2019: A workplace learning odyssey

This month's Big Question from the Learning Circuits blog asks what workplace learning will look like in ten years time.

Ten years is a long time and you just have to read Slate's excellent description of what the internet was like in 1996 to get a feel for how much the world has changed in a very short space of time. More than that, if it was easy to imagine what paradigm busting technologies will crop up, I'd get out of the workplace learning game altogether and set up as a fund manager.

However, some handy help in that regard recently caused some discussion when Long Zheng over at the istartedsomething blog posted a video of what Microsoft thinks the future might look like.

Industrial differences, leaders and laggards

Of course, there's no one-size-fits-all answer to the question and although models will be drawn up and overarching theories will be put forward, they will ultimately be too high level to paint a picture that's easily applied in practice.

Workplace learning in a manufacturing setting will still be quite different from workplace learning in a software development company. Likewise, workplace learning in a large corporate will be different from that taking place in a small business.

If we look at workplace learning now, it's clear that there are leaders and laggards. I'm often inspired by some of the case studies I read about where organisations have taken a radically different approach to learning (Sun Microsystems, for example). They've recognised that it's not enough to simply offer a catalogue of courses on comminication skills or time management. All too often, however, I see L&D departments that treat their courses with proprietory jealousy and the very idea of making the course material available to everyone in the organisation whether they've attended a course or not is treated as an anathema. Change in these organisations will be slow to come and they are in the majority (at least, they are in the UK).

Predictions and trends

One reason I decided to have a stab at this was because it'll be interesting to look back in three or four years time and see just how wrong I can be. So, here are a few areas where I hope we see some significant change by 2019.

Meta-learning & analytical skills

There's a key problem in today's economy. People are not good at critically appraising information that is given to them. It's been around for a while but there's little excuse for it in an age where finding out whether something is substantive and accurate or not is easy.

Take a few of the modern business myths that still perpetuate despite having been based on misreported, or simply bad, research: 93% of communication is non-verbal, you only use 10% of your brain, there are left brain thinkers and right brain thinkers, some people are creative and others are not, generation Y are radically different from any other generation before them, Honey & Mumford's learning styles ... I could go on but it's too depressing.

The fact is that although people like reductionist, easy answers the reality is often magnificantly more complex. This is where being able to sort the wheat from the chaff is so important, especially in a world where memes spread like wildfire. Giving people the tools to do this will be a critical function of schools and universities but organisations will need to help people hone these skills - perhaps a job for workplace learning professionals.

Emphasis will be placed on learning how to use new tools and critically appraise information and ideas.

Performance support rather than training

There's not much doubt that learning what you need, when you need it is far better than going on a training course cramming information in your head that you won't use for five or six months.

Take Microsoft Excel. I remember going on an Advanced Excel course many moons ago and being rushed through a plethora of its startlingly varied advanced functions. I didn't use half of it and when I need to do some serious spreadsheet data analysis now, I have the slighly clunky help function, a myriad of discussion boards and a network to tap into in order to help me. That is true performance support. I get the information I need, when I need it and it's far more rich and specific to my needs than that course ever was.

It's not just computer skills though. Take tricky management situations that you've not dealt with before. Would a 'first line management' course properly prepare you for all the weird and wonderful challenges that every manager faces from time to time? Not in my experience and I've been on far too many. Again, when a manager faces one of these challenges, there are some great sites out there to get some initial framing information, networks to tap into in order to get advice and, in most organisations, there's some form of HR support to help out. 

By 2019, I sincerely hope that we've done away with our linear driven courses for managers and, instead, given them the tools to work out for themselves what the best way forward is. As online support becomes more and more sophisticated, and natural language search tools improve, the need for course on disciplinary and grievance can be massively reduced. What's the point of sending a manager on a course about a disciplinary hearing if they don't have to carry one out for eighteen months? Wouldn't it be better for them to get the support in the form of online tools and some pre-disciplinary coaching?

Performance support will be built into the workflow and take the form of online tools, networks and coaching.

Tapping into networks

I mentioned networks twice when talking about performance support. Although in the consumer space networking tools are booming, in the corporate world there's still a very long way to go. Early adopters are already reaping the benefits of leveraging the likes of LinkedIn and Twitter,  but adoption in the mainstream isn't going to happen for a few years yet.

Let me give you an example. My four closest friends all have successful careers in a variety of industries. All of them are knowledge workers and all of them are sophisticated users of technology. I'm the only one who's using Twitter or anything like it. Most of my friends don't see the point and won't even consider it yet. In fact, of the people in my immediate social network (family or those to whom I have close friendships), the only ones who use online networking tools are those who work in the same company as me.

