Corporate Learning is Playing Out of Position
Time to Step Up or Step Aside as Connected Solutions Replace the Learning Org
As I watched player highlights during the 2022 National Football League (NFL) draft it came to me that, if given the chance, I would not draft corporate learning giving how it performs today. In general, corporate learning is like a player who has been playing out of position for decades and continually fails the team in key moments. Playing out of position means that you’re not where you are supposed to be when you need to be there.
The NFL continually increases its strategic agility when it comes to drafting its player talent. For example, many teams now use free agency to secure players with a known performance record at positions such as offensive and defensive line, while leveraging the draft to recruit instant impact starters such as youthful wide receivers and franchise quarterbacks. That is why, this year, we saw a record run on wide receivers and a lull on the selection of quarterbacks. It’s been over a quarter century since there have been so many selections between choosing the first and second round quarterbacks. The lull in QB’s was because Pitt’s Kenny Pickett was the only QB with the likelihood to compete to be a game one rookie season starter. The other QB’s were expected to require some time for development before making any impact. NFL teams can’t afford to hedge as they operate in a highly dynamic, competitive, and short cycle environment. This means they need players who can fill relevant gaps on the field as immediate playmakers. A generation ago you could let a number one draft pick sit on the bench for a few years and develop, but today’s top picks enter the NFL with the assumption they are ready to immediately and seamlessly transition between college and professional football and make an impact.
This same trend is happening as organizations struggle with resourcing, onboarding, development, and retention. Because of increasing attrition rates and decreasing tenure cycles, companies want to accelerate time to proficiency. They want company rookies to hit the ground running with minimal coaching as company veterans are asked to grow new skills so they can fill gaps and add greater impact and value as the resourcing churn continues. All supposedly sweet spots to address for the corporate learning folks.
Unfortunately, the corporate learning function needs to get out of their own way and stop playing out of position. The function continues to fail to grasp accountability for meaningful outcomes on the organizational learning and performance playing field. Everything about playing in position has to do with the capability to continuously increase your level of agility and adaptability to respond to eminent and emergent conditions in your area of responsibility. If corporate learning doesn’t quickly move in the right direction to validate their impact across the value chain, cyber physical technologies embedded at the connected plant and connected worker levels will quickly and rightfully fill the gap.
In the 1950’s and 1960’s the ideas of human performance improvement and human performance technology were reaching the educational and instructional technology ranks after the boom brought on from massive military training and industrial production efforts of WWII. Thomas F. Gilbert, a student of B.F. Skinner, introduced the concept of human performance engineering in the late 1970’s. This was followed by Glory Geary introducing Electronic Performance Support Systems in the late 1980’s and then the Performance Consulting movement of the 1990’s. Now, for over half a century, corporate/industrial learning teams have failed to embrace the core concepts of human performance and continue to produce a sea of learning content and formal learning that is missing the mark. Josh Bersin even reintroduced a better-positioned version of these concepts for corporate learning in 2014 with the flow of work learning movement.
However, corporate learning is still missing the point on the fundamentals. The concepts and capabilities to change the game are transformational. That means they are 1) complex from a technology perspective, 2) complicated from a human or social perspective and 3) require corporate learning to make exponential transformation not linear change within itself. Transformation for corporate learning means embracing simple but profound concepts; things like component level learning content and objects, less but more relevant learning, cultural ownership for learning, personalization, learning enablement ecosystems and dynamic anytime, any device, anywhere learning channel choices.
The work environment is shifting so quickly that corporate learning IT architecture teams can’t waste time with platforms for example, that are not expandable to enable component level management, which is the critical success factor for flow of work learning. Learners are quickly disengaging as they have no time and little temperament for traditional learning environments or formal learning that does not convey difficult content or focus on creating critical affiliation moments through relationship building as part of a personally and professionally enriching social outcome.
When people know how to better perform, they are less frustrated. When they are less frustrated, they have more time to be reflective, curious, and innovative. When they are reflective, curious and innovative, they will more likely be better peers, coaches, and collaborators. When people help others, enjoy a sense of relatedness and feel the impact of their worth, they will ultimately be happier and more fulfilled workers. Happy workers take the time and attention to prioritize their own growth and development as well as the role they play in the development of others.
Every day we are see evidence that the performance context of the typical workday is quickly changing. Corporate learning functions need to start being a valuable impact position player to help organizations score more performance points.
Has corporate learning become the 262nd pick (Brock Purdy) of the 2022 connected worker movement?
Brent A. Kedzierski is the Chief Learning Officer at HumanWRKS