Post 1   Post 2   Post 3   Post 4   Post 5

Post 1 People learn their jobs by doing their jobs. Effective managers make stretch
assignments and coach their team members. Experience is the teacher, and managers shape their teammembers’ experiences. Knowledge work has evolved into keeping up and taking advantage of connections. We learn to do the job on the job. To stay ahead and create more value, you have to learn faster, better, smarter.

The Coherent Organization. As standalone companies realize that they’re really extended enterprises, co-learning with customers and stakeholders becomes important as everyone faces the future together. Players throughout the corporate ecosystem need to be operating on the same wave-length. This can only happen when we’re adapting to the future, i.e. learning, at the same pace.Internally, everyone needs to stay current.

These posts offer guidance to managers who want to make learning from experience and conversation more effective. Replacing today’s haphazard approaches with systematic, enlightened management accelerates the development of future workers and gets the entireorganization working smarter. The potential is great.

Among the organizations that have adopted the 70:20:10 approach are Nike, Dell, Goldman Sachs, Mars, Maersk, Nokia, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, L’Oréal, Adecco, Banner Health, Bank of America, National Australia Bank, Boston Scientific, American Express, Wrigley, Diageo, BAE Systems, ANZ Bank, Irish Life, HP, Freehills, Caterpillar, Barwon Water, CGU, Coles, Sony Ericsson, Standard Chartered, British Telecom, Westfield, Wal-Mart, Parsons Brinkerhoff, and Coca-Cola.

Charles Jennings made 70:20:10 a guiding philosophy of learning during his eight-year tenure as Chief Learning Officer at Reuters, the world’s largest information company. (Disclosure: Charles and I are colleagues at the Internet Time Alliance. He is the world authority on 70:20:10 and these posts draw heavily on his work.)

Post 2 The 70 percent: learning from experience. People learn by doing. We learn from experience and achieve mastery through practice. Experience is a difficult task master. We learn more from making a mistake than from getting it right the first time. That’s why wise managers throw team members into stretch assignments. It accelerates learning. Being ejected from one’s comfort zone is why some say that the only thing worse than learning from experience is not learning from experience. Matching the most appropriately challenging experience to the developmental stage of the worker is the most powerful lever in the manager’s toolbox.

Charles Jennings reports that performance inevitably improves when managers ask their team members these three simple reflective questions:

1. What are your reflections on what you’ve been doing since we last met.
2. What would you do differently next time?
3. What have you learned since we last met?

Post 3 The 20 percent: learning through others. Learning is social. People learn with and through others.

Conversations are the stem cells of learning. Effective managers encourage their team members to buddy up on projects, to shadow others and to participate in professional social networks. People learn more in an environment that encourages conversation, so make sure you’re fostering an environment where people talk to each other.

A Community of Practice (CoP) is a social network of people who identify with one another professionally (e.g. designers of logic chips) or have mutual interests (e.g. amateur photographers). Members of CoPs develop and share knowledge, values, recommendations and standards. An effective community of practice is like a beehive. It organizes itself, buzzes with activity and produces honey for the markets.

Post 4 Formal learning includes courses, workshops, seminars, online learning and certification training. Unfortunately, a lot of organizations aren’t using online learning to its full potential, and the results at those organizations reflect that. Learning expert Robert Brinkerhoff figures only about 15 percent of formal training lessons change behavior.¹² This is a reflection of both formal learning creation and of the lack of focus on experiential and exposure learning. If what we learn is not reinforced with reflection and application, the lessons never make it into long-term memory.

Formal learning is typically conducted by an instructor. So why do we address it in a paper on managers? Because managers can make or break the success of formal learning programs. Research has found that the most important factor in translating formal learning into improved performance is the expectation set by managers before the training takes place¹³. Understanding the needs of the learners and following up after the event are also essential for formal learning success.

Post 5 You will need to become a champion for the new approach to developing talent. You must convince your sponsor that managers and supervisors are the linchpins to developing new talent. Without them, the company could find itself with nobody on the bench to take on future challenges. For your career, this lead role is high risk/high reward.

Managers have to learn how to develop their people. It doesn’t always come naturally, and managers can get too busy to pay much attention to it. Let them know you don’t expect them to train their people. Rather, they will set examples for their team; they will foster experiential learning by leading their team to tackle new challenges (the 70), by helping them reflect on the lessons of experience and by coaching them at every step (the 20), and by showing them how to get formal learning on the subject (the 10).

The Learning and Development Roundtable of the Corporate Leadership Council pinpointed three management practices that significantly improve performance.

1. Setting clear expectations and explaining how performance will be measured.
2. Providing stretch experiences that help their team members learn and develop.
3. Taking time to reflect and help team members learn from experience.

Managers who set clear objectives and expectations and explain how they measure performance are much more likely to succeed. Their teams outperform their peers by 20%. That’s an extra day every week to get the job done (and engage in deep learning). Managers should make explicit why they’re assigning particular projects, what they expect people to learn and what sort of debrief will occur after the assignment.

