ATD Blog
Moving the Forum from “Knowing to Doing”
Wed Apr 20 2011
Every year learning professionals see more written on aligning learning to business results, new technologies, doing more with less, performance and other changes. We tend to constantly have some sort of "From-To" list to emphasize these changes. This is certainly the case in the ASTD Forum, a consortium for members to connect, collaborate, and share their learning.
Several years ago ASTD Forum's members embarked on an initiative to develop strategies collectively for addressing issues that learning professionals have "talked" about for years, but are still with many of us. This decades old dilemma sounds something like this: How can I move my clients and the organization from an "training event" driven approach (i.e. I want a two-day team training session) to a performance-focused strategy designed to improve individual work practices resulting in demonstrated productivity gains for the enterprise.
Many organizations proclaim to be "Learning Organizations" and others point to examples of "Performance-focused" practices, such as aligning "training" to strategy. However, when learning professionals are asked to document a system-wide, most evidence is training, especially development and delivery of formal courses. Learning professionals joke about customers calling 1.800.TRAIN but as happened at a recent Forum Lab, also acknowledge that customers call for the menu that trainers themselves developed.
Yes, there are numerous "best practice" individual examples, i.e., the use of more social learning, technology-based platforms to connect employees, as well as the use of coaching. In the Forum there are members that have moved into the "to" state. But the Forum's quest is to have an impact on moving the entire profession. To accomplish this, the Forum provides venues for senior learning professionals to connect, reflect on their current practice, collaborate with others, and experiment with new approaches.
The Forum has called this performance-focused initiative, Learning as a Journey (LaaJ). The goal is to work together to focus on the continuous nature of learning within the context of work. In practice this concept includes workers surrounded with a variety of easily accessible learning assets. It includes the entire organization contributing to Communities of Practice, blogs, wikis, and informal learning experiences. Evidence of the "to" state includes a culture where learning is integrated with work, employees have the skills to continually assess both their work and their competency levels, and the workplace culture supports a work/learn system through incentives, resources, and environmental factors.
In this model, the learning professional is a designer, broker, architect, and facilitator that continues to develop and design training courses, but, more importantly, collaborates with the workers to help them become better self-directed learners as well as teachers. Learning professionals that use a model such as LaaJ will not be irrelevant because of social and informal learning platforms, but, instead, will serve on solution teams as both architect and anthropologist - designing the framework by examining the environment and then collaborating with both clients and end-users.
Collectively thru this LaaJ initiative and the labs associated with it, the Forum has developed a From/To list to guide discussion and actions.
From Training as an Event | To Learning as a Journey |
Training as an event | Learning as a Journey that is dynamic learning integrated with an employee's work and results in changed performance |
Trainer as a Lone Ranger | Business Partner as a member of a Collaborative Team focused on improving productivity |
Training in Classrooms | 24/7 access to myriad learning assets |
Rigid Formality | Organic eco-system |
"Sage-on- the-Stage" | "Guide-on- the-Side" |
Trainer as the source of information and person doing the research | Learning designer creating an environment where the customer is the source of information and a major contributor to solutions all within the work context |
Active teaching during an event | Active facilitation and continuous brokering of performance support tools that foster dynamic learning as part of the work |
Students | Engaged partners, employees, participants, collaborators, and problem-solvers |
Training | Work Performance integrated with dynamic learning at the point of need |
Trainer working for the customer | Collaborative partner with a customer-team and serving as a coach and performance broker for learning tools |
Single activity that employees "go to" | An integrated approach that includes the worker's needs for doing the work within the culture of the workplace |
Content-focus | Content within the real Context and as part of the culture |
Designing and delivering curriculum | Collaborating with work teams to co-create solutions for enhancing productivity |
For the first time ever, attendees at ASTD's 2011 International Conference and Expo will have the opportunity to "experience" tools and techniques related to moving from the current "event" state to a future "journey" state. Forum members and partner Luma Institute will offer four sessions, two on the 23rd and two on the 24th. We invite you to join in this historical and meaningful learning experience. |
For more information on the ASTD Forum:
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LinkedIn: http://tinyurl.com/LinkedIn-Forum
For more information on the 2011 ASTD International Conference & Expo