Not our job

Despite the prevailing rhetoric for the Learning & Development function to be “data driven”, data for the purposes of evaluating what we do is notoriously hard to come by.

Typically we collect feedback from happy sheets (which I prefer to call unhappy sheets) and confirm learning outcomes via some form of assessment.

In my experience, however, behavioural change is reported much less often, while anything to do with business metrics even less so. While I recognise multiple reasons for the latter in particular, one of them is simply the difficulty we mere mortals have in accessing the numbers.

Which has been a long-standing mystery to me. We’re all on the same team, so why am I denied the visibility of the information I need to do my job?

I’ve always suspected the root cause is a combination of human foibles (pride, fear, territoriality), substandard technology (exacerbated by policy) and a lack of skill or will to use the technology even when it is available.

Notwithstanding these ever-present problems, it’s been dawning on me that the biggest blocker to our ability to work with the numbers is the fact that, actually, it’s not our job.

Consider a bank that discovers a major pain point among its customers is the long turnaround time on their home loan applications. To accelerate throughput and thus improve the customer experience, the C-suite makes a strategic decision to invest in an AI-assisted processing platform.

I contend the following:

• It’s the job of the implementation team to ensure the platform is implemented properly.
• It’s the job of the L&D team to build the employees’ capability to use it.
• It’s the job of the service manager to report the turnaround times.
• It’s the job of the CX researchers to measure the customer experience.
• It’s the job of the C-suite to justify their strategy.

In this light, it’s clear why we L&D folks have so much trouble trying to do the other things on the list that don’t mention us. Not only are we not expected to do them, but those who are don’t want us to do them.

In short, we shouldn’t be doing them.

Caveat

At this juncture I wish to caution against conflating learning & development with performance consulting.

Yes, learning & development is a driver of performance, and an L&D specialist may be an integral member of a performance centre, but I urge anyone who’s endeavouring to rebrand their role as such to heed my caveat.

My point here is that if you are responsible for learning & development, be responsible for it; and let those who are responsible for performance be responsible for it.

Value

Having said that, there is plenty we should be doing within the bounds of our role to maximise the performance of the business. Ensuring our learning objectives are action oriented and their assessment authentic are two that spring to mind.

And I don’t wish to breathe air into the juvenile petulance that the phrase “not my job” can entail. On the contrary, we should be collaborating with our colleagues on activities related to our remit – for example training needs analysis, engineering the right environmental conditions for transfer, and even Level 4 evaluation – to achieve win-win outcomes.

But do it with them, not for them, and don’t let them offload their accountability for it being done. If they don’t wish to collaborate, so be it.

Essentially it boils down to Return on Expectation (ROE). In our quest to justify the Return on Investment (ROI) of our own service offering, we need to be mindful of what it is our financiers consider that service to be.

Anything beyond that is an inefficient use of our time and expertise.

7 big opportunities that MOOCs offer corporates

Hot on the heels of my 5 benefits of open badges for corporates, I now present my 7 big opportunities that MOOCs offer corporates.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I’m quite the MOOC fan. While I realise massive open online courses are not a panacea, I believe they have much to offer learners and learning professionals alike.

More specifically, I recognise the following opportunities to leverage them in the workplace. If you can think of any others, please let me know…

1. Sourcing content

Quality content, for free, from some of the world’s most respected educational institutions? That’s a no-brainer.

While Coursera and others offer MOOCs covering business and management topics that are relevant across the enterprise, it’s important to realise that other topics (such as statistics, law and IT) may also be relevant to particular teams. Having said that, I believe there is much more scope for MOOC providers to cover corporate-relevant topics.

I envisage L&D professionals playing important roles in both curating and supporting MOOCs for their colleagues. In terms of the former, it’s important that the right MOOC be connected to the right employee so that it’s relevant to their performance on the job. This will involve an analysis of the curriculum pre-study, and an evaluation of the learning experience post-study.

In terms of supporting the moocers in the organisation, I envisage L&D pro’s undertaking activities such as facilitating communities of practice, setting up buddy programs, and organising external meetups.

2. Networking

Participating in a MOOC forms connections with people outside of your organisation. Whether it be via the online discussion forum, on one of the associated social media groups, or at a local meetup, suddenly you are introduced to a world of people who are passionate and knowledgeable about the topic.

And it’s not just people outside of the organisation you will connect to. You may also connect with fellow participants inside the organisation, whom you otherwise might never have met.

A MOOC can therefore facilitate the kind of cross-functional collaboration and diversity of thinking that many corporates talk about, but few ever do anything about.

3. Blending content

Depending on the licensing policy of the content owner, a MOOC (or parts thereof) may be incorporated into an in-house offering.

Content sourced from a respected university can make the offering more engaging and lend it an air of credibility.

