After hibernating in my laze-scape for a good few weeks, I told myself enough is enough and I have got to do something that makes living feel alive! Which of course meant reading a nice book amongst other things!
So I’ve started reading Informal Learning by Jay Cross, which posits very novel and interesting ideas about learning in the new era of knowledge and a crazed speed at which time is moving. This is first of the series of blogs in which I want to crystallize the insights and learnings I am gaining from this book.
Cross starts by talking about what he calls the “hyperinflation of time”, where the value of time has increased exponentially. More gets done in a minute today, than it did in our parent’s time. That implies that evolution is happening way more quickly, and hence change and dynamism are pervading our worlds. Much more than they ever did.
We are living in a complex world of information, choices and changes that occur rather quickly, possibly too much for us to keep pace with. 15 years ago, a learning professional could do a course on Instructional Design and Training Management, and that would last her for the next decade of her career. It was simple really, you take a course from a good university and you subscribe to a reputable magazine to get your monthly updates. And you’ve pretty much got what you need.
Today, there are new concepts and theories everywhere in the field, learning technology is changing the landscape, and social media is enabling thousands of ideas to be conceived and tested, leading to newer discoveries and learnings , which are in turn constantly keeping learning strategies and best practices in flux, I suppose. For me to be a good learning professional today, given the control freak that I am, I would probably have to read 10 books a month, subscribe to 10 top blogs and follow them, take a new course every 3 months and there would still be no guarantee that I would know it all! And of course I would have no time to breathe!
Or…..
As Cross says:” You can get off the treadmill, admit that the world is not under your control and embrace the chaos of change.”
Now that hit me hard, because when I think training / learning, I think predictability and control! To me it means, that I know exactly what learners need to know to perform their jobs well and be good employees in the future! Now in this context of spinning change, that’s rather naïve, ain’t it?
Also, we don’t live in the industrial age anymore. Knowledge workers are a different breed. They don’t like to be told what to do, they don’t like someone pushing down ideas on them. Frederick Taylor famously said to his workers, “you are not paid to think.” And that was the industrial age for you. Knowledge workers ARE paid to think, so it isn’t any wonder that they want to create their learning paths as they go along and often will do better than an instructional designer who is far removed from their context.
The control freak in me shouts — but how can I leave it up to chance?
This is where Cross begins to talk about a networked world, and talks about learning in this context.
“Training is no exception to the rules of network evolution. Earlier training was individualized. As we enter a new age, learning is best understood as an interaction among practitioners, rather than a process in which a producer provides knowledge to a consumer.”
“We learn in context, with others, as we live and work. Learning consists of making and maintaining better connections to our networks, be they social, operational, commercial or entertainment.”
I wondered at a point whether Cross is completely rejecting the idea of formal learning. I don’t think he is, he does say that formal training may be needed, but to think that that’s all there is to organizational learning is a fallacy.
The way I understand this: you may need to get people into a classroom and tell them how to run an application, to give them a head start. But to think that that’s the end of it and you’ve produced experts by the end of the day is a fallacy. The forgetting curve comes strongly into play in classroom learning, and there need to be ways in which people can go back to their work and learn what they need when their work demands it.
When I initially started running my training program, an initial dump of how the program works and the overall principles and curriculum was helpful. But it was only when I started doing it myself that the real learning actually happened. I had a question that needed answering almost every 1 hour and for me to learn effectively I had to do the following:
- · Know where the information is available (instead of struggling to find the right source in the first place)
- · Trial and error when no information was available
- · Reflection over what worked and what did not
- · Feedback from my trainers, and a whole lot of it came over coffee or beer conversations
- · Learn things step by step, in small pieces
- · And some of it through reading
I learnt very little of this through a classroom, reading books and blogs to find my answers was actually more effective than that. Connecting with this is a list Cross provides of when people learn best.
When they:
- · Know what’s in it for them and deem it relevant
- · Understand what’s expected of them
- · Connect with other people
- · Are challenged to make choices
- · Feel safe about showing what they do and do not know
- · Receive information in small pieces
- · Get frequent progress reports
- · Learn things close to the time that they need them
- · Learn from a variety of modalities
- · Make and correct mistakes
- · Teach others
- · Reflect on their learning and apply their lessons
All of these applied to me when I myself was learning to be a program manager. I don’t want to take away from formal learning, and I certainly don’t undermine it. It plays a very crucial role in kick starting people’s learning, making them aware of what’s needed and expected, providing a place to connect with others and discover new learnings. I do however feel strongly that for years together now, learning professional have thought of learning within the bounds of the classroom only, and shrugged off what happens at the real workplace. That has to change.
Learning is ongoing, and in today’s world, it happens in an unstructured yet very solid way. As I am currently working on redesigning the university program I lead, I am convinced that we are taking a step in the right direction. We are looking at the first year journey of our grad hires, rather than just a 6 week training program. Within that one year journey however, we will need to look out for a balanced approach. Not over do the formal learning pieces, and get more cognizant of the informal learning spaces and opportunities that we can create.
As Cross says, “ Some people see the world in terms of dichotomies, yes or no, on or off. But real issues contain gradations, maybes, what-ifs, emotions, mitigating factors and other entanglements.”
Formal and informal learning are both-and, not either-or. They need to complement each other.”
More on how and where Informal Learning happens in the next blog. Keep watching this space.
Attribution: Images in this blog from iclipart.com & business-icon.com
