Dear Informal Learning

Dear Informal Learning,

I understand from previous correspondence that you are interested in coming into my organisation and selling your wares. I’m always up for a laugh looking for opportunities to waste my time ways to help support people who want to learn and develop while at work. So sure, come on in.

There are some things, though, that I’d like your help with so I know better how to make people aware of who and what you actually have to offer? Please answer the below in good time before your impending arrival.

1) Apparently you’re already here?

I’ve been getting the message from different quarters that you’re already in and amongst the people in the organisation. When did you actually do this? Was it when we allowed people to read books in their break time? Or was it when people had access to the internet? Maybe it was when people were allowed to access various online social networks?

I’m confused because, if we did this without you, what are we going to do with you when we formally recognise you?

Which leads me onto my next question…

2) I understand there won’t even be a “you”.

You are some kind of ethereal being and there’s some level of expectation that we should just allow you to exist. HA! Right. So I have enough trouble getting people to accept that different people of different faiths are allowed to co-exist, and now I’m going to reinforce a message that says – “don’t worry people, just put your faith in people’s own L&D activity”.

Can you see I might have a challenge selling you in?

3) When you’re here, I can’t even acknowledge you?

Now this is the bit where I’m really getting close to my wits end struggling. When people are going about their learning “informally”, I’m not even allowed to acknowledge you did this because I then formalise the learning, and thereby you cease to exist and I stamp on all that it means to be human. *cries softly*

4) I can’t even give people an idea of how to utilise you?

In advance I’d like to give people a chance to succeed. You know, be excellent and all things wonderful. You’re meant to help me do that, but because of your very nature, I can’t give people an idea of how to make best use of you, because it’s an unknown advantage that needs to be organically grown. My head is really starting to hurt now.

I appreciate your time, and really hope you exist I get a response from you soon.

Yours sincerely,

Sukh

Is Learning and Development Really Dying?

Reblogged from Activate Learning Solutions:

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I've been reading many articles and blog posts that have an urgency about them regarding the impending death of Learning and Development function in corporate organisations.

Admittedly when I read these, my heart races a little faster.  I have this anxiety to catch up with the latest theories and tools in the field so that my survival in the job market in competition with all Gen Ys is secured.

Read more… 1,859 more words

Really good post about recent and ongoing debate about qualifications in Learning and Development profession.

What makes a happy workplace?

Recently I had the pleasure of carrying out a series of interviews with leaders in their respective fields. With their agreement, I’m going to blog about the talks and share the audio and video content.

My first interview was with the very infectiously positive Henry Stewart. This guy has enthusiasm and passion for what he does in abundance. I love that.

I chose Henry because I enjoyed meeting him at one of the Connecting HR unconferences, subsequently at the inaugural L&D Connect unconference and then reading his book, the Happy Manifesto.

We started talking about how he began his journey into creating a happy workplace. He was part of a group of people who started a campaign publication and in the process raised £6.5 million. Wow, right? What a great way to start a business, and with capital at your disposal. They lost it in six weeks. But why, I asked?

Henry: Because we created a company that was a truly dreadful place to work. It was full of endless meetings, back biting, and blame. We hired some fantastic people and created an environment where it was impossible for them to work. What should have been an ethical and principled company was worse than when I was working at IBM.

As you listen to the playback, you’ll hear a consistent laugh from Henry which is infectious and I couldn’t help getting dragged along by it. Love it!

We moved on to talking about Maverick by Ricardo Semler. Henry swears by it as a text focused on people that he gives everyone a copy who joins Happy.

I asked Henry why he thought the theory behind Semler’s success could work here in the UK.

Henry: Why not? The old way wasn’t working. This made sense. People can be trusted wherever they are, and it seemed to work.

Nice and simples. I’m liking this guy the more and more I talk to him.

I picked his brain about this concept of ‘pre-approval’.

Henry: You have to have clear parameters. The moment I see the detail I want to get involved. It’s no longer Johnny’s project. I have to say – how are we going to measure this? As long as he accepts those are the measures, he needs to understand what I won’t accept. And he’ll create a great site, and if not, he’ll get feedback. There are 8 steps to help make this happen. It’s to avoid me as the manager seeing the detail, which I’ll mess up. Because when we get involved we always get it right, don’t we?! I can’t get involved in everything and I can’t come up with the best ideas.

I’ve been fascinated by his association with Action for Happiness which I enjoy following on Twitter, and wanted to find out more about this.

Henry: They’re simply trying to help people be happier. It’s about helping other people. It’s about staying active. It’s about good relationships. These are simple steps people can take.

