The world of Web 2.0 grows out of the view that learning is a process of active inquiry not passive reception. You reach out to the environment around you to fill knowledge and skill gaps. Training, on the other hand, is something done to you. You submit to someone else’s course of instruction. Courses take too long, don’t produce enough competitive value, and are mostly useful to provide a general framework for ongoing experiential, real time, on-demand learning. Nonetheless, sometimes, in your active inquiry, you choose a course as your way to learn.

Experiential learning puts the emphasis on individual and group learning, not expert teaching. The core of experiential learning is the ability to ask the right questions at the right time to: to clarify the nature of the problem; to identify possible solutions; to take action; and to learn from feedback after taking action. The community replaces the course as people learn through conversation, demonstration, trial and error, collaboration, and discovery. A key theme of the employment brand is learning in an apprenticeship model - learning in context. eLearning’s value is not the automation of the classroom and the student role. It envisions learning in context from a network of collaborators. It enables a continuous development and exchange of information that improves performance.

A learning culture values experience as the primary source of learning, superior to courses, and sets up mechanisms for people to learn from their own and others’ experiences. To take advantage of this juggernaut, businesses need to implement a planned abandonment of the “job and classroom” paradigm and migrate to the “role and informal learning” paradigm. We will be successful when we have accomplished the migration to an autonomous and collaborative workforce that continuously learns how to compete more successfully and operate more productively. So, the Web 2.0 workplace demands excellent “learning design” as a replacement for “instructional design”. What are the principles of excellent learning design? Someone who has spent years thinking and speaking about informal learning is Jay Cross; check out his site, books, and blogs. Another person well known for his work in performance support and informal learning is Dr. Conrad Gottfredson whom you can hear on the 12 minute podcast made on 4/15/08.

Manage Learning Strategically

We will show you how to move away from a demand-driven service and how to become a value-driven strategic partner. We will guide you as you build your:

• Annual Learning Plan and budget in a way that is aligned to business strategies and managed as a portfolio of prioritized investments.
• Measurement Plan aligned to the human capital performance objectives required by your business strategies and operating plans.
• L&D Strategy Assessment and Roadmap: your organization structure and staff roles; decisions about selective insourcing and outsourcing of roles; learning technologies and vendor selection; learning design methods for different delivery media; and your use of performance support.

Managing Learning Strategically (Open in Notes view to see narration)

Managing Performance Strategically

For decades, the major emphases in performance management have been performance objectives and performance assessment. Important as these are, they only become strategically important when they are integrated into a coaching culture, development opportunities, recognition, and rewards that increase workforce competencies, engagement, and retention. We will help you build your:

• Annual Talent Engagement and retention Plan focused on developing a “talent as an asset” mindset in your leaders at all levels and managing their adoption of practices which evidence that mindset.
• Measurement plan focused on increased competency in the workforce, on selected measures of engagement, commitment, and retention, and on the adoption of “talent as a mindset” practices.
• Assessment of and Roadmap for your “people leadership” capabilities.

Managing Performance Strategically (Open in Notes view to see narrative)

Managing Talent Strategically

Strategic talent management is about taking a systemic view of your business strategies, identifying the key roles in those strategies, and ensuring that you will have enough of the right people with the right competencies to make the business successful year after year. We will help you build your:

• Annual Integrated Workforce Plan in which you take a holistic view of the entire talent management process for each line of business and identify near term and longer term initiatives. Within the context of business strategies, your planning process will address workforce planning, talent acquisition, on-boarding, learning and development, performance management, and rewards and recognition. The result will be a coordinated, comprehensive plan.
• Succession Planning Process to address leadership roles, pivotal positions, and key positions challenged by competitive and demographic forces.
• Assessment of and Roadmap for your talent management capabilities including core issues such as data integration, process coordination, and technology support.

Managing Talent Strategically (Notes view with narrative will be available 12/08/11)