Over my career in training, I've had one constant battle as a learning and development professional. For the purposes of ease, I' m going to refer to us as L&Ders. This battle is 'proving' that we're actually constantly working - even when it looks like we're having a joke and a laugh. Those of you who have been in an L&D role or team will understand this battle. Others around you see you designing training, developing ideas or the such like, and you'll be doing things like cutting up shapes or throwing a ball, and you get accused of not being utilised effectively. If you believe your L&Der's are wasting time when they are 'playing', you have not understood what L&D does, tries to achieve nor how they achieve it.
Let's take a bit of a look at what an L&Der is trying to achieve and what cloth they're cut from. The role of L&D in this day and age is to look at the goals and objectives of an organisation, identify what the organisation is doing currently to achieve them, and identify further initiatives that can help achieve these. That entails a whole host of core activities we have to do to ensure we get it right. The needs analysis we do is the first core principle we're taught. We then design and develop an initiative. We deliver it. And finally we evaluate the effectiveness of the initiative. L&D summed up in one paragraph.
So why are we tarred with a brush of 'they're not a serious department'? It's because of the care we take in the design and development phase. Let's think about this differently. L&Ders at their core understand the human condition. What this means is, we have a better insight into how people respond to learning and development activities than most. We understand how to engage with individuals, groups, and audiences. We understand how to interact, listen, discuss, facilitate, challenge, propose, present, deliver, question. We understand what it means to create an insightful, meaningful learning experience. Often - and truly this is often, a training course is only one option we will consider when trying to design or develop a solution.
Let's also consider that the design or development of a solution is a creative process. We are taking information that needs to be delivered, or a skill that needs to be developed and have to find a way to allow the group to experience what this means. If we accept we are creative in how we do this, and we are, then we also accept we have to explore how to be creative. Have you ever worked with a group of creatives? When they are seeking inspiration they will seek out many different sources for stimulus.
Information will always need to be presented in some form. It will also need to be discussed in some form. And there will need to be some capturing of that information for future use. But making it relevant, and drawing insights from that information is often the tricky part. How can you 'bring alive' a topic about project management, when at its core it is about processes and documentation? That's when the L&Der is challenged and they will 'go play'. The result will pretty much be something quite exciting and insightful every time. Those who attend the session will come away and remark on how well the session was delivered and how well the exercise made them think about what they needed to learn.
That's the challenge L&Der's are faced with constantly. The skill of an L&Der is to be creative when it is needed and bring to the fore the insight derived. That is then embedded into an L&D initiative and creates an insightful and meaningful session. The result will always be a solution that is not only fit for purpose, but well understood from the needs analysis, designed and developed to achieve the given goal, delivered to a high standard, and meets high evaluation criteria.
Sukhvinder Pabial is learning and development business partner at LBi. He can be contacted at sukhvinder.pabial@lbi.com
Let's take a bit of a look at what an L&Der is trying to achieve and what cloth they're cut from. The role of L&D in this day and age is to look at the goals and objectives of an organisation, identify what the organisation is doing currently to achieve them, and identify further initiatives that can help achieve these. That entails a whole host of core activities we have to do to ensure we get it right. The needs analysis we do is the first core principle we're taught. We then design and develop an initiative. We deliver it. And finally we evaluate the effectiveness of the initiative. L&D summed up in one paragraph.
So why are we tarred with a brush of 'they're not a serious department'? It's because of the care we take in the design and development phase. Let's think about this differently. L&Ders at their core understand the human condition. What this means is, we have a better insight into how people respond to learning and development activities than most. We understand how to engage with individuals, groups, and audiences. We understand how to interact, listen, discuss, facilitate, challenge, propose, present, deliver, question. We understand what it means to create an insightful, meaningful learning experience. Often - and truly this is often, a training course is only one option we will consider when trying to design or develop a solution.
Let's also consider that the design or development of a solution is a creative process. We are taking information that needs to be delivered, or a skill that needs to be developed and have to find a way to allow the group to experience what this means. If we accept we are creative in how we do this, and we are, then we also accept we have to explore how to be creative. Have you ever worked with a group of creatives? When they are seeking inspiration they will seek out many different sources for stimulus.
Information will always need to be presented in some form. It will also need to be discussed in some form. And there will need to be some capturing of that information for future use. But making it relevant, and drawing insights from that information is often the tricky part. How can you 'bring alive' a topic about project management, when at its core it is about processes and documentation? That's when the L&Der is challenged and they will 'go play'. The result will pretty much be something quite exciting and insightful every time. Those who attend the session will come away and remark on how well the session was delivered and how well the exercise made them think about what they needed to learn.
That's the challenge L&Der's are faced with constantly. The skill of an L&Der is to be creative when it is needed and bring to the fore the insight derived. That is then embedded into an L&D initiative and creates an insightful and meaningful session. The result will always be a solution that is not only fit for purpose, but well understood from the needs analysis, designed and developed to achieve the given goal, delivered to a high standard, and meets high evaluation criteria.
Sukhvinder Pabial is learning and development business partner at LBi. He can be contacted at sukhvinder.pabial@lbi.com
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