Workplace Learning and Developmental Theories

When I was in the graduate school we were given some fairly interesting models for understanding adult learning and instructional design. It just so happens that concurrently, I was assuming HRD responsibilities at the company where I have worked in Human Resources for 13 years.

Two of the developmental models that were of greatest interest to me where labeled as: 1) development as emergent; 2) development as a voyage. Emergent development allows room for the learners to influence the direction of their learning experiences and to create their own meaning collectively. While development as a voyage has an emphasis upon the individuals' determination of meaning and the choices they make. The development as voyage is similar to the hero's journey that we find throughout classical literature.

The two models can and likely do overlap with one another in any given group learning experience, as the individual learners are entering into the experience from different perspectives, with different motivations and expected outcomes and at different stages in adult life. To facilitate such an environment requires flexibility on the part of the learning sponsor and facilitator. One of my favorite professors from the HR Management program at Nova had reinforced for me the role balance plays as a leader. As with the example of different models of development, HRD itself, as a professional discipline, is often striving towards balance between at least two terminal objectives. The first being to enhance and benefit the organization sponsoring learning and the second aimed at individual learning and the benefits that can be attributed to that learning.

Making these tensions explicit by establishing anticipated learning outcomes at three levels is one of the strategies being used in a 12 month management training and leadership development program being hosted for the management team of one of our business units. So at the end of the program, learners will have focused on the following:
1. Individual learning
2. Improved group/team performance
3. Enhanced organizational efficiency and effectiveness

From these, each learner can spell out with their manager individual learning and development initiatives and set individual goals that can be measured along the way. One of the tangible benefits of managers doing IDPs accompanied by learning contracts is that they are engaged in an activity that they then can be replicated in the development of the individuals reporting to them. The individual, the leader and the organization will then be able to balance the variety of acquired knowledge and skills among these three general outcomes.

Why adult learning matters for management training...

Adult learning operates on a set of principles that the instructional designer and learning facilitator can make rich use of in structuring group learning environments. This YouTube video gives some insight into those principles. The first assumption is that adults need to understand the answer to the question "Why?" In order to learn, adults crave an explanation of how the learning will be useful and to what ends the learning will serve. To be meaningful, a group resolution of this question can help articulate an emergent sense of why the learning is being incorporated into their otherwise busy and productive lives.

In relation to management training and leadership development, a discovery process can point to all of the following reasons, among others, to engage in the learning process:

1. The globalization of the talent pool. Existing managers are no longer competing internally within their own organizations but with the advent of multinational corporations and the spread of Web 2.0 technology, the talent pool can be sourced from around the globe.

2. Many organizations have undertaken restructuring efforts designed to improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency. Many managers are impacted by such decisions and managers who are capable of adaptive and reflective learning can apply their knowledge and skills in new work environments and more readily engage in change processes.

3. There have been ongoing conversations about management become a profession in its own right with the requisite minimum standards, certifications, etc. The vast array of MBA programs certainly points to a vast body of knowledge that can be explored and applied in the workplace.

4. The expanding domain of management warrants additional learning. The complexity of the role of the manager has increased in many cases and encompasses more and more. Even if we consider only the complexity of managing one's talent, we have a vast body of knowledge to add value to the daily interactions with our peers.

5. The drive for innovation and creativity in modern organizations where the need for some competitive advantage is necessary for growth and/or survival of the firm. Learning organizations certainly appear to be better suited for these opportunities.

6. The manager's role in increasing customer loyalty and employee engagement by achieving the organization's results through the best use of human capital.

These points alone provide for a great introduction to help managers self-assess the need for ongoing learning in the workplace.

Career Development and Learning to Learn

Recently, I was able to partner with a business leader in my organization to provide a facilitated management training and leadership development program. I relied upon many of the assumptions about adult learning preferences and structured the course in six modules to be delivered over 2011.

In the needs assessment phase, we utilized a number of talent management tools that were developed based upon the work of Dr. Bradford Smart. One of the tools we call simply a "Talent Assessment." Talent Assessments are a combination of the results of the previous year's performance appraisal information, a history of the manager's employment service and education, their skill rating on the competencies we identified for leadership and for the skills we identified for senior leadership. This information assists the business leader in identifying top players and critical talent and in the identification of any skill gaps. It further assesses individuals for promotability and the time frame for readiness to assume additional leadership or senior leadership responsibilities. This provides a template for succession planning and gives the business leader a tool for staffing plans. When the talent assessments are completed on each individual manager or supervisor, we translate the collective talent interpretation into another tool called the "Talent Review" which is a snapshot of the collective skills and abilities of the current organization. In practice, this information can then be communicated to executive management to assist in the organization's ongoing talent and HR management strategies.

