Everything that I am reading at the moment from the ‘movers and shakers’ in the world of organisational, management and leadership learning convinces me that there are some exciting new insights that are going to bring about a real revolution in our understanding of training and learning in the workplace.  Here are a few , probably contentious suggestions I’d like to make, based upon the trends that I’m hearing and reading everywhere, that might help us to move this revolution along!

1. Recognise that informal learning is significantly more powerful, and more highly valued than formal learning. Therefore, shift the investment (both time and finance) away from the design and delivery of formal programmes (face-to-face or online) and transfer it to creating and supporting informal learning.

2.Remove the word ‘training’ from your corporate vocabulary. If the concept of ‘training’ goes, so does the idea of learners being controlled and  ‘processed’. We train animals for obedience: we engage human beings by helping them to learn.

3. Embrace new technology but don’t impose it: create multiple ways in which people can easily access and use a variety of media to gather the information, knowledge and expertise they need, when they need it. Divert your training budget to create multiple informal spaces and learning environments. Create resource centres, both physically and on-line, filled with versatile materials that are freely available to individual learners for use whenever they need them. (cf. Apple’s introduction of itunes university). And believe that anyone using these is ‘at work ‘….not playing truant or abdicating their responsibilities!

4. Ensure that Performance Management is a developmental, learning process: link learning and performance by setting goals that use the framework,   “I need to learn X in order to be able to do Y”.

5. Only appoint managers who understand and use effective developmental coaching. No matter how good their technical skills are, if they don’t have great people development skills, don’t promote them into managerial positions.

6. Replace formal conferences with open space, cross functional gatherings, with specific outcomes, and facilitate groups as they  they tackle issues of real organisational importance in an innovative atmosphere.

7.  Measure project success against performance and learning criteria. Build learning reviews into every process. Ask, “What do we need to learn to be successful in achieving this project? How do we incorporate that into our plan?”

8. Scrap any meeting that is a presentation or exchange of information available through other media. Replace these  with ‘learning exchanges’: group reviews of learning, how to share and apply it and how to impact anyone who would benefit from it.

9. In a market place in which more and more potential employees are well-qualified and ‘certified’, start to focus on learning with new employees before they join. Interview and recruit with a focus on what candidates have learned, how they learned it and how they will continue to learn throughout their employment. Select those who understand and are motivated by learning. Take every new employee through a personal coaching session around their own Learning Power: create a personal learning record that stays with the learner for life and replaces the CV.

10. Remove any responsibility for L&D from HR. The functions are fundamentally different. Create a ‘learning support’ function staffed entirely by skilled facilitators and coaches and give them free rein to create personalised learning programmes. Integrate personal learning goals into daily work.

OK – there are a few details to work out, I concede……

What do you think?

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It is 25 years this month since I began to work in the ‘development training’ business and recognised the power of using experiential learning activities. Since then, much has changed in our knowledge and understanding about why and how we use experiential learning and in the organisational landscape in which we offer our services. Here are a few of the things that have changed since I began my chequered career through learning and development!

1. My first programme in 1986 was a twenty-one day residential programme for young, high potential graduates on a management development programme for a major retailer. In three weeks of personal development we could change lives! I can’t see many employers releasing their staff for a continuous period of twenty-one days in 2011. We have become skilled in achieving powerful results from short, relevant activities and targeted interventions that really focus the learning on specific outcomes established in advance. Examples are our ‘bite-size’ workshops that can be delivered in 2 hour modules: have a look at this example around the theme of ‘Breakthrough Thinking’

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/breakthrough-thinking-workshop-p-31.html

2. Almost all structured experiential learning was done in the outdoors. We offered a full range of adventure and outdoor activities and it was an essential requirement of every programme that participants found multiple ways of getting wet! Since then, we’ve been able to use the power of experiential learning by creating smaller scale but carefully designed activities that can be offered in classrooms, seminar rooms and offices as well as an outdoor environment. The RSVP design website gives you a broad choice of activities we’ve developed over this time!

