Performance Improvement

Human performance technology

Scaffolding and capability building

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Jane Hart’s recent post on changing the role of L&D (learning & development) explains how training departments need to move beyond packaging content and toward scaffolding and capability building.

What I like about this matrix is that it makes it easier to describe my professional services in the organizational learning area. I have highlighted my areas of focus in red. The rest is not really my business, as there are plenty of companies that do that. I used to say I did ABC Learning [Anything But Courses]. Jane’s graphic makes it  much more clear, and it’s what our new Connected Worker site is all about.
scaffolding

Create conversation spaces

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Curation is more than integration, writes Rick Segal in Forbes [via Robin Good]. Segal discusses how marketing is about curating all the conversations around a subject.

In truth, curation has more to do with the multi-participant communications flowing in the stream of social media conversation …

Now, marketing communications must be framed by the conversation, and not just by the marketer, but by all the parties to the conversation …

A conversation is not like an exhibit hall. It’s physical boundaries are potentially limitless, though most can and will exhaust in time. The membership of a conversation is certainly not always well-controlled. A new meme or raconteur can abscond with it, if we’re not careful. Not everything that shows up belongs. But the great curator, like the great raconteur, is always two or three stories or anecdotes ahead of the rest of the table.

Now think of this from a workplace performance perspective. Solving complex problems also requires “multi-participant communications”. In the network age, learning is conversation. But aren’t training courses more like “exhibit halls”? They are prepared in advance, checked for quality control, and delivered with the best look & feel. Conversations are messier with ill-defined boundaries; just like work and just like life.

Informal Learning Conversations

Personal knowledge management is akin to pre-curation. If we look at workplace performance support as curation, then creating spaces for conversation would be an obvious component. Getting all the necessary parties involved in workplace conversations can enhance knowledge-sharing and contribute to greater diversity of ideas, a necessity for innovation. I think training & organizational development can learn a lot from marketing, but of course I’ve said that before.

Work environment design for learning

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Catherine Lombardozzi writes, in Time for an Evolution:

To those of you who feel like you just stepped into the middle of a conversation, a learning environment (to my mind) is a collect of resources and activities for learning. The resources may be inanimate or human; the activities may be formal or informal. A well designed learning environment is curated with a specific need in mind. It may be curated by an individual (as in a personal learning environment), by a group (such as a community of practice), or by a designer who is supporting a specific complex need that can’t be met by training or other formal programs alone.

I’ve been promoting learning environment design as a way of thinking about what we used to call blended learning, and as a way of capitalizing on informal learning resources by curating the best materials (in your judgment) and making them easily accessible by your learners.

I have taken her image and added a 70:20:10 overlay. This could serve as a decision support tool for allocating time and resources for organizational learning and development.

70 20 10

Ask not for whom the Reaper comes

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My colleagues and I often get cast as informal learning zealots in pieces written to placate the training industry and maintain the status quo, especially the lucrative compliance training market. Actually, given the tone of some articles and presentations, I am certain many people think of us in even less friendly terms.

So…now you get back to Training and they’re sitting around the fire at the mouth of the Training cave hugging their storyboards to their chests like flotation devices in a water landing. They’re in a trance and chanting ADDIE over and over…rocking back and forth and hugging those storyboard for dear life. And here you come, dragging your new stakeholder relationship and your sparkling new EPSS behind you, or your cheap-as-heck Web services portal, or your SharePoint, or your WordPress site. Your silhouette looks to many of your peers like that of the grim reaper. Several are updating resumes. Others whimper softly, “Please don’t make me change.” – Gary Wise

The Grim Reaper seems an appropriate image. My colleague Charles Jennings looks at workplace learning from the perspective of Experience, Exposure & Education; with the latter accounting for about ten percent of time and effort. The Reaper looks for those who spend 100% of their efforts only supporting the ten percent. The Reaper knows that work is learning and learning is the work. Workplace learning means much more than courses and management systems. I have said many times that courses are artifacts of a time when information was scarce and connections were few. That time has passed. The Reaper is looking for those who insist on living in the past.

While the course purveyors look to “leverage” informal and social learning for their schooling tools, they should note that levers are designed to move things, and it will be the courses that move – into a darker corner. As my colleague Jane Hart shows in this image, there is a lot of room to expand as a learning and performance consultant.

In an increasingly complex workplace, many of the old models are no longer useful. Schooling, the basis of much of corporate training, is one of these. Connections to almost unlimited information show how much more powerful Pull learning is to Push, like self-taught African teens and hole-in-the-wall learning. A generation of self-taught learners outside the western schooling model is becoming the next global workforce, and more importantly, your competition.

Ask not for whom the Reaper comes – he comes for you.

Understanding behaviour

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In his book Drive, Dan Pink looked at rewards, consequences and motivation at work and showed that much of what we have taken for granted is just not supported by the research. Extrinsic rewards only work for simple physical tasks and increased monetary rewards can actually be detrimental to performance, especially with knowledge work. The keys to motivation at work are for each person to have a sense of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose, as shown in this video. With this in mind, there are times when rewards and consequences are not linked to a desired performance, and this can lead to confusion or even worse. Rewards are still an important aspect to consider in workplace performance. Consider the case of medical researchers sharing their professional knowledge and findings amongst peers.

