Daan Assen's Learning

The Continuous Learning Organization

Daan — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:03:09 +0000

Ever since the work of Peter Senge (1990) the concept of the Learning Organization remains the Holy Grail of management in contemporary business. This is merely due to the ever increasing pressure to keep reinventing products & services, business models and operational processes. Critique of Senge’s work was that it was too abstract to implement in organizations with rather vague dimensions as: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision and team learning. Recent research into characteristics of learning organizations made the concept a bit more transparant for management. After “Is Yours a Learning Organization?” by Garvin, Edmondson & Gino now Erwin Danneels published an interesting research paper on (sort of) this subject. In his “Organizational Antecedents of Second-Order Competences” Danneels looks at competences that enable organizations to develop new competences, something that can be viewed as the source for innovation. In fact two types of learning can be distinguished in this respect: 1) learning that is aimed at improving existing product, services and processes, 2) learning that is aimed at producing new knowledge resulting in new product, services and processes. As the driving force for this learning Danneels points to five factors:

Organizational Slack: the room an organization offers its employees for reflection and renewal. Not all worktime employees spend should be absorbed by the day-to-day job. Or as John Cleese put it: “If your want people to be creative, give them time to play!”. Companies as Google and 3M are good examples of embedding this in management practice.
Constructive Conflict: openness in the organization to challenge the existing ideas, beliefs and assumptions. Internal discussion (with mutual respect) is stimulated to foster innovation. This is of key importance for the double loop learning Argyris & Schön published about in 1978.
Willingness to Cannibalize: active support for innovation projects that potentially take away sales from existing products or services. Don’t neglect technological innovations because they can cannibalize your existing business, but embrace them and embed them into the organizations competences.
Environmental Scanning: stimulation of active environmental scanning by employees is crucial. Make them establish networks beyond the borders of the organization via professional associations, networks, conferences, trade shows and researchers. This is crucial for picking up new knowledge and competence in the ’outside’ world.
Tolerance for failure: failure should be seen as a potential source of future success. Mistakes should be seen as opportunities to learn. With this mindset employees sense the room for entrepreneurship that will enable the development of new competences.

An interesting article that is enhancing the growing body of research into learning organizations from the perspective of strategic innovation and the so-called second-order competences.

Emerging Technologies for Learning

Daan — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:11:30 +0000

Applications of emerging technologies for learning are evolving very rapidly at the moment. Reseach reports and cases on technology-enhanced learning are popping up everywhere in the web. The British BECTA organisation published an interesting report on the “Emerging Technologies for Learning“. In the report six experts describe different emerging technologies and their impact on learning. The trends covered are:

The netgeneration: a new generation of learners with the computer as the nucleus of their workspace. They go online when they need information, are multitasking and primarily use Instant Messaging, e-mail and cell phones for communication. Conclusion: our assumptions about students and what is best for their education may not be matched by today’s reality.
Mobile, wireless & connected learning: mobile devices and wireless networks are changing the way we live, work and learn. We are connected to people and information real-time, anywhere and anytime. For learning the concept of the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) applies to this trend. It enables close integration of learning into the day-to-day practice of our private and work lives.
Location-based, context-aware learning: ‘ubiquitous computing’ principles are about the integration of computing power (microprocessors) in our environment. The computer itself dissapears, but they have their tentacles in the environment to sense. manage, interpret and act on information around us. This already becomes clear in wireless networking, GPS and mobile devices. However applications are few the potential of this technology for the learning environment is great.
Serious games and virtual worlds: serious games and virtual worlds are about using gaming and virtual reality techniques to explore non-leisure concepts. They enable us to provide support for learning communities, broadening networks of learners and providing creative, self-directed learning and experience design. This matches the shifting need from knowledge transfer to experience and activity design in education.
Search technologies: new Internet search technologies emerge with conceptual, contextual and semantic search. This enables us to find the information we are looking for more easily when we turn to the web. Tag clouds and social tagging are examples of new ways of tagging available information to improve searching processes. It supports learning, but is not a substitute for Education 1.0 that for this author hasn’t lost its relevancy.
Interactive displays: new ways of displaying computer screens open up new ways of using computers in the classroom and beyond. With touch-screen mobile devices and electronic whiteboards new opportunities for learning emerge. Computers and content become more human centered and enable collaboration. This supports new ways of activity-based and workplace learning with computers.