4. Flipping classrooms

While corporates are increasingly realising that classroom delivery is not necessarily the most effective pedagogy for employee development, neither is delivering the training in exactly the same way via a webinar or converting the PowerPoint slides into an online module.

Instead, corporates should consider making their offerings “MOOC like” by creating an online space in which the content can be consumed and discussed by the employees (with SME support) over the course of several weeks.

This approach reduces the burden of managing classroom sessions (timetables, room bookings, flights, accommodation), and frees up face-to-face time for value added activities such as such as storytelling, Q&A and role plays.

I also suggest mimicking the flexibility of a MOOC, whereby signing up to the course, participating in it and even completing it is optional. However, only those who pass the assessment will have their completion status recorded in the LMS.

5. Brand marketing

Just like a university, a corporate has expertise in a particular domain that it can share with the public. Perhaps after experimenting with internal “MOOC like” courses, the organisation can deliver a bona fide external MOOC either on their own server or via an established platform like Coursera.

Notwithstanding the fact that managing a MOOC is a lot of work, I would argue the investment is worth it. Think about it: you can access tens of thousands of customers and prospective customers who are becoming increasingly immune to traditional advertising. By educating them, you build up your goodwill and engender a sense of trust in your brand.

Then there’s CSR to consider. Does the company have an ethical responsibility to help the community through MOOCs? Not to mention the kudos that goes with it.

So while the financial viability of MOOCs has come under heavy fire in the blogosphere, the ROI might be more complicated than the profit-and-loss statement suggests.

6. Becoming involved

If running a MOOC is a bridge too far for the organisation, there are other opportunities to become involved.

For example, the University of Virginia’s Foundations of Business Strategy MOOC invites real companies to supply real business problems for the (tens of thousands) of students to solve collaboratively.

As Foldit can attest, problem solving through crowdsourcing really works – and sometimes the results are spectacular.

7. Mining big data

This wades into the murky waters of privacy and ethics, but theoretically at least, a company could purchase access to a particular MOOC’s analytics.

Why would it want to do that? Perhaps to:

• Offer internships to the participants who achieve the highest results.
• Uncover trends in the online discussions, and hence forecast consumer behaviour.
• Target the students, who self-evidently have an interest in the domain, with direct marketing for related products and services.

And if the organisation were to run its own MOOC, it wouldn’t need to pay anyone for the data.

The paradox of augmented reality

Sydneysider Scott O’Brien is back in town after an extended stint in San Francisco. Scott is the Co-founder & CMO of Explore Engage, a digital media company that is attracting serious attention for its augmented reality eyewear.

I caught up with Scott in the harbour city and asked him the following questions…

• What are your favourite examples of augmented reality? (0:08)
• What are you working on at Explore Engage? (2:20)
• How does your eyewear differ from Google Glass? (3:05)
• Is augmented reality worth the hype? (3:54)
• What opportunities exist for the finance sector? (5:04)
• What opportunities exist for workplace education? (6:14)

I was impressed with the examples of augmented reality cited by Scott.

Medical education has long been the poster boy of salivatingly engaging content, and the tradition continues with this emerging technology. Daqri’s 4D Anatomy app showcases the visualisation capabilities of the medium, while the Australian Defence Force not only targets a real-world need with their Mobile Medic app, but also incorporates it into their recruitment process.

Google’s Ingress is an augmented reality MMOG that exemplifies the gamification capability of the medium. Two factions fight for control over the real world by capturing virtual “portals” that are represented by public landmarks such as statues and fountains.

The fact that Ingress was developed by Google’s internal startup, Niantic Labs, is enlightening (excuse the pun). Augmented reality is still an emerging technology in which experiments must be undertaken and failures borne. It is by learning from the results, and responding to them via adaptation, that you increase the probability of break-through success.

I am also fascinated by Google’s marketing strategy with Ingress. The game is in “closed beta” mode, which means you need an invitation to play it. Reminiscent of Studio 54, only the members of the “in” crowd have the privilege of enjoying that which is denied to others. Google deepens the mystique by seemingly neglecting to promote the product – instead relying on organic growth of the subculture.

On the subject of Google, I think Scott’s differentiation between Google Glass and Explore Engage’s Augmented Reality Eyewear is an important one. While Google Glass has augmented reality capability, it is essentially a wearable computer with which digital information is conveniently presented in front of the wearer’s eye. In contrast, the Explore Engage eyewear is specifically designed to integrate digital information with the real-world background. There is no better example of the latter concept than BMW’s Augmented Reality Glasses – which aren’t Explore Engage’s by the way, but are oh so sexy all the same.

