In L&D circles, employee engagement is always a hot topic. And it should be because at its core it’s about securing your most valuable asset as an organization – your people. If they’re not tuned in and working (and learning) at their peak, the whole company suffers. Disengaged employees slow... more
Learning and development pros come in all shapes and sizes, and often from very different backgrounds from an instructional design and even philosophical standpoint. But, no matter their instructional model of preference, personal viewpoint, and go-to communication style, there’s a lot to be learned from all different types of learning... more
We, in learning & development, often focus on fixing what’s wrong. We try to find guidance on how to do it right, and then build learning around it. We’re reactive, in that sense. Can we do better? Positive Deviance is a different approach. In addition to the subversive appeal of... more
The label “micro-learning” refuses to die. You’d think, like most hype-driven buzzwords, it would have faded away. Its very persistence suggests, instead, that there’s some legitimate appeal. And, given that I’ve been an advocate of (and blog at) learnlets, I should agree. So, why am I resistant? And, more importantly,... more
In 2009, an SRI team working for the Department of Education led by Barbara Means, reported for the first time, that eLearning was superior to face-to-face. This is in contrast to the work that Kulik and Kulik had been doing that showed that Computer-Based Training was no worse than face-to-face... more
I’ve written before about learning experience design, but I want to take it a bit further. I think we can, and should, go for an aspirational goal, one that stretches us. I want us to work on “transformation.” So what do I mean by transformation? One way to think about... more
What do you use as a basis for evaluation of employees? It’s easy to have a simple measure, such as customer rating, and compare employees on this basis. And this would be wrong for many reasons. Instead, you should have multiple measures and a clear idea of what ‘acceptable’ is.... more
What’s going to make the difference for an organization? These days, it’s about two things: optimal execution and continual innovation. And I think about those in particular ways: to achieve optimal execution you can’t just run training and provide performance support, you need to blend those two into a coherent... more
For as much time as we spend talking about learning management, companies do not seem to spend a lot of time thinking about learning and managers. This creates huge blind spots within organizations because managers play critical roles in every aspect of learning and development — from strategy to design... more
In Implementing E-Learning, Jay Cross and Lance Dublin suggested that implementing eLearning was an organizational change. That is, the introduction of any such program requires change management. And, it turns out, this is true for training and likely all organizational learning interventions. In a recent article, The Great Training Robbery,... more
