{"id":40609,"date":"2022-11-24T21:31:22","date_gmt":"2022-11-24T21:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.totara.fortyapp.com\/articles\/disruption-debate-with-don-taylor-its-time-to-wake-up\/"},"modified":"2024-08-02T20:50:25","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T20:50:25","slug":"disruption-debate-with-don-taylor-its-time-to-wake-up","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/staging.totara.fortyapp.com\/us\/articles\/disruption-debate-with-don-taylor-its-time-to-wake-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Disruption Debate with Don Taylor: It’s time to wake up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

<\/p>\n

Welcome to the next instalment of our Disruption Debate series, where Lars Hyland speaks to some of L&D\u2019s 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\u00a0Learning Technologies in the Workplace<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Wake up and do something<\/h3>\n

\u201cI think that everyone is aware now that the world is changing fast, and if businesses don\u2019t wake up to that fact they\u2019re 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\u2019s time for organisations to make some tough choices.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no escaping the fact that we\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. The reason is that people are just too busy. If you ask anyone in L&D \u2018How are things for you at the moment?\u2019, they\u2019ll tell you there\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019t have the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

What makes a great L&D team?<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason L&D teams often can\u2019t achieve the results they need is because they\u2019re purely focusing on the things they\u2019re being asked to focus on – they\u2019re being given the wrong orders by management who don\u2019t fully understand the learning need.\u201d<\/p>\n

So when we\u2019re looking to build a successful L&D team, what should we be looking for? \u201cWe need people in L&D with a combination of being understood by the people they\u2019re talking to, being able to collect and present hard data and to use that data to persuade key stakeholders.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cL&D is seen as being part of the furniture – people who fulfil a role with no strategic input. They\u2019re seen as doing things the same way they\u2019ve always been done, and the rest of the business doesn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The training ghetto<\/h3>\n

\u201cA lot of organisations are caught in what I call the \u2018training ghetto\u2019: compliance, onboarding and \u2018fairydust training\u2019, where L&D teams are asked to \u2018sprinkle some fairydust\u2019 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cL&D professionals must do their day jobs really well and do them differently\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So what should L&D be doing to break free of this learning ghetto? \u201cWe 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 \u2018Can we have something like this too?\u2019. 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 \u2018I understand that you\u2019re a professional operating in a way I don\u2019t quite understand, but I trust you – please help me solve this problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. \u201cThe role of communities in L&D is very important. The Totara network is a very good example of this!\u201d<\/p>\n

The schoolroom assumptio<\/h3>\n

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. \u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The future of L&D<\/h3>\n

So, what does the L&D team of the future look like according to Don? \u201cIn future, we can expect to see a small number of L&D professionals working at the strategic level, whether that\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cGetting off the content treadmill is a key first step to changing how L&D is seen in the organisation\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Business horizons are also becoming more uncertain, making the way L&D teams work change constantly. \u201cPeople 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\u2019ll buy yourself chips at the table, and you\u2019ll gain the trust and support financially and timewise to try new things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enjoyed this piece? Be sure to\u00a0follow Don on Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or find him on\u00a0LinkedI<\/a>. You can join in the debate on social media using #DisruptionDebate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>","protected":false},"template":"","tax\/tags":[],"tax\/solutions":[],"tax\/topics":[],"tax\/industries":[],"tax\/article-types":[1021],"class_list":["post-40609","article","type-article","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.totara.fortyapp.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/40609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.totara.fortyapp.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.totara.fortyapp.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.totara.fortyapp.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.totara.fortyapp.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tax\/tags?post=40609"},{"taxonomy":"solution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.totara.fortyapp.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tax\/solutions?post=40609"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.totara.fortyapp.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tax\/topics?post=40609"},{"taxonomy":"industry-tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.totara.fortyapp.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tax\/industries?post=40609"},{"taxonomy":"article-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.totara.fortyapp.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tax\/article-types?post=40609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}