In a previous life, I worked for a large medical equipment manufacturer and was tasked to lead a team to improve leader development. We developed a Leadership Academy that had a replicable 10-point Organizational Change Management [OCM] model as part of the curricula. I’ve found the OCM model instrumental in positioning new innovative, and even disruptive…or should I say especially disruptive…enterprise initiatives. Embedded Performer Support [EPS] is as innovative and disruptive as they come.
Tag: EPS
We know everyone leaving our class on “Digging the Perfect Hole” knows which end of a shovel to hold and the finer conceptual points of digging a very fine hole. With confidence we can say they have the potential to actually dig one. Heck, we have proof; they loved the course per our smile sheets, and they passed the test with flying colors. Houston, we have the promise of potential! We also have a high degree of false competency.
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.
Building competency is a journey. It is a journey that extends well beyond the formal learning event [Training] and into the post-training work context where there is no longer any safety net. Mistakes at this level cost money. Mistakes are part of learning. How much learning can one afford at the hands of mistakes?
MOOCs came from an academic birthright, and they are structured to accomplish the transfer of knowledge in some very innovative “flipped classroom” approaches that are less structured and open to participants to discover and learn through multiple forms of content delivery, media and venues. Perfect. This will work in the corporate world as well. My question is why stop there? Let’s flip the whole dynamic learning and support ecosystem, not just the classroom.
Implementing Embedded Performer Support [EPS] can be as daunting a task as eating an entire elephant. Not sure I’d ever want to eat an elephant, but if I did, it would be one bite at a time versus scarfing down the whole thing. One bite at a time rings true for implementing EPS as well. Keep in mind that EPS is not a technology [though technology may well be part of the effort]; EPS is a discipline.
We were eating lunch on a Wednesday when the elevator music was disrupted with an urgent announcement, “This is a code yellow alert – Repeat – This is a code yellow alert!” My colleagues all went to the laminated cards that hung around our necks The appropriate response needed to be timely; needed to trigger agility, and needed to be acted upon flawlessly. Or, as in my example…some knucklehead just spilled something that could kill us all…so run like hell…NOW! That was perfect EPS.