The others are my tie to reality. It's easy to get carried away by the feedback you hear from fellow enthusiasts - the reality is that the majority of the working population has some way to go.

 New technologies will make it all far more accessible. Video and voice will become far more important for networking online as bandwidth and memory become less of an obstacle. Improvements in search technologies will mean that video and voice will be searchable, further reducing the ties we have at the moment to text when networking online. Improved mobile technology will realease people even more from their PCs and their keyboards so that networking will be just as easy from anywhere.

By 2019, the lessons of social and professional networking will have been learned and more sophisticaed tools will be available. The key to this will be the ability to cut through the chatter and pull out the key messages, to get to the right people when you need them.

Social and professional networks will be a key source of learning, finally. It'll be about hearing and seeing people and it will be far more mobile.

And as for the training department ...

I think there will always be a need for learning professionals of some sort and, in many organisations, they will still be there in much the same format as they are today in 2019. The sort of radical change that some are suggesting is going to occur won't permeate everywhere for quite some time - there's too much internal politics to content with.

However, I do think many L&D departments will be smaller and their outputs will be far more aligned with performance than they are at the moment. Some will absorbed into HR departments determined to take a more holistic approach to performance improvement, incorporating reward, talent management as well as workplace learning. Many of the learning professionals who focus on delivery will move into the coaching sphere where there will still be a high demand.

There will be closer ties to the IT function who will have finally realised that if they don't help in delivering new social technologies, any influence over them will be taken out of their hands. These closer links will require learning professionals to have a better understanding of the technologies that are available so they can utilise them in driving performance improvement.

The greater emphasis on performance improvement will finally mean that an evidence based approach will settle into the DNA of most workplace learning departments. That approach will enable a greater desire to experiment, coupled with an expedient attitude to cutting initiatives that simply don't work.

Functions dealing with workplace learning will be more performance focussed, more evidence focussed, more holistic and more flexible.

Paradigm busters

It's fun thinking about the future and what possibilities it may bring but if the events of the last 18 months have taught us anything, it's that the world is a far less predictable place than we ever thought it was.

The only prediction I'll make with any confidence is that the biggest game changer in the next ten years hasn't even been thought of yet ...

Contribution vs competence: why we should speak up a bit more

Over the last couple of weeks, one study by Anderson and Kilduff has made me think more than most.

Time magazine covered it under the heading Competence: Is Your Boss Faking It?, while the excellent Mind Hacks blog ran a post about it under the heading Leadership can be based on quantity not quality.

The strange, though depressingly familiar,  finding is that it's not what a person contributes to a discussion that's important, but how often they contribute and how confidently they assert their opinion. Or, to put it in a more unflattering light, big mouths are seen as being smarter and more competent than they should be.

He who talks loudest ...

What does this all mean?

Well, for a start, it confirms a sneaking suspicion many of us have that a significant proportion of people in senior positions in organisations are there because of unflinching self-confidence in what they 'know', and how well they sell themselves and their ideas.

This combined with the overconfidence effect leads to a situation where an organisation's effectiveness is compromised. People often follow the guidance of the loud and confident, who in turn, often just follow their own lead, rather than listen carefully to those with better knowledge and skills, but less bombast. To cap it off, this unintentional ignorance is lauded and seen as 'leadership' (and a big thank you to the credit crunch for making the case for this statement all to easy).

New learning professionals need to speak out more

I see this happening in HR and L&D departments all the time. Those with more strident opinions seem to get the final say, hence the proliferation of 'communication skills' workshops with little or no follow up and a determined effort to ignore necessary change because it's too difficult to sway the opinion of the loud and confident people who lead the internal political landscape.

Learning 2.0 or elearning 2.0 or however you want to define it, is a movement that promotes a new approach to improving performance. It does this through a combination of improving (human) network connections, taking an enlightened approach to knowledge sharing, using an evidence based approach and utilising new technologies to achieve much of this.

However, the people leading this charge are often the sort that get frustrated with inertia in large organisations and leave to work independantly or for smaller organisations. This often leaves the big mouths unchallenged and the learning 2.0 crowd agreeing with each other from outside (for the record, I see great work being done in a few large organisations, but all too few).

There are many champions of the new learning approach in these large organisations but, because they are thoughtful and sensible and make considered statements rather than overconfident ones, they get drowned out by the self-confident big mouths. The Anderson & Kilduff study tells us that it's time to stand up, talk a lot and be confident with it because it doesn't matter how right you are, it's how much you say it.

