What’s so different about learning today?

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” goes the refrain when managers ask why their organizations should get involved with the informal learning/web 2.0/learnscape religion that I preach.

The answer is that while past practices may not be broken, they’re becoming obsolete. The pace of change of anything you can measure is fast and getting faster. Blame it on networks. The denser the connections within a network, the more rapid its cycle time. Networks of information, of ideas, and of people grow denser by the moment. The more networks grow, the more value they create. There’s no end in sight.

Until recently, the secret of success was to learn what had worked in the past and do that. Education and training faced backward. People learned the conventions and rules of thumb that worked for their ancestors. When things were slow to change, this was an excellent strategy…

…but things are changing so rapidly today that the only certainty is that what’s ahead won’t resemble the past. The rear view mirror no longer reflects the future. Workers need to be able to assess new situations, learn in real time, and improvise solutions. That’s an entirely new learning agenda, for it means putting enough trust in workers to give them the wheel.