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk

3. We had to type, Tippex and photocopy all of our paperwork: we thought twice about making a change to a programme! Who would have imagined the potential of modern technology to offer learning through electronic and mobile media and to bring together learnign groups from around the world? Contact us to check out RSVP Design’s work in the field of mobile learning and our connections with Dynamically Loaded – breaking new ground in learning using mobile technologies.

4. We were learner focused: everything we did was designed to meet the needs of our learners. Over 25 years I’ve experienced a move away from the needs of the learner to delivering ’sheep-dip’ training to meet organisational targets. However, more recently, as organisations have been forced to recognise the need for flexibility, adaptability and resilience in the face of change we are starting to focus on the learner again. We’ve recently had the honour of being selected to bring a new model of ‘Learning Power’ to the business world: it is an exciting initiative for 2011 and one we are convinced will make a genuine contribution to organisational learning.

See our new work on ELLI: the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/trainer-training/

I could list many more changes – I’d be really interested in hearing how you feel our profession has changed and developed, what we do better now than 25 years ago – and what we may have lost in the process of change!

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I am delighted to announce that Interel Inc. from San Francisco and RSVP Design Ltd. are forming a new partnership that will see their respective product portfolios merge and both organisations work together to continue to support customers around the world with the most effective activity-based learning tools and learning design support. Although RSVP Design and Interel have worked together informally for several years this is a new development in formally providing all shipping and logistical support for both sets of products. Interel in the US will support all US customers and RSVP Design in the UK will support all non-US customers – both sets of products will be available for purchase from either location.

Key product designers Boyd Watkins, Geoff Cox and Ann Alder have worked together before but this announcement signals an intention to provide a truly global and probably unparalleled level of experience in designing effective learning environments.

You can download the official press release here: RSVP Design & Interel Press Release

Please visit the RSVP Design online store to see the additional Interel experiential learning devices now added. Larger scale devices like Pyramid, Network and Mosaic provide some fantastic new tools for large group meetings and for use in outdoor environments.

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We have been struggling for several years to adequately describe what we do in terms of our ‘30 second elevator pitch’. It’s that horrible bit when an acquaintance or even a close friend/relative says ‘Graham, what do RSVP Design actually do?’ We use terms like experiential learning or activity-based learning – but these typically only work for people who are immersed in learning & development and understand this jargon. I was glad therefore to read a couple of articles recently which describes some of what we do in more plain English terms. The first was the wonderful Thiagi (see http://www.thiagi.com/index.html ). Thiagi was talking about ‘Jolts’ – short pieces of activity/games/training that can be used to ‘wake-up’ delegates and remind them that things were not what they thought, or to ensure that they are ready to accept a change in pace, direction, content or some other move in terms of the training programme. What I love about Thiagi’s philosophy is that he still maintains that you spend every second you have with your learners focused on delivering the required learning outcomes (even although he sometimes uses some very simplistic ideas that I think might not work with a typically cynical UK senior management group). This is in contrast to many US-based trainers who still use rubber chickens and a host of other childish ice-breakers that they genuinely believe will somehow make people more responsive to their forthcoming, and finally relevant, learning content!

I think a ‘jolt’ is a good example of what we provide through some of our learning tools and helps people understand what we mean by creating ‘learning tools that are effective and engaging’. I’d consider tools such as Challenging Assumptions, Images of Customer Experience and Seeing the Point as successful ‘Jolts’ . Although Thiagi maintains Jolts should be short in time duration, I’ve also seen many wonderful insights created through a  Jolt delivered by a longer experiential activity like Colourblind that can take 30 minutes to complete. I do think people often need a good amount of time to really reflect on the ‘Jolt’.

