After drinking the performance consulting Kool-Aid it struck me that the L&D focus was incomplete…and it still is…despite myriad Training innovations like MOOCs, micro-learning, mobile learning, virtual learning, and any other exotic blend you can name. No matter how we dressed it up, no matter how much lipstick, it was still Training. The myth continues to live on.
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Define the “DO” First
When you consider how quickly business is moving, and the need for an agile and resilient workforce represents minimum criteria for creating sustained capability, the rules of engagement have clearly changed. Training cannot keep pace; scope and charter just do not match up when our new ground zero is located downstream in the post-training world…at the point of work…at the moment of need.
I have never met ANYONE on the operational side of the business who is satisfied with “potential”. No one on the operational side of the business gets compensated for “potential”. They don’t want a training graduate who knows that they need to use a shovel to dig a hole…they want somebody coming out of training who can dig a freaking hole…and more perfect the hole, the better.
Training tactics are slowly changing. Events are shrinking in size. MOOCs are unhooking linearity as a design concept. Learning is being “bursted” and “microed” in more granular chunks. More video is being embedded. Things are getting more social and collaborative, but the “T” word still seems to be central to the mission. We are still Training. Knowledge retention is still the enemy.
More emphasis is needed in the downstream, post-training work context where Performers confront moments of need that do not conform to what we build storyboards to address. Transferring knowledge through linear learning is great for raising awareness, but sustained capability in the form of consistent performance results happens downstream at the point of work. That’s where the rules of engagement have changed.
Embedded Performer Support [EPS] is the discipline we so desperately need to integrate into our Training efforts. Notice that I did NOT say we should walk away from or stop Training. We still have a need to train our people, and always will, but when training only serves as the primer, we have to consider there are still coats of paint that must be applied after the primer has dried.