Brain training: too good to be true? Of course it is

The Times reported that Nintendo's Brain Training programme was no better than simple simple mental exercises using pencil and paper this week. I can't say that I'm surprised.

What's disturbing, though, is the simplistic, black and white, good vs bad, style of reporting that seems to be getting worse all the time.

The claims about 'brain training' using whizzy new technology have always been overblown, aided by research such as the poorly constructed study championed by Learning and Teaching Scotland. Oh, it had plenty going for it - there was some kind of control group - but there were some fundamental flaws, not least of which was the lack of a study group who did the same mental exercises as the 'brain training' group, but using pen and paper instead.

Oh, and as for the group doing 'brain gym', well that's been discredited in so many ways, it's not even worth doing any more.

A slightly more rational view

It seems that the whole debate could do with a little perspective.

Is the Nintendo 'brain training better' than simple mental exercises such as a crossword or soduku? I doubt it.

Is it perhaps a little more fun and likely to engage kids (and adults)? I think you could argue it is, but I'd like to see a study into that - more worthwhile than additional research into ludicrous 'brain gym' nonsense.

Would I want the government to equip all schoolkids with with an expensive Nintendo DS? Definitely not, you can achieve the same level of engagement with games available on the PCs that schools already have.

If it looks too goo to be true ...

Those looking for technology to be the quick fix solution to complex problems like poor numeracy are always going to be heading for dissappointment. If there's a mantra that I'd subscribe to it's that 'I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that'. This is as true for those who tout Nintendo 'brain training' as for those who rubbish it and say that pencil and paper are just as good.

All those studies, every single one, will be subject to the pygmalion effect and the hawthorne effect wonderfully demonstrated by the fact that, in the study reported on in the Times, "children who had no specific training improved 20 per cent" in logic tests.

Last but not least, it does seem a little suspicious that Professor Lieury, who carried out the research that condemned 'brain training', has a book out called Stimulate Your Neurones this month. This isn't to say that his findings aren't valid, just that you should read the paper and decide for yourself (I haven't found it yet, so if you know where it is or have a copy please let me know!).

Who can you trust?

Tim Berners-Lee is worried. It seems there is a lot of information out there on the internet that isn't exactly accurate and something definitely needs to be done about it.

Let's be clear, there is a lot of inaccurate information on the internet, but the real question is what do you do about it?

Sir Tim himself apparently wants new systems that would give websites a label for trustworthiness once they had been proved reliable sources. Sounds like a mammoth bureaucratic task, not to mention one that would test the patience of Sisyphus.

And I can just imagine that there are hoards of HR people who, having already banned Facebook and Twitter, are just waiting to pounce on other 'untrustworthy' sites.

However, before we let them jump to that, let's first ask a few questions. For instance, what do you do about a site where the information is normally accurate, is given a rating to say you can trust it, and then gives out bogus information?

You can/can't trust the BBC? (delete as applicable)

Let's look at an example. There's been a lot of stuff written recently about 'Blue Monday', supposedly the most depressing day of the year. The BBC's run number of stories about it, including one just last week.

The problem is that it's total nonsense and has been discredited by a number sources, including the excellent badscience, mindhacks and freakonomics blogs.

So does the BBC lose its 'trustworthiness' rating? I'd rather it didn't since I quite like it, but my preference would be that it didn't have a rating at all.

And what about the whole Wikipedia/Encyclopaedia Britannica 'which-is-more-accurate?' storm in a tea-cup?

The inevitable and slightly boring truth

The internet already has a pretty good system of self-regulation. There are comments on blogs and for every site that claims the MBTI is brilliant, there's another that states that it's useless. Unfortunately, sorting the wheat from the chaff requires two key skills that are difficult to teach: analysis of evidence and critical appraisal.

Instead of worrying about labelling sites or having L&D departments spoon feeding employees with various courses designed by 'experts' (and please do look to find out what David Colquhoun thinks about some of these), we should be trying to improve people's ability to discern good evidence from bad and enabling them to make choices from a position of knowledge.

Where the trust should be placed

By all means edit, distil and give people a starting point - but let's trust them to find out for themselves what's nonsense and what isn't, what works and what doesn't.

The key to all of this though is giving them the tools to be able to do that quickly and accurately: (re)search skills, analytical approaches, a systematic approach to critically appraising evidence.