Me: Do you see this movement is gaining momentum?

We saw last year (2012) it was on the front page of Harvard Business Review. Research has shown us that the best 100 companies to work for produce better market results than investing in the FTSE 100. If you went back 25 years and invested in them, you’d have made a greater return than traditional investments.

Me: What do you say to the cynics and try to win them over?

Henry: I do a thought exercise – do you agree people work best when they feel good about themselves? Nearly everyone puts their hand up. So what’s the point of management? Maybe it’s to help people feel good about themselves? What would your organisation be like if that’s the focus of management? Most people come up with positives. Not everyone will go away and do this. We can’t always do this, but people agree it’s the right thing to do.

Me: So what’s the challenge behind not doing this?

Henry: The challenge is that this is the best way to help them (people) be productive. Is it the priority for them (organisations), that’s the challenge. There are some companies who are ready to lap it up, and others who are just stuck.

Me: How can HR/L&D get involved with this or influence this?

Henry: They have to be making the links internally. They need to know what they’re expecting as a result in three months time before launching a programme like this. You need to ask questions like, what do you (the organisation) want to achieve? It can’t be about just spending some budget so you don’t lose it the following year. It needs to be about talking the language of the business so they understand the benefit of doing so.

Me: Do you find interest from HR/L&D field? Or is it mainly entrepreneurs and CEOs and MDs?

Henry: I’m pleased that at the Happy Conference we have about a third who are CEOs. With HR I find there are those who enjoy working with people, and those who enjoy working with process. Those about the latter need to get out of the job(!).

We finished the talk by talking about the Happy Workplace Conference which has now since passed. If you want to know more about The Happy Manifesto, visit the website. Henry does regular talks and speaking engagements and can be followed on Twitter here.

And if you’re interested in hearing a very amateur attempt at recording the interview, that’s right here. Unfortunately I’ve not mastered merging MP3 files, so this interview is in five parts – there’s about 40 mins of interview.

Part One.

Part Two.

Part Three.

Part Four.

Part Five.

Learning from collaboration

A while ago, I said I wanted to share content through a series of Learning Stories. Content that would drive people to do something differently. Vera Woodhead started this off with her story about different worlds. I really enjoyed reading about how she had to leave a life behind her and adjust to life in the UK.

The next instalment is about a collaboration between some people who came together online to produce something impressive. It’s a story about how to support others through achieving a dream. I hope you enjoy reading about ‘A very modern collaboration‘.

I’ve got a nerve

I’ve got a nerve.

One of the topics I get all het up about is inclusion. There are plenty of people writing about their experience of being excluded because of various factors. There are plenty of people writing about the need to include people of all ilks, and not discriminate. There are some very smart people moving beyond these conversations and making compelling arguments for the case.

Inclusion. It matters.

I’m fortunate. Very fortunate.

My folks chose to graft and send me to a private school to get a good education in my early years. I got my GCSEs – distinctly not all A’s and B’s. More like C’s and a combination of the rest. That’s not a good thing to making a point of. The private education was meant to do better for me than that with respect to my results. What I did learn about though was things like being independent. I went on school skiing trips, camping trips, week long I.T. camps, trips to the ballet, to Canterbury Cathedral, and more. I learned how to be confident in myself even though I may not have been academically brilliant.

From there, I went on to college to do my ‘A’ Levels in psychology, sociology and french. A year longer than I should have been there, and I got my grades to get me on a bachelors degree in psychology. I enjoyed that subject a lot. And after that, and some wondering whether I was going to go down the educational psychology route, I decided on occupational psychology and got my pass in 2003. I was a straight C student through all that. I didn’t find it easy, and often questioned what I wanted to do.

My family were there through all that. My friends came and went through all that. I also worked in a lot of different part time jobs through all that. I learned a lot about other cultures in that time. Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Sikhi, Hinduism, all became fascinating topic of interest for me. I wasn’t scholarly, but I knew a lot of people from all those religions and actively sought to find out more about them. I even did my undergraduate dissertation on the topic of homosexuality and religion.

I’ve got a nerve.

It wasn’t until I started work life that I was exposed to more. I thought I was fairly good at being sensitive to others and knowing how to behave. Then I met people who were wheelchair bound. I met people who were homosexuals and lesbians. I met people who were challenging poor behaviours at work. I learned slowly that difference exists in the big bad world, and you can choose to either accept people for who they are, or you don’t. I saw that people tended to be better when they were inclusive. I like being inclusive, and don’t like to exclude anyone. Harmony and relationships are important to me. So I take the time to learn more about these other ways of living and what that means for people.