The second article discussed the ‘triune brain theory’ (also important in Whole Brain Learning Theory) and the fact that although humans have many specialist parts of our brain, a lot of training seems only to be aimed at particular parts. The triune brain theory model considers our brain as evolving from three distinct parts – the reptilian brain, which manages typical ‘fight or flight’ responses; the mammalian brain or limbic system which manages emotions and memory; and the neo-cortex or ‘upper’ brain which deals with logic, analysis, synthesis etc. A lot of training aimed at the so-called higher-order thinking processes can forget to include key areas such as emotion and memory – much of which makes learning ’stick’  and therefore be more likely to be applied, and is key in behavioural change. This article can be found in the October 2010 edition of Training Journal: ‘The Three Brain of Training’. There are a lot of tips and techniques for trainers that we would certainly agree with – and would also suggest that well designed experiential activities can provide the necessary engagement with all three brains:

1. They can provide that ’safe’ environment necessary for rehearsing new skills and behaviours, satisfying the reptilian brain

2.They can provide the emotional engagement for the mammalian brain through providing engaging and elegant game play that can provide a memorable ‘anchor’ for later recall and application

3. They can provide the necessary challenge required in adult learning that is also clearly linked to workplace issues,  to satisfy the upper level thinking processes for the neo-cortex that allows for generative learning where participants can integrate their new learning with old models.

I’m happy tell people that ‘we design games that engage each one of your three brains!’

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I’ve had a number of conversation recently around the subject of change. These have ranged from clients looking to drive change through fairly typical ‘large group meetings’, to struggling how to get people to change behaviours at all, and then how to consistently deliver change management across geographically dispersed groups.

In my opinion all three relate to the same thing: getting people to ‘learn’ and then practise the required new behaviours. As all the ‘learners’  in this case are adult learners then the first issue is to ensure that they understand why they need to ‘change’. Simply telling people is not enough and engaging them in an experiential activity that can sensitise them to the need for change can be a useful way to do this, so

1. Get the large group meeting to do an activity that is aimed at demonstrating ‘How our Customer needs have changed’, or ‘Why identifying and challenging underlying assumptions can be difficult’ is probably better than listening to the CEO tell us something whilst watching 40 Powerpoint slides for 2 hours in a large Hotel Conference room …

2. Consider the learners – their learning styles, learning power, environment, culture and the change management challenge. Give them some ‘rehearsal space’ where they can practise the required behavioural change. Use professional actors to obtain ‘real’ feedback; use experiential activities where the unfamiliar but safe environment won’t prevent people from taking risks they might otherwise not; provide coaching, support and feedback as learners enagage in the repetitive actions that will make them confident and make the new behaviours ‘comfortable’. Behavioural change needs not just the understanding of what the change is but to actually learn and then apply that change in practice – the real workplace is the most difficult place to begin to apply that behavioural change.

3. Don’t rely on the varying quality of ‘message transmitters’ across the world, or individual interpretations of written/emailed statements/briefing documents- use the same experiential activities in each location that will provide a shared global context for the change, yet allow debriefs, reflection times, and generative learning to take account of local issues. Colleagues from around the world can then share their experience of the same experiential environment and use that as a means to explore local implications of global change.

Of course in each of these contexts RSVP Design can provide the tools and learning design skills to help create these change management programems with clients, and hopefully soon I can talk about whether some of these specific conversations have led to successful change management projects!

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Here is a fascinating presentation on an alternative way to teach! It certainly support the move from teaching to facilitating!

Click here

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In a press release to promote their upcoming Content and Collaboration Summit 2010 (London, UK, September 15-16) Gartner Research forecast 10 key changes in the nature of work through to 2020:  “Work will become less routine, characterized by increased volatility, hyperconnectedness, ’swarming’ and more,” said Tom Austin, vice president and Gartner fellow. By 2015, 40 percent or more of an organization’s work will be ‘non-routine’, up from 25 percent in 2010. “People will swarm more often and work solo less. They’ll work with others with whom they have few links, and teams will include people outside the control of the organization,” he added. “In addition, simulation, visualisation and unification technologies, working across yottabytes of data per second, will demand an emphasis on new perceptual skills.”

We agree with the predictions, and see it as a continuation of change we are already seeing in organisations; and with it will come some major challenges for L&D/OD departments. Here are the ten key changes Gartner forecast, and where we think L&D professionals should be considering a response.

