"Most corporate 'L&D' is performative theatre. Events management. Investing £s into trying to improve the performance of individuals, without a focus on systems change is just a cargo cult. The status quo persists as Execs, L&D leaders and vendors all have to much to lose." Paul Jocelyn This my 48th and final blog post for 2023. Over 9,000 people have viewed my blog this year, with the most read post from 2023 being ' Barriers to progress '.  I'm grateful for everyone who has taken time to read my posts this year, and I hope they challenged you - to reflect, re-think or choose a new approach. (That's the reason I write). Writing this blog is definitely the most rewarding thing I've done in a thirty four year corporate career (as an employee, freelancer, and contractor). Choosing the discipline to write what I think and publish into the world with no expectations has been an entirely positive experience and I can't imagine stopping. It ...

"The most common leadership failure stems from attempting to apply technical solutions to adaptive challenges." Ron Heifetz  The 'Head of Learning & Development' job persists and it's easy to be confused. In reality it's not just one job, it's at least five: Program management: The core work of planning, coordinating, communicating and reporting on a set of formal learning collateral. This is inevitably process oriented, 'governance' oriented, and administration heavy. IT systems management: This is the work of procuring, testing, deploying, and maintaining the choice of 'learning technology(ies)' that enable access to the formal learning offer.    Mandatory learning management: This is the work of developing, maintaining, tracking, and reporting 'completions' of an annual circular program of 'mandatory learning'. 'Marketing' management: This is the work of broadcasting the content in the program to encourage pe...

"We do not rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the levels of our systems." James Clear We know 'performance' in complex systems is interdependent, emergent, and connected.  This is a problem for the regular kind of corporate Learning & Development which is based on separation, compliance and a focus on individuals.

"What you see depends on what you thought before you looked." Myron Tribus Many organisations are running towards the ' Skills ' gold rush. In reality these ' Skills ' are still just a list of topics . This is inevitable as the L&D status quo is built around providing non contextual resources and courses which are managed as a separate entity to people's 'real' work. (The status quo persists because it still suits all parties). The missed opportunity when aligning around ' Skills ' is to break these into tasks - what people will do   better - when they can apply the ' Skill ' in practice . This opens the opportunity for the L&D team to refocus on enabling people to develop task competence that can improve their performance in context. This approach also bridges the ' too busy working to go and learn! ' stand off - as the shared focus (for L&D, managers, team members) is only on what's required to perform ...

"They don't want you to maximise efficiency. They want to optimise it without altering the existing power dynamic. That is not the same thing." Charles Lambdin The '702010' model fails to scale because no one is incentivised to do so. Vendors fill the learning strategy vacuum (because they need to SELL), whilst corporate L&D leaders act as internal vendors ("comfort is the enemy of progress"). Leaders are happy with just enough PR noise around 'growing talent' and 'learning culture' - as the present model contracts out responsibility and protects their preoccupations in the current power system. So '702010' fails because the systemic prerequisites needed to embed this approach are still unpalatable: 1. Acknowledgement of the fact that working and learning are inextricably linked 2. Acknowledgement that the majority of workplace learning comes from and through the work itself; followed by learning from and with colleagues and...

"Many vendors are tied into content-rich, context and interaction-poor learning solutions when they should be focusing on interaction-rich and highly contextual solutions." Charles Jennings Providing generic content libraries is a passive, non-strategy. You're relying on a) magic and b) luck to change people's performance. (Which is fine as enabling performance change probably isn't the goal).

"What you're not changing, you're choosing." Bruce Lee Most senior leaders don't have any specific, strategic expectations for the 'learning' function. Behind the disconnected, swirling soundbites of ' learning ', ' skills ' and ' talent ', the underlying status quo persists: Topic centric content production 'Set piece' events management Digital content distribution Administration and reporting based on content consumption and event attendance. These are what organisations are still choosing .

" Engagement is a poor proxy for performance impact " Guy W. Wallace The goal of most 'L&D marketing' is to ' drive engagement with our products '. This is inevitable in a system which relies on maintaining the status quo; ('L&D' own 'learning', 'L&D' know what's best for you, 'learning' = education, 'consuming our content and events will change your results' etc.). The alternative? Replace the self serving goal of 'engagement' with the empathetic goal of 'usefulness'. Rather than 'L&D' campaigning to distract people from their work to do what they need them to do, L&D should aim to become famous for only creating resources and experiences that help people to do their jobs. (And then the people will spread the word).

"I think a major act of leadership right now, call it a radical act, is to create the places and processes where people can learn together using our experiences.' Margaret J Wheatley Lack of acknowledgement of systems and systems change by L&D leaders is increasingly indefensible The level of deliberate 'transformation' / transition in the corporate L&D function should be equal to or greater than the level of change / transition across the organisation as a whole The L&D function needs an 'appetite statement' that confirms the new level of ambition and expectation " People don't have time to learn " is a systemic red flag (as "learning" still only means "training")  The training paradigm persists as it's in the interests of L&D leaders and senior managers to collude to maintain it  Generic content libraries can't (possibly) change performance Interaction rich highly contextual approaches can enable perfo...

"The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence. It is to act with yesterday's logic." Peter F. Drucker L&D folks: Try replacing the word " learning " with the words " working " or " performing ". How does that feel? Why?

"A major barrier in health and care is the Einstelling effect. It occurs when, facing a new problem, we apply a repeated solution we have learnt from old problems, based on what we know and are comfortable with, preventing us finding a better solution.  It creates a cycle of non achievement of results." Helen Bevan   Corporate L&D is an example of group-think, fear, and the Einstelling effect. There is typically a collective devotion to conventional thinking: The training course is still the main unit of 'learning' (see the Shirky Principle )  Focusing on only 'course attendance' and 'attendees reactions' reinforces and justifies this Which means 'allocating time to learn' is the inevitable mantra needed to support this  'Badging' and 'credentials' are part of the same paradigm (cult?) (Corporate life with less courses still seems unthinkable and unpalatable on all sides?)

"Fear is the enemy of learning. Fear is the enemy of excellence in any endeavor where there is uncertainty." Amy Edmondson Fear - implicit or explicit - is a feature of most organisational work cultures: Fear of perceived failure Fear of those with higher status Fear of loss of status Fear of uncertainty Fear of change Fear of being 'found out' Fear of new ideas Fear of being 'on the outside' Work cultures reflect the system*, and the system emerges from the assumptions and beliefs of senior leaders (who often have expensive lifestyles to maintain). * Leaders choice of goals, incentives, reward mechanisms, rules, policies, processes, metrics, information flows, teams, groups, hierarchies, team structures, roles and responsibilities, career paths.