Welcome to the next instalment of our Disruption Debate series, where Lars Hyland speaks to some of L&D’s leading influencers about the topic of disruption in the industry. In this post, Lars speaks to Don Taylor, chair of the LPI, LSG and Learning Technologies, and author of Learning Technologies in the Workplace.
Wake up and do something
“I think that everyone is aware now that the world is changing fast, and if businesses don’t wake up to that fact they’re going to be toast. Some of this is to do with L&D, some is to do with the workplace in general, and some is to do with the world. It’s time for organisations to make some tough choices.”
There’s no escaping the fact that we’re living in a VUCA world, and that this is already having a profound impact on the way organisations should deliver learning to their employees. Lars asked Don if he believes that organisations are, in fact, waking up to this fact yet.
“No. The reason is that people are just too busy. If you ask anyone in L&D ‘How are things for you at the moment?’, they’ll tell you there’s not enough time, not enough money, too much demand. The changes taking place in the world are leading to issues around skills and knowledge, and management’s reaction is to slap a course on it. L&D teams today are on a content treadmill, with no time to catch their breath and think about what they should be doing instead. People just don’t have the time.”
What makes a great L&D team?
In many organisations, L&D teams are criticised for not being able to get results fast enough. They are often accused of being ineffective or too slow to address business needs with learning programmes, and Don believes this is unfair.
“The reason L&D teams often can’t achieve the results they need is because they’re purely focusing on the things they’re being asked to focus on – they’re being given the wrong orders by management who don’t fully understand the learning need.”
So when we’re looking to build a successful L&D team, what should we be looking for? “We need people in L&D with a combination of being understood by the people they’re talking to, being able to collect and present hard data and to use that data to persuade key stakeholders.”
Don told a story from a recent experience at an airport. He was waiting in a security queue when travelling from Dallas to San Antonio, and found himself speaking to a fellow passenger in the queue. She was a doctor on her way to New Orleans to deliver compliance training to healthcare practitioners, and Don noted that this is because doctors themselves would be better accepted by medical staff than by L&D professionals when it comes to training.
“L&D is seen as being part of the furniture – people who fulfil a role with no strategic input. They’re seen as doing things the same way they’ve always been done, and the rest of the business doesn’t understand how much learning has to change to get things done. L&D practitioners, management and the learning community as a whole are responsible for changing this.”
The training ghetto
“A lot of organisations are caught in what I call the ‘training ghetto’: compliance, onboarding and ‘fairydust training’, where L&D teams are asked to ‘sprinkle some fairydust’ to solve a skills problem. Before L&D has strategic conversations at the board level, they must escape this ghetto and command the respect of the rest of the business.”
“L&D professionals must do their day jobs really well and do them differently”
So what should L&D be doing to break free of this learning ghetto? “We need the chutzpah, confidence and competence to do something different. If you can do something truly groundbreaking, other managers will come to you and say ‘Can we have something like this too?’. You get strategic engagement by putting yourself out there, doing a good job in a unique way and people will come to you and say ‘I understand that you’re a professional operating in a way I don’t quite understand, but I trust you – please help me solve this problem.”
Don says that we should be doing more to foster a sense of community in L&D, as by getting together to generate ideas, we can all help each other succeed much faster. “The role of communities in L&D is very important. The Totara network is a very good example of this!”
The schoolroom assumption
Don believes that many organisations struggle with the schoolroom assumption – that a performance problem can be solved with knowledge or skills provided through the type of learning everyone did at school. “This implicit assumption is massively accepted, because we spend our formative years at school. Everyone assumes a knowledge-based course will solve training issues, but the most successful people in L&D know that we can make it work in a different way.”
The future of L&D
So, what does the L&D team of the future look like according to Don? “In future, we can expect to see a small number of L&D professionals working at the strategic level, whether that’s interacting with the business, consulting, or acting as thought leaders. We will also have tactical people making things happen, designing experiences, coordinating, curating and facilitating – wider than today’s current L&D skillset. To rise to the strategic level, people will need pointers from groups like the LPI and LSG. An organisation can survive without these strategic L&D skills, but those who have them will be more successful.”
“Getting off the content treadmill is a key first step to changing how L&D is seen in the organisation”
Business horizons are also becoming more uncertain, making the way L&D teams work change constantly. “People are stressed, and working to shorter product lifecycles. The lifecycle for car production is now down from five years to two, and this is mirrored across the business landscape. Instead of going back to the content treadmill, organisations must put in place the foundations for both short-term skills and long-term capabilities. If you can do this really well, you’ll buy yourself chips at the table, and you’ll gain the trust and support financially and timewise to try new things.”
Enjoyed this piece? Be sure to follow Don on Twitter or find him on LinkedIn. You can join in the debate on social media using #DisruptionDebate.