1. De-routinization of Work – the obvious response here is the de-routinization and individual personalisation of training. We look forward to when “Here is the list of available training courses” is accepted as an outdated and wasteful use of trainer and delegate time & resources. I suspect the public sector in the UK has some way to go on this …
2. Work Swarms – workers need more insight into how they might work effectively with others who think differently or have different problem-solving approaches etc. Tools like HBDI or Effective Life-long Learning Inventory will be useful in being able to quickly work effectively in ’swarms’ of people you don’t know well.
3. Weak Links – formal and informal networking will become an even more important skill in the future, and not just for salespeople! Consider how and where social and business networking sites can and should be used during worktime. Is time spent networking on Facebook helping to build weak links, or just chatting with friends? Will updating my blog be considered as vanity or essential to developing these weak links?
4. Working With the Collective – Perhaps ‘influencing’ will become the most desirable skill of any business leader as we move to a position where ‘the collective’ replaces any internal hierarchy? This suggests more  prefered ‘right-side’ thinking style in the HBDI model than the traditonal ‘left-side’ found in many management positions today.
5. Work Sketch-Ups – ‘Designing-in-flight’ or ‘managing in ambiguity’ requires a very different set of skills and behaviours than that typically suggested by teaching through a ‘case-study’ method. How will our Business Schools and academics respond? Will we move to more activity-based learning facilitation than ‘teaching’?
6. Spontaneous Work – This suggests creating the type of corporate culture where this is not only desired but encouraged. How do you build this culture? Contrast this with today where most ‘leaders’ set the work agenda – how do you lead/manage people who develop their own work activities and priorities?
7. Simulation and Experimentation – of course we believe that activity-based learning provides the ideal ’synthetic’ environment to experiment and simulate behaviours. That’s why we create tools to help organisations build their learning environments!
8. Pattern Sensitivity – See Ann’s forthcoming book:  Pattern Making,  Pattern Breaking
9. Hyperconnected – in a hyperconnected world there is probably no time for formal contracts and agreements. Does this suggest an increase in the importance of ‘Trust’ and a requirement to better understand how to build and maintain it? Is it hopefully the end of long-winded tender processes?
10. My Place – how do we deliver training at ‘My Place’  (the workplace may be virtual, may physically be at home, or indeed may change on a daily basis)? Will it be more ‘edutainment apps’, delivered outside of the normal working hours, paid for by discerning individuals (who want to build their learning power) out of their own pocket (or personal learning account)?

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Everyone here at RSVP Design and our clients, partners and suppliers would like to congratulate our colleague Geoff Cox on his recent Doctoral award and his new title of Dr. Cox! Outlined below is some further information on Geoff’s Thesis, and you can contact him for more information on geoff@rsvpdesign.co.uk

Back in 2003,  RSVP Design was created with a real sense of mission around utilising, and developing best practice in the design of learning environments. It was recognised at a very early stage that if this mission was to be achieved there was an urgent need to define exactly what “best practice” looked like. It was at that time that Geoff began his research, aimed at making available to designers, practitioners and buyers of learning events a set of guidelines that would help them to discern the best from the rest!

The early stages of the research were plagued with problems. Different terminology on different sides of the Atlantic, a shocking lack of published material relating to the design dimension of learning, and in particular the extent to which RSVP Design needed to demonstrate the unique value of experiential learning: each an impediment to progress. By 2004 a comprehensive examination of published material brought the conclusions:
a) There were no existing guidelines for the design of experiential learning environments
and
b) We were going to have to write our own
and
c) Any thoughts of this being a quick exercise were now out of the window!

That began six years of action research that started with some initial, tentative guidelines that Geoff put forward and asked our facilitation team to report back on. The guidelines were revised, based on their feedback, and he moved to the next piece of design using the new guidelines. This cycle was repeated on multiple occasions, with groups from business school executives to factory supervisors, each time adding to our knowledge of how the emerging guidelines needed to be revised and applied. The research journey was punctuated by some interesting insights, for instance when it was determined that the guidelines were equally applicable to learning environments that were designed to address the needs of young people, and when the guidelines were used successfully for the first time with electronic simulations as the experiential activity.

So finally, (in 2010!) Geoff has defended his Thesis and is now Dr. Cox. We will shortly be publishing an Executive Monograph of his research on the RSVP Design website and we believe that this will be a key contribution to what we believe to be current best practice in the field of learning design.

