Category Archives: Working Smarter

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October 26, 2012, 12:26 p.m. ET

THE JOURNAL REPORT: LEADERSHIP IN HUMAN RESOURCES

So Much Training, So Little to Show for It

An expert on corporate programs reveals why they often are a waste of time and money

In this lopsided Wall Street Journal article, a professor slams training for all the wrong reasons.

For one thing, he disregards experiential learning on the job and seems to think that training always takes place away from the job.

He touts the need for a thorough needs analysis Continue reading →

How to Replace Top-Down Training with Collaborative Learning (4)

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Fourth post in a series. In case you missed them, here are the first, second, and third posts.

Is your organization ready?

How ready are you to tackle Big L Learning? Where does your organization fit on the progression from Hierarchical Organization to Collaborative Organization?

You can take this survey online. We’ll report the aggregate results in a couple of weeks.

Our employees can access the entire Internet from their desktops. ☐ yes ☐ no

Our people are learning and Continue reading →

Isn’t this how organizational learning cultures progress?

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Jane Hart’s post yesterday on The differences between learning in an e-business and learning in a social business got me thinking about the evolution of learning culture in organizations.

It’s all to0 easy to mistakenly think of formal learning as the antiquated, primitive way of doing things, something an organization shucks off as it becomes enlightened and gives its people the autonomy to work on their own. The notion of stages suggests that a corporation hops from one stage to the next, Continue reading →

How to Replace Top-down Training with Collaborative Learning (2)

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Second post in a series. In case you missed it, here’s the first.

PEOPLE
Who’s going to be involved?
Every Kind of Employee – Temps Included

In the Hierarchical organization, employees were the only people who received corporate training. Aside from compliance training and new product introductions, most training focused on novices – either newhires who needed orientation or workers mastering a new skill or subject.

It’s not that seasoned and elder employees weren’t learning; Continue reading →

mLearncon

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Curation enriches conferences

At the turn of the century, blogging was brand spanking new, Twitter had yet to be born, and backchannels referred to espionage by double agents. Back then I tried to capture and share what was going on in lengthy blog posts. For example, here’s my report on Elliott’s TechLearn 2001. And here’s my review of Online Learning 2001.

Dave Kelly has made curating conference exhaust — the Tweetstream, presentations, photos, recordings, and related links — into Continue reading →

Everything’s Coming Up Networks (except learning)

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Sloan Management Review has a great interview with Andy McAfee on What Sells CEOs on Social Networking. CEOs excitedly agree with Lew Platt’s old observation about Hewlett-Packard: “If only HP knew what HP knows, we’d be three times more productive.” They understand the power of weak ties in enterprise social networks. They appreciate the incoming generation’s new approach to working without limits. Sure, there are fears of losing control, the fact that hierarchy and social networks are not Continue reading →