While I’m on my definitions soapbox, I’ll take this opportunity to point the finger at Star Chart. This is a wonderful (and free) app, but its so-called “augmented reality mode” is no such thing; it does not lay its stellar information over the night sky! In contrast, Sun Seeker lays the sun’s trajectory over the real background. In other words, it augments reality.

In terms of ROI, 2.5 million downloads of Transformers 3’s Defend the Earth speaks for itself. The return on Audi’s Virtual Q3 is less obvious, but that’s because it’s less about car sales and more about engaging consumers and associating the brand with innovation. How do you evaluate that? By analysing car sales of course, after the Q3 finally lands on Aussie shores.

While the Commonwealth Bank should be applauded for their Property Guide app, which combines geolocation with big data to provide something truly useful to their prospective customers, I must say as someone in the financial services industry: the general lack of financially oriented augmented reality apps represents a typical lack of imagination in the sector. Worse still, the examples highlighted by Infosys’s whitepaper are almost exclusively home finders and ATM locators, which means they’ve merely copied each other. Yawn.

As I am concurrently in the education profession, however, I must also recognise that the potential for augmented reality remains largely untapped. Scott’s examples attest to the power of the medium in terms of visualisation, gamification and performance support – which are factors that make education in the workplace engaging and effective. So what are we waiting for?

I think the mobility of the technology also remains under exploited. For example, how about an architecture tour of your local city in which details of buildings are highlighted when you point your mobile device at them? Or even better, when you look at them through your AR-enabled glasses?

And Scott’s mention of avatars adds more fuel to the fire of possibility. I imagine learning interventions in dangerous environments (such as mining sites) in which training can be undertaken in context, minus the threat to life or limb. Unlike in a simulator or a virtual world, the training is done at the workplace.

Therein lies the paradox of augmented reality. By complementing the real world with artificiality, it makes the learning experience more authentic.

Playing by numbers

The theme of last week’s Learning Cafe in Sydney was How to Win Friends and Influence Learning Stakeholders.

Among the stakeholders considered was the “C-Level & Leadership”. This got me thinking, do the C-suite and lower rung managers expect different things from L&D?

There’s no shortage of advice out there telling us to learn the language of finance, because that’s what the CEO speaks. And that makes sense to me.

While some of my peers shudder at the term ROI, for example, I consider it perfectly reasonable for the one who’s footing the bill to demand something in return.

Show me the money.

But I also dare to suggest that the managers who occupy the lower levels of the organisational chart don’t give a flying fox about all that.

Of course they “care” about revenue, costs and savings – and they would vigorously say so if asked! – but it’s not what motivates them day to day. What they really care about is their team’s performance stats.

I’m referring to metrics such as:

• Number of widgets produced per hour
• Number of defects per thousand opportunities
• Number of policy renewals
• Number of new write-ups

In other words, whatever is on their dashboard. That’s what they are ultimately accountable for, so that’s what immediately concerns them.

The business savvy L&D consultant understands this dynamic and uses it to his or her advantage.

He or she appreciates the difference between what the client says they want, and what they really need.

He or she realises the client isn’t invested in the training activity, but rather in the outcome.

He or she doesn’t start with the solution (“How about a team-building workshop?”), but rather with the performance variable (“I see your conversion rate has fallen short of the target over the last 3 months”).

He or she knows that the numbers that really matter don’t necessarily have dollar signs in front of them.

The hardworking woodcutter

Late last year, I stumbled upon the story of the hardworking woodcutter.

It was shared by Dr Nupur Jaiswal in her article Engaging your audience: Tips to try in Training & Development, 38(4).

The story goes like this…

There was a woodcutter. He used to work incredibly hard to ensure a good livelihood, but he always felt that his work was not giving him enough output. Every day he would decide to work harder and longer, but at the end of the day he would find his pile of wood smaller than the previous day.

One day, when he was busy as usual, he noticed a bigger pile of logs with a woodcutter sitting next to it. He asked, “How can you have a bigger pile than me in less time, and how can you relax so early in the day?”

The other woodcutter replied, “I take time off to sharpen my axe.”

The first woodcutter said, “But how do you get the time? I don’t have any time for sharpening my axe.”

The first woodcutter’s perspective is surprisingly common in the corporate sector – particularly in over-worked, under-resourced teams.

It’s tempting for the managers of these teams to deny their staff the opportunity to attend training, or even to undertake e-learning at their desks.

Why? Because they fear it will impact their performance stats.

And you know what? It will.

But what these managers don’t understand is that learning is an investment. Yes, your performance stats will probably take a short-term hit, but in the long term your team’s performance will be better than it otherwise would have been.

At the extreme end of the spectrum, those who fail to keep up with the necessary training will one day, sooner or later, discover they can no longer do their jobs.

And their heads will be chopped off by others with sharper axes.