read nor sleep as well
• Keeping a regular sleep schedule helps
• Naps are good

Also, of course, most people don’t do this. Personally, I try. It used to be about optimizing performance, but these days it’s more about maintaining performance! I can nap, though I usually don’t need to because of the first three. Also, I do try to get my eight hours (and am generally successful). I definitely don’t read in bed (tho’ occasionally I’ll get up to write something down so it’s off my brain and I can go back to sleep). And I try to be pretty regular in my sleep. I’m just following what’s recommended, and it seems to work. There’s more I’m not necessarily so good at, of course.

When it comes to walking, I don’t get it every day. That’s ok, because I try to exercise 5 days a week, and 3 of those are to use my torture device, er, exercise machine. Which I now do for 30 minutes 3 times a week, per the doc who asked for that much time at >100 beats per minute. As well as two strength things and some physio things to counteract my sedentary work life. I was doing 20+ minutes, with High Intensity Interval Training (10 of those mins are 30 secs intense, 30 secs not), and that’s still the case. I just extended the cool down.

The other two days a week I walk (sometimes more if we do it on our weekend). I have a set route, so my mind can be free. Annie Murphy Paul, whose book The Extended Mind I cited in my recent ‘post cognitive’ presentation (requires free membership) for the LDA, talks about the benefits of being out in nature. Of course, my walk is through my neighborhood, but it’s a bit wild (no sidewalks; wild animals can be spotted such as turkeys, hawks, quail, the occasional coyote).

My rationale for walking, however, in addition to health, is time to think! I come up with blog post topics, resolve questions, and more. Further, I don’t have headphones on, deliberately, so I’m aware but also allow what comes to mind. I also walk on the left side of the road, to face oncoming traffic, both a good idea and the law. (Too often I see folks walking with earphones, on the wrong side of the road, sometimes even with animals on a leash or a kid in a stroller! Yikes!)

We know that having time to reflect works. Being outside is also a boon. Together, it’s valuable time to think, as well as a healthy activity. I encourage you to follow good sleep practices and get in some walking (or equivalent, if there’re reasons that’s not possible). I’ve heard that walking conversations are also productive, but I work from home, so…

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog, already in progress.

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