The 70-20-10 model depends on L&D teaming up with managers to improve learning across the company, but often managers do not appreciate how vitally important they are in growing their people. This is the absolute, must-do secret to success to improving learning and development. Frontline managers must take this as the very definition of manager: someone who develops others by challenging them with assignments that stretch them to the point of flow¹⁷. This takes a can-do manager who knows how coaching creates mental models and habits, how motivation activates a chain of high-performance activities and what success habits their team members need to adopt.

Charles Jennings says that the role that managers play is far more important than that of Learning and Development or HR. Your role is to help managers learn that:

• People learn from experience.
• Managers shape the experience of the people on their team.
• Experience coupled with reflection sticks lessons in memory.
• Daily mid-course correction is much more powerful than after-the-fact reviews.
• Every project they assign is a potential learning experience for their team members.

#itashare

Return to: http://clomedia.com/views/articles/can-this-marriage-be-saved/

Learning Innovations and Quality Conference: “The Future of Digital Resources”

LINQ is the only European conference to cover both Learning Innovations and Learning Quality.

I will deliver the opening keynote on Friday, May 17th, at the Global Headquarters of United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome.

We had a good discussion of the Stoos Movement and combining agile with management. Or replacing management with agile.

YouTube:

Slides from Hangout:

Transcript from Hangout:

You invited people into the hangout.

Peter Isackson

9:49 AM

Hi Jay

You invited people into the hangout.

Loretta Donovan

10:37 AM

Given my audio issues, I’ll text. In the healthcare industry, there is agile behavior without agile management.

Individual performers (nurses, MDs, technicians) need to be aware of the results of their actions. But leadership does not.

Bjorn Billhardt

10:40 AM

Great listening to everyone – my plane is leaving so I have to log off. Thanks for organizing Jay!

Loretta Donovan

10:42 AM

Tenure, academic publishing, the “old boys club” are holding back the business schools.

Jim McGee

10:43 AM

@Loretta – excellent point about existing organizational reward systems

Loretta Donovan

10:45 AM

I’m seeing the Boards of some organizations playing a greater role in shifting management models.

Most of that is caused by the economics of doing business.

me

10:46 AM

Jeff— The guy in Seattle who has used agile throughout his organization is Bill Justice. I’ll try to track down his coordinates.

Jim McGee

10:46 AM

Boards have the advantage of being more aware of the external environment than management

Loretta Donovan

10:46 AM

Jim, I agree.

Jim McGee

10:47 AM

time for us all to reread Alinky’s “Rules for Radicals”

Loretta Donovan

10:49 AM

wooo

Jeff Tillett

10:58 AM

This was great Jay thanks for sharing the conversation as always!

Peter Isackson

11:01 AM

I have to leave. Thanks. Bye.

Loretta Donovan

11:02 AM

Excellent point, Dave.

Dave Ferguson

11:03 AM

Thank you all. Jay, I appreciate the invitation.

Anne Adrian

11:04 AM

thank you; interesting perspectives..always learning

Loretta Donovan

11:04 AM

Great discussion, everyone. Thanks, Jay.

Jeff Tillett

11:04 AM

Great hangout everyone!

bye

Janet Laane Effron

11:04 AM

Thanks! Nice to have had the chance to stop in

Jim McGee

11:04 AM

thanks Jay as always for your enterpreneurial energy

 

A year ago, twenty of us met on the mountaintop in Stoos to imagine management and business anew. Peter Stevens sent invitations:

Steve Denning, Jurgen Appelo, Franz Röösli and Peter Stevens are pleased to personally invite you to a spontaneous weekend in the mountains. Our goal is to bring together a group of (no more than) 20 (thought) leaders from around the world in business, IT, and human development. We have a nice hotel, ski slopes, a spa, and a conference room. 20 cool people and 2 days. What will come out of it? I hope you will join us to create something wonderful (or just have a good time)!

This first meeting has become known as the Stoos Gathering. Here’s Steve Denning’s description and a few snapshots.

Everyone has his or her special twist on this Stoss-thing. Half the attendees were authors and we have our opinions.

For me, Steve Denning’s Radical Management covers most of the bases.

TODAY

Come to our birthday party and symposium, Stoos Connect, . LIVE.

Things kick off at 3:00 pm Friday in Amsterdam. That’s 6:00 am in San Francisco, but I plan to be there.

Latest on today’s activities, via Steve Denning:

The event features a great speaker lineup, including Roger Martin (dean of the Rotman School of Business), Dan Pink (author of Drive), Jurgen Appelo (Management 3.0) and Lisa Earle McLeod (author of Selling With Noble Purpose). (My talk is expected to be around 14.25 US ET.)

Interestingly, Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman Business School, will be giving his talk from Davos. Hopefully he will share his thoughts on how “the sybaritic gabfest known as the World Economic Forum” relates to the Stoos movement.