In a research-oriented work environment, it makes sense to share one’s knowledge so the whole team can be more productive. Insights from one person can save another a lot of wasted time. But what happens when this sharing is not recorded, or people are not given credit for their input? Compound this with a system that only rewards final discoveries, so that researchers have their bonus and career directly tied to their published work. Would you help out a colleague knowing that he alone would get credit for the final discovery? Would you be willing to share if the two of you were in competition for a promotion? Would you share if the company was letting go of staff based on merit, as measured in the annual performance reviews?

Klaus Wittkuhn wrote about human performance system imbalances several years ago in the Performance Improvement Journal.

It is not an intelligent strategy to train people to overcome system deficiencies. Instead, we should design the system properly to make sure that the performers can leverage all their capabilities.

Even if we trained researchers how to share their knowledge using social media tools combined with good network weaving behaviours, we likely would not get the knowledge-sharing behaviours the enterprise leadership say they want. This of course puts the knowledge management and learning support staff in a very difficult position. They know that the leadership says that collaboration is critical, but they see that the internal system has long-established barriers to real knowledge-sharing.

While a performance analysis can be helpful in determining the barriers to performance, sometimes these are controlled at such a high level that they are beyond the scope of those implementing new systems and initiatives. Perhaps the only thing that can be done is to highlight the issue by making it as clear as possible that all the technology and skills will not overcome systemic barriers. In the case of the researchers described above, not performing is rewarded.

Looking at Dan Pink’s three motivational factors, one can also say that even with a good degree of autonomy, mastery of a complex field of research, and a sense of purpose to create products for the benefit of society; there are still obstacles in creating an effective collaborative workplace. This is why anyone responsible for a collaboration project, such as promoting communities of practice, needs to look at all the factors influencing behaviour at work. There are no easy answers when it comes to changing behaviours in large organizations.

Performance Analysis process based on Mager & Pipe’s book
Analyzing Performance Problems

from training to performance to social

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This past year I conducted an online workshop called “from training, to performance to social“. In November I will be running one on moving from training to performance support, and this will be followed by a workshop on social learning for business.

I have tried to put together the main themes in a slide presentation that covers some of my experience as well as recommendations I have implemented with my clients. My experience is that it is difficult to move a traditional training organization directly to a social learning focus and it is easier to start with performance consulting and then expand to social and collaborative learning. If you are interested in discussing these ideas, then join one of the workshops or contact me to deliver an online or onsite session with your organization.

training performance social.001

  • HJ: Harold Jarche
  • JH: Jane Hart
  • CJ: Charles Jennings

Validation and feedback

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Here is a new approach to evaluation, by Nick Shackleton-Jones:

After the event, however, the system automatically prompts the chosen peer group to reassess those same behaviours at intervals of say one, three and six months. At the end of this period a ‘change score’ is calculated: an average value representing the amount of observed behavioural change that has taken place. Knowing that they are living up to the expectations of their peers, people make an effort to change. By coupling a meaningful challenge to the event, learners will endeavour to practise what they have learned – and we can skip directly to robust ‘level 3’ results.

Which is based on an old military approach, Training Validation, as exemplified by the Canadian Army:

On-job Performance
On-job performance is an evaluation measure that aims to determine if the trainee has been able to transfer the knowledge, skills or attitude learned in the training environment to the real world of the job. Within the ASAT, on-job performance is an element of validation conducted after at least three months following the training event. There are many different approaches to conducting this form of evaluation. Trainees, superiors and peers can be queried both through written questionnaires and personal interviews, and the results can lead to measurement of the effectiveness of the course/training activity. The validation of individual training is the responsibility of Commander LFDTS.

Training Efficiency
Examination of trainee reaction, the learning process and the transfer of learning to the job against the anticipated results and resources expended is the final method of determining efficiency. This analysis is a strategic responsibility, and the results are used to modify the conduct of future courses/training.

These are good systems if training was the correct solution in the first place, but note that formal instruction only accounts for 5% of workplace learning. As I wrote in a previous post, these types of methods work very well when you know what you are trying to achieve and understand the systems you are operating in. They work well when you have established best or good practices to base the training on. But what happens in complex environments, when ”the relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance”? This is the situation many workers find themselves in today.

Feedback and validation have to be part of our daily work, not just for training events. This is where PKM practices can help on a personal level, work narration for teams, and communities of practice for disciplines. Once again, work is learning and learning is the work.

The collaboration field needs to cooperate

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Eugene Kim looks at a variety of disciplines in the collaboration space, using LinkedIn network analysis to see if and how they are related. The resulting map, and Kim’s explanations are most interesting for anyone doing work related to enterprise collaboration.

According to Kim:

The densest cluster is the organizational development cluster, which is left of center. There are a bunch of skills here that are tightly interconnected, largely centered around leadership development, coaching, and group transformation.

