"Don't tell me that X is important in your organisation. Show me the organisational attention and resources that are being invested to improve X." Lorin Hochstein One of the main attractions of the status quo corporate education complex is how it allows leaders not to have to take responsibility for the ongoing development and performance of their team members.  This responsibility is largely 'contracted out' - due to the cosy focus on compliance via course completion and the annual 'performance management' process (forced distribution curves). Instead, to deliberately create and nurture systems where performance and fulfilled potential are the goals, leaders would be expected, incentivised and rewarded for: Acknowledging 'learning' is continual and comes from and through daily work and networks  Taking accountability for removing barriers to progress and performance (system focus) Creating the conditions (system focus) for ongoing questions, dialo...

"Meanwhile, the fundamental organisational structures, incentive systems, and collective assumptions that created the original problems remain completely untouched..." Bob Marshall A 'cult' can be defined as ' excessive devotion to an all-encompassing belief system ... suppression of dissent and critical thinking ... not accountable to any external authorities or mainstream institutions ...'. I think the corporate education complex qualifies as a 'cult' under all parts of the definition above.  Here are some examples of the 'all-encompassing belief system': Improving the performance of individual workers alone changes organisational performance A focus on individual skills changes organisational performance 'Learning' can be created and deployed Providing access to 'content' can change how people perform Formal learning is always expected and so required 'Learning' happens independently from the wider organisational syst...

"The job of the leader is to create the conditions for others to raise the standards." Seth Godin The industrial education model status quo is so pervasive its invisible.  One of the interesting outputs from this is how a wide range of terms are inevitably reduced to stand for 'our courses and content'.  I've shared these definitions before - but useful to restate them two years on: " Organisational Development " = Deliberately developing the (new) connected system required for the organisation and its people to fulfil their potential. " Organisational Capability " = The mindset, operating model, and aligned success metrics needed to transition to a sustainable, growth oriented organisation. " Learning Strategy " = Performance enablement strategy. The deliberate choices and trade offs we are making to achieve our specific business outcomes. " Learning Organisation " = Facilitating the progress of the organisation by designin...