·It is an open and transparent statement of how RSVP Design creates experiential learning environments.
·It offers clients who are commissioning experiential learning events a language to define their requirements.
·It offers clients who are buying experiential learning events a way of discerning / interrogating the quality of the designs that they are being offered.

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Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI)

One of the most exciting pieces of applied research we’ve come across recently has come from The University of Bristol.  We think it adds huge value to our understanding of how people learn – and how we can support them in individual and organisational learning. We have been working with the research team for more than a year and we’re delighted that we are amongst the first people in the UK to be accredited to use ELLI in our learning design, coaching and trainer training. We are working closely with ViTaL Partnerships and the University of Bristol to help them to develop applications of ELLI beyond schools-based learning and into learning and development in business, and we’re really excited about our plans to launch a variety of applications soon for use in commercial (non-academic) organisations.

ELLI is:

1. A well-researched set of ideas about how people learn most effectively
2. A self-assessment instrument to aid self-analysis, diagnosis and strategy
3. A tool to empower people to bring about change, individually and together

The ELLI research team at Bristol investigated what it is about some people that makes them effective lifelong learners.  Seven dimensions of ‘learning power’ emerged, via factor analysis, each with elements of  ‘thinking, feeling and doing’.  The seven dimensions are:

changing and learning – a sense of myself as someone who learns and changes over time;
critical curiosity – an orientation to want to ‘get beneath the surface’;
meaning making – making connections and seeing that learning ‘matters to me’;
creativity – risk-taking, playfulness, imagination and intuition;
learning relationships – learning with and from others and also able to manage without them;
strategic awareness – being aware of my thoughts, feelings and actions as a learner and able to use that awareness to manage learning processes;
resilience – the readiness to persevere in the development of my own learning power.

The ELLI profile gives powerful insights into individual and organisational learning patterns. It creates opportunities for in-depth coaching and mentoring conversations that focus not just on what people need to learn, but how they can build their learning power. It allows learning designers to consider their chosen delivery methods and match them against the needs of their learners. It allows an exploration of available learning tools and technologies and helps individuals to develop personal learning strategies that will support them in achieving their learning goals.

If you are interested in learning more about ELLI, we will shortly be delivering both an introductory one-day workshop and an extended (additional 2 days) accreditation workshop that would allow licensed trainers/coaches to then use ELLI within their own organisations & clients. For more information please contact us on +44 141 561 0387.

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I read the recent Chartered Management Institute Review which stated some interesting and disturbing statistics for UK managers:

CMI recently questioned UK managers to find out which aspects of management they thought they were best at. Of the 2,158 managers polled, almost half (44 per cent) said they excelled at managing people. Twenty-one per cent were target-busters, 19 per cent believed they were strongest at managing themselves and just 14 per cent felt they were born to lead.

CMI has since put those perceptions to the test by inviting UK workers to use a specially-developed self-diagnostic tool to work out where their strengths and weaknesses lie. The results strongly contradict managers’ perceptions, revealing that, in practice, UK managers are best at getting results (41 per cent) and strong leadership (37 per cent). Just 14 per cent of the 6,056 people who used the tool excelled at people management and a paltry eight per cent proved to be best at managing themselves.

See http://www.hrreview.co.uk/articles/hrreview-articles/hr-strategy-practice/half-of-managers-misjudge-their-workplace-performance/10058

I wondered when I read that where do:

1. Most managers go to find out more about their own learning strengths/preferences and personality/thinking preferences? As little of this is taught to most undergraduates where else can ‘ managers’ get this insight, except through their organisation’s L&D team-building or other activities? Should this be mandatory on all undergraduate courses?

and

2. Managers (new or experienced) go to ‘practise’ their management skills? So much of what we see in corporate/organisational L&D is about presenting theories, models, competency frameworks, performance monitoring etc and less about offering these delegates the chance to practise new skills or behaviours. Group learning through experiential activities is a great way to offer people a non-contentious and safe ‘practice field’ for a wide rnage of management and ’soft skills’ rehearsal – but how do we get employers to provide more of it?

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