" In organisations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles and positions. " Margaret Wheatley There are two 'axis' around which the work of L&D can align: Developing individuals vs. developing t he organisation as a whole and 'Productive' learning (for the 'now') vs. ' Generative' learning (developing a new future) In most organisations the work of L&D only focuses on individual, productive learning. The narrow priority here is maintaining centralised control - through standardisation and consistency. This perspective is a hangover from the old 'industrial' mindset - when businesses only created value through consistent execution of individual roles and individual skills. The limitations of this approach will become even more apparent as the 'remote-working' business world be...

"Here (and increasingly everywhere) the critical factor for success is determining what percentage of your people are change-makers, at what level and how good a job you are doing in enabling them to work together in fluid, open teams of teams." Bill Drayton Now is a good time for Learning and Development leaders to pose new questions to the senior leadership team: What kind of team do we now need to develop - to become the business we say we want to be? How different are the features and capabilities of that team now - compared to what we have today? How important is it now to expand the ability of our people to change the way we do things today? - Why? How important is it now to change our employees' understanding of how they contribute to our business model - Why? How important is it now to help change the way our employees think about teamwork? - Why? How important is it now to help to change the way our employees think about learning? - Why? ...

"Few senior leaders have spent much time observing and understanding their own motivations, challenging their assumptions, or pushing beyond their intellectual and emotional comfort zones."  Psychologists Lisa Lahey and Robert Kegan have termed this " Immunity to change. " At this time L&D leaders can choose to pause between bursts of reacting and responding - and reflect on where the "comfort zones" have existed in their organisation up to now: "Speed" "Execution" "Process delivery" "Deployment" "Consistency" "Conformance" "Compliance" "Standardisation" "Programmes" "Curriculums" "Resources" "Pathways" "Alignment" "Simplicity" "Scalability" "Tracking" "Controlling" "Content" By observing and understanding the last four weeks in "lock-down"...

"Right about now you'll be figuring out if you work for a learning organisation ..." Jabe Bloom There are three ways in which Learning and Development leaders can choose to position their work at this time of crisis. Reacting: Move existing training solutions 'online'. Continue to focus on access and consumption. Responding: 'Take orders' for new 'solutions' and 'content' on a new range of topics; (resilience, home working, 'remote' leadership, time management, 'productivity'). Continue to focus on access and consumption. or Initiating: Understanding the new challenges being faced by the organisation - and the new capabilities required to move forward Deciding and communicating what the Learning and Development team will now  stop doing  - and why Identifying new ways to increase the capacity to solve new customer challenges Enabling new ways for individuals and teams to connect and share their exper...

"Add up the sum of our days and that's who we are. We get what we repeat." Seth Godin "59% of Learning and Development organisations have trouble connecting learning to business outcomes." Bersin by Deloitte 2017 "Only 25% of Learning and Development professionals feel clear on what their role is and should be within their organisation." Knowledgepool (part of the Capita plc group) "How to solve a problem like L and D" report 2019 "Only 36% of learning leaders are confident in the area of learning strategy." Emerald Works "Back to the Future" report 2020 "29% of learning leaders feel overwhelmed and under equipped." Towards Maturity report 2019 "Only 11% of organisations report their learning culture as 'Excellent.'" Deloitte Human Capital Trends Report 2019 "Only 52% of learning leaders report that their team understands the strategic goals of the organisation." E...

"It's interesting that often human-made systems are based on accountability and control. The fear and power are always present. Alignment is valued over experimentation and learning.  Are we able to create systems based on different assumptions?" Hermanni Hyytiala I'd argue that all of the institutional, culturally ingrained, tactical perspectives in corporate Learning and Development (" no   seat at the table", "lack of time for learning", "leaders don't prioritise learning", "no-one uses our content", "how do we create a learning culture??" ) stem from this underlying systems challenge. In reality Learning and Development teams are as well placed as anyone in the organisation to choose to lead and role model a new system based on different assumptions. There's a simple choice: control or learning? Paul helps Learning and Development leaders to identify and accelerate the most valuable and differ...

