Blind hand offs

"It is not an intelligent strategy to train people to overcome system deficiencies. Instead, we should design the system properly to make sure that performers can leverage all their capabilities."

Klaus Wittkhun

One of the key features of the (deliberately) disconnected status quo model for corporate learning is the resulting 'blind hand offs'.

To recap:

The approach to 'learning' remains separated from 'work' - with a myopic focus on formal courses and 'resources' (education)

This separation is facilitated and incentivised by people who reply on the status quo (leaders, vendors, and L&D teams and their annual budgets)

This approach is fundamentally anti-systemic. (If we acknowledge, investigate, and commit to adjust all the connected factors that contribute to individual and team performance we might conclude that most of the formal learning agenda and investment contributes very little...)

So the output of the formal learning agenda developed by the L&D team (courses, programmes, resources etc.) is inevitably blindly 'handed off' back into the same environment - with little chance of sustaining or enabling meaningful performance change.


I work as a thinking partner and advisor with mid sized, value oriented companies going through significant change. I help you to build new capability and mindsets through shifting your approach to organisational development.

Comments

Post a Comment

Please let me know your thoughts on this...

Popular posts from this blog

The human stuff is the basis of 'digital learning transformations'...

The human stuff is the basis of 'digital learning transformations'. The technology platforms are secondary. They work best when: They help to simplify or speed up what people have always done while working; (research / answer questions / share / store) They enable people to work in new ways that they have learned are more efficient and effective; (cooperatively / 'out loud' / across different teams) A 'digital mindset' for businesses could include these ideas: Constant change is inescapable - so it's curiosity and adaptability that create value in work teams New possibilities and solutions come from connecting many sources of information People can take responsibility for solving work problems Failing fast is helpful Creating wide and diverse networks of expertise and experience is crucial Customer ('end user') centricity keeps everyone better aligned Silos don't help Flatter, less hierarchical teams move ideas and solutions
Read more

Why organisations resist thinking of themselves as connected 'systems'

“In a world of separation and domination, systems thinking is subversive.” Dr Elizabeth Sawin The key to improving the work of organisations - and the contributions of the people in them - is to look at them as connected 'systems'. (Put another way, because improving the performance of individual silos won’t make the overall performance of the organisation any better). However nobody seems to want to do this. So, who’s resisting systems thinking? Executives don’t want it because means questioning the current mindset and behaviours that have brought them status and ‘results’ Individual managers don’t want it because they assume it threatens their control over their local silos L&D / HR don’t want it because their remit does not extent to the organisation, as its still rooted in the ‘performance’ of individuals (and occasionally, specific teams). And employees don't want it because they often don’t care / need to care about the overall organisation.
Read more

"The future of corporate Learning and Development" debate is five different things

"Pushing fancy new stuff onto your organisation will not change the outcomes if that is not emerging from your system itself, through the ripening of a different worldview." Stelio Verzera The perennial topic  of "The future of corporate Learning and Development" is always everywhere. This ' Shirky Principle ' fuels and sustains the status quo and the players that continue to benefit from it. I'd argue that the discussion is in fact five very   different conversations happening in parallel, but unequally distributed. They are - in current descending order of noise, ambition and opportunity: 1. 'MAKE THE TRAINING BETTER'. The status quo. The economic model. Dependent on maintaining the belief that educating individual workers changes the system through which complex, interconnected organisations perform. This narrative is carefully preserved by (mostly) commercial vendors who have filled the strategy vacuum. New technologies, new (and old) instruc
Read more