So…you just bought a new LMS. The sales dude/dudette left days ago with promises still echoing in your head. Your Help Desk phone rings alomost immediately after GoLive, and some knucklehead wants a report that does not come standard on the LMS. Imagine that. Part of me wants to go…BWAH-HA-HA-HA…but another part of me was the owner of several LMSs at different companies…and the same knucklehead worked at each one. Imagine that.. None of the LMSs report on what you will be asked for…trust me. Phone rings again and again…and again with users unable to find anything on this “bleeping” system. Yeah…and it only gets better. This post is about what the LMS sales pros, regardless of gender, will neglect to tell you. Enjoy a few lessons learned that just might make life easier…
Category: Rants, Random Thoughts, & Ramblings
The point of work is a different, evolving venue for the consumption of learning assets, especially when we could consider mentor/mentee or apprentice/master craftsman relationships as “learning assets”. These different venues can be as “social” as they are downloadable asset-equipped. This evolution is a full 1,600-meter race, and the evolving venue has a ton of implications on the design, development, delivery, and/or accessibility of these assets. In fact, ADDIE needs to shed a few pounds and become more agile…producing content that is a little more nimble…a little more downstream-thinking in order to address the where, when, and how learning assets may be consumed.
Those are words a parent never wants to hear. After enduring sixteen hours of labor, my wife delivered our son, and due to general anesthesia from an emergency C-section, I was the first of us to see him. I can only imagine what the doctor and nurses must have thought, because he was one ugly baby. But this book is not about babies. It is about training. And in the course of what you read here I just might refer to training as the “ugly baby”; however, not so much at the course-level, but at the level of our intentions for the role that baby plays in giving back to the organization later in the span of its life.
When we strip away products & services and the marketing glitz & glitter, what is left that sustains [or not] the viability of a business? My vote goes to – the workforce. Even if we do not strip these things away, I still feel strongly that the workforce is at the root of a successful sustainable business. Obviously, there are other external factors like the state of the economy, cost and availability of money, and other environmental drivers and restrainers, but even including them, the pressures and demands on the business to survive, much less flourish, still is largely dependent on the effectiveness of the workforce. Why then do we insist on training them where direct business impact is not part of the outcome?
When do you abandon a vision? How many times can you run into a wall before deciding to stop trying to get over, under, or around it? Have you ever reached a level of frustration that caused you to ask yourself questions like these? Attempting to usher in Change, especially the kind that smacks of innovation can prompt these questions if the Change is not properly positioned. Innovation can feel threatening when introduced as new technology or new methodology. Selling Change successfully redirects emphasis from the solution to the impact anticipated from it.
“Whoa….Mon…maybe it should be.” But then I ask myself – “Self, is that a knee-jerk reaction I alone hold as truth? I think any training organization needs to assess whether it is indeed a knee-jerk or a reality startle moment.
After thirty plus years in corporate training and cross-industry learning leadership roles, I can say with confidence that the velocity of change has been greater in the world of business operations than it has in the world of training. So…is this an indictment of the training profession? Absolutely not! It is a shot across the bow to forewarn that our job as professionals in the corporate learning space just got bigger than traditions we cling to like flotation devices in a water landing.
I like the concept of “re-thinking” training organizations based in HR, and I say this from personal work history primarily based in the training space over the last thirty plus years. The blended perspective I have comes from working both inside and outside of HR in training organizations. I found them to have a very different focus.
Certainly, this title may sound like blasphemy to some of us in the training business. On the other hand, it may be even more of a shock to those who depend upon those of us in the training business to drive improved performance in the organization. Following is a deceptively simple formula and an amusing story that illustrates why a successful training solution may render a false promise of improved performance:
Now that title should generate a ripple or two on the pond, especially when I have been so vocal about the need for just such a shift. So…is this post a confession that I have changed my mind? Not quite. Not even. If anything, I am more passionate than ever, but over the years, I […]