Because of the need to demonstrate the why behind management training and leadership development, there were two pre-course learning or discovery sessions where the participating managers completed individual development plans and then developed learning contracts for 2011. Additionally, we took the time to evaluate each learners preferred learning preferences and styles and explored both individual values, group and organization values to discover the degree of congruence at this point in time. These assessments were facilitated through the use of the book Value Driven Management. Such discovery activities helped to provide the learning context, allowed participants to critically reflect on their career development and personal and team aspirations. This groundwork also helped to form a safe learning environment and moved the team along in terms of the group formation so that when the management and leadership course content is delivered, the group will be at the performing stage.

Through the use of some free courseware, an online component was included to add value to the non-classroom learning process. The site is a wiki environment and is used to store course resources, provide for discussion forums, assignments, class schedule, participant contact information, etc. The delivery format is based upon the 5% rule that our Chief Human Resources Officer articulated years ago. Assuming a 40 hour work week, 2 hours, or 5% of our time at work should be dedicated to learning and professional development. The business unit leader agreed to structure the department calendar to accommodate the training for the entire year. Two weeks a month will have classroom learning and the alternate weeks will consist of the use of the virtual classroom support site and application of the content.

There is a tremendous value add in a group learning environment and the anticipated results of this program are anticipated to be individual learning, group performance improvement and overall improvement of organizational effectiveness. The business unit is a profit center and has regular metrics that can facilitate the actual effectiveness of the learning intervention.

A recent article in Chief Learning Officer magazine shared the discovery of a new category of workplace learners that the authors referred to as super-learners. These super-learners share some common characteristics, two that are well aligned to this course design in that super-learners are self-directed and media savvy. To promote the adoption of social media as a learning tool, the pre-course learning included the requirement for participants to register and set up profiles in LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and internally, they were requested to set up their "talent profile" on the company's Intranet, which is supported by Microsoft SharePoint. SharePoint, is to this super-learner, a rich collaborative learning tool and knowledge management application. There was a recent article in Forbes where the title included the notion that the Web 2.0 has found its payday. All this being said, management capabilities will soon require media proficiency to the same degree as computer literacy.  If one has any doubts check out the books by Thomas Friedman!

Learning is an adventure. I always become very excited about beginning a journey. The fact that I genuinely like and care about these participants makes this a very rewarding experience for me. I welcome any feedback from learning professionals so please feel free to comment.

Entrainment and Collective Intelligence

Today, I read the Science article about collective intelligence. It seems that their research supports the notion that group intelligence is as predictive as individual intelligence and that collective intelligence is not strongly dependent upon the average intelligence of the group members.

This reminds me a little of entrainment and the notion of resonance.

In a safe group environment, I would imagine this collective intelligence is rather like the characteristics of Katzenbach's high-performing teams. The generative ability of such collective efforts I think can be found in the expansion of the Society of Jesus before the Enlightenment and the growth of Nova Southeastern University in our own times.

Let It Be and Magnificat

It did not take long to find songs that would adequately represent my values. While technically my song is two songs, the message is singular. Let It Be by the Beatles is a contemporary version of Mary’s simple response, i.e., fiat. Or, let it be unto me according to your word. Her “let it be” is the historically retold response to the Archangel Gabriel that announced the birth of Jesus and her role in what Christian’s understand as salvation history. Immediately after the annunciation by the angel, Mary sings or prays her Magnificat, the words of which are derived from St. Luke’s gospel.

When I was first drawn to Let It Be, I cannot say with certainty but I was born in 1966 and I’m sure it was in the air (along with other songs of the Beatles) around me at the time. I do recall that my 8th grade graduation class wanted to select Let It Be as our class song, but the authorities at St. Mary’s Immaculate Conception Grade School heard rumors that the Beatles intention behind the song was the legalization of marijuana and some other song was selected. I cannot remember what the class song was. It might have been equally meaningful but as you see, that is lost on me now.

The Magnificat was first impressed upon my heart from the age of ten and later more significantly around age 16 when I entered the monastery in California. Monks have sung Mary’s song or the Magnificat for centuries, every day, at Vespers or evening prayer. I am partial to the time just before sunset when Vespers is usually sung and the chanting of the Magnificat is the high point of the Vesper service sometimes accompanied with incense and processions. Seven cope Vespers were even more ornate and seven priests in the monastic community would where copes (ornately embroidered floor length capes) for the processions and incensing of the altar. A lavish display was given during the Magnificat in memory of a young woman who referred to herself as a “lowly handmaid.”

Both pieces of music echo in their lyrics a theme of humility and surrender in spite of circumstances that surround us. They both speak of hope, comfort and a gentle way of facing life’s greatest transitions. They both speak of a faith that is certain of a positive outcome in the end.

