"In a system, the best way to treat a problem is seldom where the problem appears, because of the interaction of the parts." Donella H. Matthews The 'problems' in corporate learning are inevitably framed and defined by the people already in corporate learning. This group think leads to a familiar list of problems that inevitably can't be solved: 'We need a 'learning culture' 'We need to stop taking orders from 'the business'' 'We need to become performance led' 'We need to stop defaulting to training as the only solution' 'We need to stop creating more content' 'The new technology didn't deliver as promised.' These examples are not 'the problems' of course - they are symptoms - simply features of the current system.  Instead, we can choose to look at the interaction of the different parts of the system - that have created these outputs over time. These might include: How leaders have create

"You can get anybody to agree anything in a workshop but if you don't change the social context, it all changes when they get back (to work)." Dave Snowden We can shift the performance of organisations and potentially the performance of the individuals within it if we focus on the underlying system.  This would lead us to put effort, time and resources against: Challenging and evolving the assumptions and beliefs of leaders who own the system Choosing to re-imagine and reset organisational goals  Choosing to reset policies, process and measurement systems to enable the new organisational goals Choosing to change the current organisational rules around incentives and rewards to align with the new organisational goals  Choosing to change the way that information, ideas and feedback flows through the organisation. However, this is demanding, politically sensitive, 'risky', long term, collaborative work. (And mostly counter intuitive to industrial leaders who benefit

"A lack of transformative change cannot be compensated by working harder (or funding harder) at incremental change." Dr Elizabeth Sawin I'd argue there are only two types of 'transformative' ambition in 'corporate learning': 1. Actively working to change the environment. This means L&D leaders deliberately working and lobbying to change a current organisational system which limits continual learning and performance potential.  This is hard, (inevitably) politically dangerous, and brave work. It requires a systemic perspective and a willingness to move as far and as fast as needed with leaders who will typically resist.  (What limits continual learning in most organisations - where 'learning' is re-defined beyond education - are choices of policies, processes, incentives, rewards, and measurement).  Where changing the environment is too much, too soon - or clearly futile: 2. Actively working to re-set design standards to maximise performance i

"You can change the way people get what they want. Or you can change what they want." Seth Godin As we head into another 'strategic planing' season for corporate L&D teams, it's worth reflecting that their previous efforts have never changed what most organisational leaders want from them: Familiarity Control Certainty 'Delivered' through: Project plans Content and comms. Events A separation between 'learning' and working To ensure: No direct impact on leaders' own chosen priorities...

"The biggest obstacles are internal." Shane Parrish Here are some new questions for annual 'L&D' planning season: Are the challenges for our organisation technical or adaptive (or both)? What are the specific features of 'readiness' for our organisation? How much of the value we create for customers is from known, stable, work and processes? Is this changing? How fast? How much time and resource is invested in asking new questions and identifying new possibilities? Is this deliberate? Do people always fulfil their potential here? Why? Do we trust our employees? How willing are we to change what we do now - to get to where we say we want to be instead?

"All change must start in the heads and thinking of managers. Unfortunately, this is unusual. Systems thinking is necessary. Unfortunately, silo thinking and suboptimisation are still the norm." Jan Jensrud Most leaders view their organisation in the 'technical' paradigm. Put simply, their business is a set of processes and structures (however poorly defined) which can be improved by 'fixing' or 'changing' in some way.  In this model, leaders are (inevitably) assumed to be the 'experts' and so the focus of the work beneath them is on executing their plans. Organisational development initiatives are (inevitably) approached in the same way. This breeds the default diet of centralised programmes, a focus on individuals, compliance, 'topics' (AKA 'skills'), content creation, and 'success' measured through activity (course completions) and reaction ('smile sheets'). First fact: The choice of management model determine

"I think people in power have a vested interest to oppose critical thinking." Carl Sagan Most people in organisational learning are only busy working in the current system - doing what is expected, incentivised, and rewarded.  Every year the work is a combination of: Creating new 'programmes' and 'content' in response to new requests Finding new ways to 'market' the learning 'programmes' and 'content'  Introducing new technologies to create new 'programmes' and 'content' faster and / or cheaper Finding new ways to report on people's activity and reaction to the 'programmes' and 'content' Finding ways to run the 'programmes' and 'content' more cheaply. What would need to change for there to be appetite, ambition and capacity to work ON the system instead?

"In my opinion, you begin with understanding performance, not learning. What exceptional performance looks like and what is hindering or helping it. If we start with a learning focus, we start with the intention to create and/or add something new (i.e. content), when we should start by understanding what barriers exist to exceptional performance and how to remove them." Mark Britz In most organisations, the system ('the way the work works') results in a focus on 'Learning' rather than on enabling better performance.  The 'Learning' zone is a vague and therefore comfortable place for those who operate within it and benefit from maintaining it.  The 'Learning' zone is clearly separated from the 'supporting performance in the work zone' (which is dependant on defining operational performance standards)  and The (true) training zone (which is dependant on facilitating realistic practice and authentic ongoing feedback). The 'Learning'

"Bureaucracy is a construction designed to maximise the distance between a decision-maker and the risk of the decision." Nicholas Taleb In most organisations 'Talent' and its 'Management' are now bureaucratic terms. They typically cover one or more of the following: 'Talent': A more socially acceptable word for 'employees'. An employee defined by leaders as of more value to the organisation than other employees, based on the definitions of 'valuable' that leaders have decided to use. 'Talent Management': Acknowledgement of an employees' potential (although not currently being fully realised). Encouraging people to join the organisation (recruitment) - new people that leaders think will do the things that need to be done in the way leaders want them done. Reassigning existing employees to new roles (internal job moves) - to do the things that leaders need to be done in the way leaders want them done. Grouping employees agains

"Stop looking for who's to blam e, instead starting askin g 'What is the System?'" Donella Meadows “Productivity” - "Learning better and faster" “Efficiency” - "Ease with which people can connect with those who can help and be helped “Problem solving” - "Sense making" “ROI” - "Increase in the level of enrolment as a result of our work together" “Digital Transformation” - "Moving responsibility into the hands of those closest to customers” “Centralised / Standardised” - "Trusting people to lead collaboratively" “Business Requirements” - "Striving for new insight and reflections" “Success measurement” - "Quality of interactions and their positive impact on customers" “Solutions” - "Enabling all parts to work together creatively"  “Delivery” - "Self starting, ownership" “Being granted the authority to...” - "Choosing to take responsibility". 

'Lamentably, business remains grounded in a slow-to-change mid-twentieth century 'scientific management' zeitgeist. What we have learned from the sciences since then - emergence and complexity, network science, and behavioural economics readily come to mind - has only made the slightest dent in how businesses are run. The fact is, despite what we have learned in the last 100 years about the world and human nature, businesses are organised around the premises and principles that are, at best, arbitrary vestiges of bronze-age hierarchies, and, at the worst, mechanisms intended to coerce and control the majority for the benefit of the few. As Clay Shirky once wrote, institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.' Stowe Boyd I think this quote is such a beautiful summary of my own thinking and indirectly, the overall theme of this blog over the past six years.  A recent family bereavement and some time away have found me reflecting more deeply