"There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and says "What the hell is water?" David Foster Wallace Here are some common signs of tactical, 'cost centre' positioning from my experiences of working alongside corporate L&D teams:  A lack of understanding of business goals / strategy / brand strategy / commercial differentiation No compelling vision for the indisputable role of 'learning' in the context of achieving the business goals No connected, aligned L&D strategy, tactics and success measures which enable the business goals "Traditional" expectations from "senior leaders" of the work of the L&D team A focus on "learning" as the goal - rather than work performance ...

" When you change what someone pays attention to, then you change the conclusions they come to. " Annette Simmons Many L&D leaders will making the annual pilgrimage to the Learning Technologies Conference this week. If you're considering an investment in a new technology my list of ten questions for vendor discussions might be helpful. In my experience its critical for L&D leaders to keep a firm grip on the context inside their organisation - and reflect on how a new tool  will actively contribute to your own specific learning strategy and goals. (Don't get side tracked by features and subscription tiers...) 1. What is the big change your learning technology business is seeking to help make / facilitate / accelerate in the world of work? 2. What is your 'worldview' on the role and priority for 'learning' in business settings today? 3. Who is your technology not for? 4. Describe how your organisation interprets the terms "tra...

"Management was designed to solve a very specific problem - how to do things with perfect replicability at ever increasing scale and steadily increasing efficiency.  Now there's a new set of challenges on the horizon. How do you build organisations that are nimble as change itself?" Gary Hamel A late invitation to participate in an " Annual Business Plan " project team remains the holy grail for many corporate L&D teams. A common challenge with these plans is that they remain fundamentally control orientated and reductive by nature. " Annual Business Plans " often share a common vernacular that has been refined over time to meet the expectations of a specific circle of senior people within the organisation. This inevitably runs counter to the more pressing challenge of investing in a new work environment in which everyone can safely participate and learn through their work and relationships. Some examples of this 'red flag' ...

"Bureaucratic interventions are not well equipped to deal with novelty, diversity and complexity. They want to measure things in simplified or condensed ways, develop standardised responses and centralise authority to control and coordinate them." Sidney Dekker I think there are three connected steps that can enable L&D teams to move on from their traditional training programme management role. (If they are choosing to do so in 2020). 1.  Acknowledge and embrace the work of 'L&D' as leadership work. Actively and openly seeking to make change happen in the organisation. 2.  Re-balance their investments (of time, effort, money and relationships) away from the industrial goal of developing compliant workers on behalf of Management. 3.  Re-balance the default focus on education ("school at work") with enabling people to learn through experiences and exposure. Linked to this it's helpful to think about the spread of investment by L&D...

"Management was designed to solve a very specific problem - how to do things with perfect replicability at ever increasing scale and steadily increasing efficiency.  Now there's a new set of challenges on the horizon. How do you build organisations that are nimble as change itself?" Gary Hamel The ideas in this blog, shared throughout 2019 have aligned to this. How can corporate 'L&D' teams start to see new opportunities that are open to them? The opportunity to move from serving the industrial mindset of developing compliant workers - to enabling organisations that recognise their employees as independent actors with unique contributions to make. The opportunity to re-balance a focus on reacting to existing problems with the real work of shifting the underlying cultural norms of the organisation and its leaders. The opportunity to put connections, relationships, participation and questions at the centre of our strategy and tactics. The opportun...

" You can change the way people get what they want - or you can change what they want " Seth Godin Inside inward looking, reactive, politically charged bureaucracies the work of L&D is diluted down to training solution order taking, project management and reaction tracking. This stems from the past - when centralised business models were the holy grail. Management control through standardisation and compliance was the prized goal. These features were difficult to achieve, scarce and therefore differentiating and valuable. Not anymore. There is an urgent new goal for L&D leaders and their teams. I describe this as the leap from management to leadership. We can choose to re-balance time spent on packaging the results of someone else's priorities with setting out new paths and goals of our own. The basis of these goals can include: Moving focus away from developing compliant workers towards building adaptability in the organisation Putting 'the work ...