The conference will start at 15:00 Amsterdam time (US ET 9am) and run till 21:15 (US ET 15.15)

Need homework? Steve Denning recommends:

• Towards the Tipping Point in Leadership & Management
• The paradigm shift is happening
• The five surprises of radical management

Online, stay current with the Stoos Network on LinkedIn and #Stoos on Twitter.

Personal

The spirit of Stoos is still resounding in my head a year later.

Immediately after Stoos, I went to Lugano for a few days to reflect on the Agile movement, the Beyond Budgeting movement, the Management 3.0, Reinventing Management, and the Radical Management movement. I went into that delightful Flow feeling as I picked through dozens of wonderful, optimistic concepts.

Lugano

Conclusions: Organizations are organisms, not machines. Those organisms are living networks of learners. Shareholder value is a con-game. The current system is irreparably broken.

Deep change doesn’t occur overnight (unless you witness a miracle); it soaks in. I think the spirit of Stoos got me so interested in the role of emotion in business and what happens when we trust workers to make their own decisions. I see everything though a clearer lens. Humans count.

Join us at the LIVE event. Tweet to #Stoos. See you online.

Saturday

We’ll Hangout on Google at 10:00 am (Pacific) day after tomorrow to talk about what we heard on World Stoos Day and how it turns learning and development upside down.

This year will be the 8th Future of Talent Retreat. I’ve been to every one and will be attending this one in San Francisco, November 16-20.

We have few presentations. Instead we engage in conversations and collaborative activities that will give you practical information to take back and use in your organization. We have great food, drink wonderful wine, and make long lasting friends.

This is a highly interactive, hands-on event where participants contribute and learn from each other as well as the faculty.

Jurgen Appelo plays with more models of how things ought to work than anyone I else I know. His book Management 3.0 presents, assesses, and sometimes interconnects with agile, people-oriented processes relentlessly. I’m a fan. See his blog. And this presentation:

Once upon a time, the world was predictable. Isaac Newton had convinced us that every action resulted in an opposite and equal reaction. Rene Descartes thought and therefore, was. People made long-term plans. Logic ruled.

Then we realized that everything is connected. Outcomes result from the interplay of complex adaptive systems. Butterfly effects, asymmetry, and self organization abound. What emerges next is anybody’s guess. It’s time to shed the delusion that we are in control. Logic is oversimplification.

What’s a person to do when complexity turns our clockwork universe on its head? In a increasingly volatile environment, rigidity is suicidal. But how can we be flexible without being wishy-washy?

My colleagues at the Internet Time Alliance agree that we need to embrace complexity, not hide from it. Harold Jarche writes, “Few are bored with complex challenges. The more people who are engaged creatively, the more effective the organization will be and no, there isn’t a course you can take to address this.”

The undisputed authority in this field is Dave Snowden. In October, he’s leading a series of one-day executive seminars on Leading Through Complexity: A New Simplicity.

I’m going to attend the San Francisco event. Perhaps a bunch of us will head out to dinner afterward to review what’s we’ve learned. This stuff is important but it’s never easy!

Jay Cross is a champion of informal learning, web 2.0, and systems thinking. He has challenged conventional wisdom about how adults learn since designing the first business degree program offered by the University of Phoenix.

Do you remember the first time a boss implored you to work smarter and not harder? Unfortunately, the next thing you heard was probably something akin to “know what I mean?”.

No, as a matter of fact we don’t always know what working smarter means.

Jay’s new un-book Working Smarter (available in on-demand paperback or PDF download) examines how to boost an organization’s collective brainpower. You’ll find an excerpt of his book below that might strike a chord with you in the ongoing conversation that we’re having here at HRExaminer.com on the effective and perceived value of HR.

Cross mashes up his considerable experience in training, business consulting and web 2.0 thinking to put forth a straight forward book designed for managers who want a natural way to improve performance – without the typical management consulting crapola. When Cross does delve into charts, models and mind maps you can rest assured he does so with an aim to clarify, not to earn his business book writing chops. While I’m not done with the book yet I will say what stands out to me so far; Cross does a nice job of balancing the theoretical with the practical – and that’s really useful to us as people who want fresh ideas we can use to improve our team’s results.

I hope you try the book – I’m finding it a worthwhile investment of time. Don’t forget that you can buy the online copy, save some money, kill one less tree and convert the PDF into an online book reader for your iPhone, Android phone and many others.

- Julian Seery Gude, HRExaminer Collaborator and Editorial Advisory Board Member.

Article continues here.

I think of un-books as more of a subscription that a purchase. A major update is in the works. More than half will be new material. It’s a collaborative effort. Publication is a month or more in the future. The price has not been set as yet. I suggest you buy both, but if you’re only buying one, I suggest you wait a while.

Learning and Performance 5:06

Informal Learning and Performance 5:39

How Managers Learn – In Their Own Words

1 -Intro” rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-73-uu55A0″>Jay Cross & Peter Casebow video 1 -Intro
Jay and Peter introduce themselves, the internet time alliance and GoodPractice