This BECTA report is an interesting read that is rooted in the field of education, but also has relevancy for corporate learning. New models of learning are within reach for learners and learning professionals based on the empowering force of new technology. Let’s reap the benefits!

Training as Development Aid

Daan — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:07:05 +0000

Last week I read an interesting article by Mirjam van Praag about training as development aid for entrepreneurs in Developing Countries. She describes an approach that combines microfinance for these entrepreneurs with training in business administration. This is not only lifting the success rate of the entrepreneurs, but it also reduces the risks for financials of offering microfinance to these entrepreneurs. And since microfinance have proven to be a succesfull means to fight poverty, adding training to the formula will make the success even bigger and more sustainable. Research by Karlan and Valdivia of Yale University has proven that the entrepreneurs that received training perform better. Striking is the fact that the entrepreneurs that were most sceptic about the training, had most benefit from it. The entrepreneurs received the training in 30-60 minute weekly sessions at their local Bank. They have discussions in entrepreneur communities and receive some homework. “With microfinance the coaching and guidance of entrepreneurs is just as important as the finance itself”, is a well-known phrase that proves to be right. This sounds like a good opportunity for e-learning as well!

Training Generation Y: the UPS case

Daan — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:39:07 +0000

Within the field of Training & Development the learning style of generation Y employees is a hot topic. The central question is how to prepare these youngsters for their role in the workforce. In traditional instructor-led courses this generation growing up with Social Networks and Instant Messaging will be bored within 10 minutes. Should we adapt training approaches to this new continuously multitasking and thrill seeking target audience or should we stick to our traditional approach and bore them to death? Since research has shown that most traditional training approaches have generate dissapointing results with other generations as well, the answer is clear.

UPS, global logistics services provider, already invested heavily in new approaches for training new employees. An interesting article in Fortune magazine descibes their approach. UPS found that the time-to-competency of most of their generation Y staff was longer than it used to be. That is why they shifted from their traditional Human Engineering approach towards Technology-Enhanced Hands-on Training. A shift from theory oriented instructor-led training towards instant practice in a safe environment with technology support where usefull. No computerized simulations or videogames, but a real-life experience in a film set like training center. UPS invested 34 million dollar in this new approach setting up its Integrad training facility. According to UPS the new generation can be seen as Generation Why? They don’t like following instructions and always question assumptions. Good traits for a new generation of learners I would say!

Corporate Learning in 2008: three trends to watch

Daan — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:22:00 +0000

In an article for CLO Magazine e-learning researcher Josh Bersin described three trends to watch for Corporate Learning in 2008. Researchers like Bersin, with their strong connections to vendors of corporate learning solutions, might be slightly biased towards creating hypes. On the other hand the trends he described are too generic and vendor unrelated to suspect him. According to Bersin the year 2008 will bring us:

Talent-Driven Learning Programs: forward-thinking learning executives are emphasizing talent-driven learning programs — particularly in areas such as leadership development, onboarding and career development — to support talent strategies.
The New Learning On Demand: We have been writing about rapid e-learning, performance support and informal learning for years. Conditioned by Google, RSS feeds, YouTube and other popular tools, employees are now expecting to find answers on any job- or company-related topic in seconds.
Get Ready for Self Published Content: Today, organizations can take “off the shelf” tools for blogs and wikis and use them to create communities of practice that facilitate such informal, on-the-job learning.

The are not very surprising and maybe even heard at the end of 2006 too some extent. But, it is always good to read some confirmation of directions taken with corporate learning initiatives in organisations.