The other large, dense clusters — management consulting, participatory processes, design thinking, and collaboration / technology — are largely distinct, although there is some bridging, mostly around learning-related skills. This makes sense: A high-performance group is a group that learns, a conclusion that you should draw regardless of your starting point.

The last sentence underlines my own focus for the past decade or more. Work is learning and learning is the work. Collaboration and learning go hand in glove.

Training, HR, OD, KM, IT, etc. use different models, speak different languages and go to separate conferences. However, they’re all in the business of collaboration. They just don’t do it with each other. Given the imperatives for continuous growth today, these disciplines need to give serious consideration to recombining their organizational DNA.

Just read a few professional journals and blogs and you will see that the same workplace issues are being faced by HR, IT, OD, KM, Marketing, Communications and T&D departments. Similar complaints and parallel strategies are being developed in isolation in each of these areas. We really need to get away from our self-imposed tribes and adopt network thinking and practices.

All levels of complexity exist in our world but more of our work (especially knowledge-intensive work) deals with complex problems, whether they be social, environmental or technological. Complex environments and problems are best addressed when we organize as networks; our work evolves around developing emergent practices; and we cooperate to achieve our goals. In the network era, collaboration specialists need to cooperate. Cooperation is quite different from collaboration.

In many ways it’s a case of the blind men and the elephant. We are constrained by the blinders of our profession’s models. That’s why I like to take my models from a variety of fields, as no single discipline has a network perspective. Everyone is struggling to keep up with change but most are using outdated tools and models. As Lou Sagar commented on Umair Haque’s 2009 post, ” … the emergence of new business models are ahead of the organizational framework to embrace and manage the impact.” Not much has changed. That pretty well sums up the problem in my mind. We are all blind men unable to understand the new realities of work.

 

I believe that a wide range of disciplinary silos can be incorporated into one support function. Professionals could have a variety of roles, depending on organizational needs, but all have to be focused on the organization and its environment. Separate departments create tribes and internal cultures that may be at cross-purposes with other departments or the overall organization. With hyper-linked information and access to expertise, not only are internal departments of less value, they could subvert the organization’s future by not responding quickly and appropriately.

I am sure there’s more than one way to achieve better functioning organizations but tearing down the artificial disciplinary walls would be a good place to start. With a networked, cooperative mindset, it is possible.

Training, Performance, Social Workshop Notes

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We launched a new online workshop today called, From Training, to Performance, to Social. It’s a Beta version, at a reduced price, but we have had a good number of participants sign up. I came up with the idea while conducting one of the PKM workshops and noticed that many people either mixed up training with performance improvement, or thought of social learning as merely a bolt-on to a formal course.

The first assignment has started with a bang this week, with many long and thoughtful posts about training and instruction. We will move to performance improvement tomorrow and then focus on social learning all of next week. There is one assignment for Training, two for Performance Improvement, and three for Social; reflecting, in my opinion, their relative importance in any organization. It roughly aligns with the 70:20:10 framework.

We have participants from AUS, NZ, UK & Europe, and North America, from many types of organizations and backgrounds. The workshops are designed to give just enough structure, without constraining personal and social learning. We curate what we think are the essential resources on a topic and also provide additional links and resources for those who are interested. We encourage all discussions to be done in the group area, so that people can learn from each other. Also, participants get my attention for two weeks. I try to find ways to help each person as I see what issues arise in the conversations. Without these conversations, I would not be able to help in an informed way. For those attending the workshops, the more they give, the more they get.

This is my fourth online workshop this year and it seems to be a model that works for me as well as participants. Feedback has been almost universally positive and I find the workload manageable. We will be offering more topics, and suggestions are always welcome. Custom workshops for organizations can also be developed.

courses artifacts

Social business drives workforce development

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In a workscape perspective I described how new frameworks help management, HR and L&D professionals get away from the trees to see the forest of workforce development.

Earlier, in Bridging the Gap; Working Smarter, I explained how loose external networks are necessary to have access to diverse opinions, while work teams need to share complex knowledge and therefore have to build strong, collaborative relationships.

Communities of practice are the bridges between the work being done and diverse social networks, fostering cooperation without hierarchical structure.

Basically, collaboration is necessary to do complicated, but manageable, project tasks; while a looser form of cooperation helps to understand more complex and not yet manageable problems. Cooperation is moving from a soft skill to a required hard skill.

From this perspective, the best way to develop internal workforce support structures (what used to be called learning & development) is from the outside in.

Start with what is being constantly learned in professional social networks and harvest it for insights.

Discuss these ideas cooperatively in communities of practice and then test out ways to enhance collaboration (Probe-Sense-Respond).

Through collaborative work, get feedback on where performance support may be required and if training is needed.

In this way, the externally focused social business, and everyone in it, drives the development tools and methods to support the work being done.

Everyone is involved in what used to be the instructional design process, but now there is a focus on collaboration first, performance support when needed, and training as the last choice.