Later in my working career, I started to work in positions where I was having to help others understand more about this topic of diversity. Wow that was hard. I had to learn a lot about my own prejudices and my own behaviours I was exhibiting. That was tough. I had to face up to facts about myself and how I thought about the world. That’s not an easy set of thoughts to own up to. I had to accept I had prejudices against gay people. I had to accept I had prejudices against certain religions. I had to accept I had prejudices against disabled people. Holy crap.

I’ve got a nerve.

Through hard work, I learned that this was just crap. I had to learn how to challenge myself. I had to learn how to value others. Because, you see, I didn’t – not really. I accepted them. I even tolerated them. How very superior, right? How very unintelligent. How very crass and single minded. I don’t think I was ever openly dsicriminatory to anyone. But that wasn’t my issue. I was privately discriminatory.

How do you get past that? How do you stop that kind of thinking?

There’s no silver bullet here people. I can’t point at a particular thing and say “that right this, and that right there” was what helped me. I had to challenge what I knew by talking with others. By talking to people in the know. By reading what I could. By taking time to reflect and find out what was going on in my head.

I’ve got a nerve.

At the same time as all this, I remember learning about being English. That’s a weird thing to say, right? I mean, why would I want to learn that? I grew up in this country, so why wouldn’t I know about the culture I’ve grown up in? Because growing up in a country, and knowing its culture are not the same thing. Things like football, cricket, tea, English breakfast, beer, London Town, music, art, books – all of these things and more, make up what I love about being an English man.

Voting, sarcasm, self-deprecation, politics, schooling, education, the NHS, this is all part of who I am and what I know. Banter – oh my, what would we do without banter! I’ve learned, both through my own and through others mistakes, just how powerful a thing banter can be. It can build relationships, and it can cut people to their core. It is, of course, a British affair and not restricted to the English. And I’ve learned how to use banter as a way of testing boundaries with people. I don’t always get it right, but I do enjoy the conversation.

I’ve got a nerve.

And at some point in the last five years I started to value people. I saw past my prejudices, my biases and my own self-limiting beliefs about others. I saw the folly in that thinking and realised I love the human condition. It’s weird, wonderful, and scary. Difference rules, and we should all strive to be unique. We all need a place to land and a place to thrive. It’s why I blog now. I have a voice to help others find theirs. It’s why I’m so keen on the learning and development field. I learn so much about others that I improve myself. I become a better person because of the people I work with every damn day. We’re all brilliant, and I want to harness that brilliance and share it with everyone.

I’ve got a nerve.

I am here

Flow.

It’s a sense of things happening in and around you. That conversation you can hear, is summoning something inside you. Your commute you take, it’s driving you to choose your actions. What will they be? Let’s find out.

Actions.

When I choose to hear that voice speaking to me and I take action on it. When I hear that voice inside and I learn to have that internal dialogue. I learn from myself. Not because I must, but because I understand what I am telling myself. My experience and learning takes me on a journey to reach a point in my life. I take action based on this sense I have inside me.

Dialogue.

I have the privilege of hearing your voice. It speaks to me and I am moved by it. I engage with it and learn about you. You share something with me which reveals you to me. Did you know this? Did you know I am here for you? Did you expect me to enter your mind?

Sustenance.

Is a moment where I indulge my body. The choices I make to fuel my body are mine to make. I have full congnisance of the world around me. I am aware of what I place before myself. It helps me to reach a goal. It’s my goal. This is me being selfish.

Diversity.

I embrace the person I am with. They are complete human beings. This is, and always will be, awesome. I am but a ripple in the ocean, and I am the drop. You and I, we are here and I hear you. I see you. I understand you. I need you. I loathe you. I am who I am because of me. I am who I am because of you. Where does this take me? What journey am I on? How can I know unless I respect and walk with you?

Silence.

Taking a moment to hear nothing. To watch a bird take flight. To see a couple walking hand in hand. To see a homeless guy sit and beg for his money. To just be. To not be plugged in. To not be listening. To be calm. to find calm. To hear nothing. To hear only that which matters.

Life.

I live it. I live it with you. I live it for me. I live it for you. I live it for who I am. It is affirming. It is frightening. It is what it is. I thrive in it. I lose myself in it. I welcome it. I am life.

Time.

It flows. It doesn’t stop because it doesn’t know how. How do you take that concept and make it meaningful? How do you manipulate it for your wares? Are your efforts futile? Where are you going with this time? It’s there, forever moving. I can either move with meaning, or I can move with none. I move because the time insists I do.