They sound grand, but finding things on the internet is easy, as is asking yourself 'how do I know that this claim is true'. And, if all else fails, I like to employ the best approach of all: I ask someone I trust.

Learning spaces - breaking down barriers

This weekend, I've read two articles about the impact that John Lasseter has been having at Disney since he became their Chief Creative Officer in 2006.

The reason he's back in the spotlight again is the release of the first Disney film since he took over but what I found interesting is his approach to recreating the same levels of creativity at Disney as he did, and still does, at Pixar.

This month's Total Film magazine carries a feature in which the writer describes how "Lasseter's name crops up pretty much every other sentence with everyone you speak to, his presence already sparking a quiet revolution".

Another example of an amazing leader with a secret recipe, impossible to reproduce?

Well, maybe, but there are some interesting actions he's taken resonate with examples that Jay Cross gives in his excellent book Informal Learning.

Facilitating interaction

Some of the main barriers to learning and creativity in organisations are those that prevent people from communicating with one another in a meaningful way.

At Disney, there were:

"a lot of offices, a lot of closed-door discussions and relatively little public collaboration."

What did Lasseter do about it?

"John came in and if there is a well that wasn't holding up the building, it was coming down."

The result is a studio full of open plan floors and positively abuzz with new found energy. Even the bathrooms and the water fountains have been strategically moved into more central locations to encourage staff interaction. Each feature in production now has its own 'hub' where everyone meets to chat, and the hubs are decorated to suit the production.

So let's get this straight, in comes this guy from Pixar to Disney and one of the first things he does is tear down walls and put water fountains in strategic places? It seems that two elements of Lasseter's 'secret recipe' are interaction and collaboration. Sound familiar?

Creativity courses?

Of course, that isn't all Lasseter brings to the table. He's constantly pushing for more from his people, always asking how to make the films better, funnier, more poignant. The focus is constantly on the end process and he's willing to try new things in order to improve.

However, these things that be different from any other industry: aren't we all constantly asking ourselves how to make things better?

There's a lesson to be learned from all of this for learning professionals.

Problems with creativity, like those with learning or performance, are often to do with the environment people work in. Managers will often bemoan the fact that their people 'aren't more creative' and ask for solution: maybe some training courses, maybe some new people. The smart learning/HR professional will start their analysis not with the people, but with the manager and the environment that the people work in. As John Lasseter seems to be showing at Disney, make some changes to that and the creativity that's in people already seems to come out just a little bit more easily.

Oxbridge and the BBC: National institutions evolving

One of the things that I like about blogging is that it's like a thought capture device for myself. I keep promising that I'll get better at just putting stuff in that I find interesting but never get around to it. Here, however, is a couple of things that have caught my attention recently.

More University learning goodness

Hot on the heals of my last post, the Oxbridge duo have started to produce some of their lectures on iTunes U.

Is is just me, or is Oxford streets ahead in terms of the content and design of their iTunes page?

The Beeb improves its search ... about time

The BBC website has improved its search. I meant to post about how it was the one aspect of the site that I found disappointing a couple of days ago as I was musing over the differences between 'search' vs 'navigating through content' when learning about stuff online. I'll post on that when I've got a bit more time but it looks like even just cleaning up the display of the results has improved things.

Higher Education ahead of the game?

Academics get a rough deal from the business community because they're often seen as being somewhat behind the times and out of touch with reality. Often this is because academics aren't afraid to use their sharp minds and ask plenty of questions to critically appraise an idea, proposal or sales pitch. Or, it's because they're quite cautious before making a claim about a new idea or discovery.

However, after years of seeming to be slow to adopt new approaches embraced by corporate learning professionals, the higher education sector seems to be trailing a blaze across the new learning landscape and a range of interesting approaches have taken off.

iTunes U

This isn't that new, but iTunes U now has a huge number of universities signed up to it, including the OU and ULC from the UK (although in coparison to the ~200 american universities this seems a pretty poor take up).

There's a wealth of interesting, advanced material on there for anyone who likes to learn.

Google Apps

A friend recently mentioned to me that the Bloomsbury Colleges consortium are running a project looking into the the use of Google Docs and other online document creation tools for students and university staff alike. They're calling it the APT STAIRS project (which stands for Appropriate and Practical Technologies for Students, Teachers, Administrators and Researchers).

I probably shouldn't be, but I'm pretty impressed that they've used Google Sites for the project site.

Any examples from UK PLC of this happening? I haven't heard of many, and just a few from the US (they all may have other things on their mind at the moment!)