The values in the song that most resonate for me are humility and perseverance. Monastic life is built on the value of humility and the Rule of St. Benedict addresses how once advances in the degrees of humility. My confirmation name/middle name is Bernard, after St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who preached and wrote extensively on humility for his monks as well. Although, no longer a monk, having lived under monastic profession for 24 years, I don’t believe that genuine humility can be abandoned which perhaps leads to selecting perseverance or fortitude as values. While the Beatles' Mary speaks wisdom and shines light in personal darkness, Luke’s Mary is overwhelmed by the power of God. A power that in some confessions of Christianity made her the Mother of God. There is a profound relationality in both songs. In Let It Be the relationship is between the individual and Mary and in the Magnificat the relationship is between God and the people of Israel expressed in the individual reflection of a young girl.

In Mary’s song, we hear about the emancipatory aspirations of a people. A deep and critical reflection of everything that Mary knows of life and its blessings and sufferings. This is Mary’s deep education, her paidea (education or instruction in her reflection on the message of the angel). “There will be an answer” implies that it is not yet apparent. Along with generations of monks, I am keeping vigil, watching and waiting for our great transformation foreshadowed by Jesus and many great teachers before and after him, including his mother who first uttered his words in the garden during his passion some 33 years earlier: “Thy will be done.”

So much of what I attribute value to in my life is rooted in this deep appreciation of education, there is an internal pull into the mystery of the light and that wisdom that subverts what we otherwise assume is reality. Is it any wonder that liberation theology grew out of the work of an educator the likes of Paulo Freire?
My experience of misalignment and suffering comes from not being skillful enough in my application of these values. I usually compromise for the pragmatic and the expedient and forego for long periods of time the inner reality from which such lyrics spring. I know on an authentic level (knowledge at the cognitive level of evaluation) that the significance of life is within each of us, far below the operation of daily thought and activity.

Better alignment is possible by recalling that the search for knowledge is an interior quest which may or may not be facilitated by the current environment in which I find myself. The words on the way to the oracle come to mind here, “know thyself.” I really believe that learning happens all the time and that sometimes it is transformational. I keep moving towards enlightenment in the ways I know how. Formal education is one way that always leaves me feeling expanded and open to new outcomes. I think that just learning about learning is creating a catalyst for me to move along this journey onward and upward. “There will be an answer. Let it be.”

Synchronicity and Etymology

The most recent experience I have had with synchronicity involves repeated exposure to the Boston Consulting Group and Harvard Business School involving a little etymology as well. Both synchronicity and etymology make me wonder about our reflective learning capacity and our meaning-making natures.

As part of my degree program in Human Resource Development, we are reading The Essentials of Strategy from the Harvard Business School Press. The introduction to the book starts off in perfect alignment with my personal learning preferences of moving from the simple to the complex, including the definition of terms and some explanation as to their usage. The introduction states that business has long made use of military language in business-talk (that must have been before the growth of sports analogies and the expanded appreciation of teamwork and collaboration). From the command and control perspective, I can see the military language being useful. But my surprise was that the use of the military term, strategy, did not take-off in business until 1971 when Kenneth Andrews wrote the book The Concept of Corporate Strategy. The use of strategy in the business context was further shaped at Harvard by Professor Michael Porter in the 1980s.

Subsequent to the ongoing development of strategy in business language, the Boston Consulting Group's founder, Bill Henderson, linked the notion of competitive advantage. Now it just so happens that my course is entitled Strategic Human Resource Development and the organization where I work recently retained the services of the Boston Consulting Group.

The other day, I got an email from a colleague that contained a link to a Boston Consulting Group report entitled Creating People Advantage 2010 which essentially is an examination of the strategic use of talent, an area of responsibility directly related to Strategic Human Resource Development. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up!

The value of the information exceeds my strange fascination with how the associations were laid down in my neural networks but I thought it was worth the telling. Have you experienced a synchronous learning event like this recently? If so, please comment and share.

The Dunning-Krueger Effect

Today, I was having lunch with some friends and was speaking about someone in a conflictual relationship. Well my friends indicated to me that I had just introduced a new word or rather made up the word. The story was rather like the one described here. I didn't give much thought to it, until after my drive home from work. It then occurred to me that it was probable that I was wrong. My friends both attended prominent schools in the Northeast and are excellent writers and editors. At home, I went to Google to search for the word "conflictual" and found it within the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, in addition to the online dictionaries referenced in the story above.

My early education in the liberal arts has always reinforced the notion that schooling is for life, non pro schola sed pro vita. Then, upon some further reflection, as through some mysterious alignment, I discovered the Dunning-Krueger Effect using StumbleUpon. I liked it, needless to say! Today, I was okay with recognizing my own incompetence and therefore avoided presenting an inflated self-assessment.