Management & Marketing

Friday, February 10, 2006

Close Your Training Shop! HUMAN RESOURCES Suhayl Abidi / Mumbai July 9, 2004 By S.Abidi

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TIPS: Type in the An infant falls nearly a thousand times before learning to walk. Adults give up Keywords or search by after one or two failures. Why is this so? How is this growing up? Despite entering the company name. obtaining a sound education, followed by complex experiences in the Advanced Search corporate world, we are nowhere near a child in learning abilities. Instead of gaining, we have lost something as we grow up. Learning has been part of our lives since the days of hunter-gatherers and has continued through the Greek corporations and medieval guilds. The coming of the industrial age has put a stop to self learning and discovery due to its emphasis on imparting rote skills, perfecting the same tasks every day; a facet aptly reflected in our assembly-line education system. Further, cultural degeneration of organisations has robbed individuals of skills. The world has moved ahead but the learning environment and methodology have remained rooted in the industrial mindset. What are the learning disconnects in organisations today? There are several. There is a wide gap between what organisations do and what employees want. Organisations want to teach people how to do things. Employees would like advise on how to learn. They would like to find, sift and evaluate information on their own. Organisations want thoroughly researched and carefully developed courses for their employees. The latter want fast, current Should shareholders take the information bites with little or no development time needed. warring Ambani brothers to task for confusing them over Companies want to provide polished speakers and stunning presentation materials; employees find credible experts in specialised areas and on-the-job the settlement? coaches more useful. The former want to find and disseminate one best way to do something; what is actually needed is an environment in which employees develop divergent ways of thinking about problems. Employees find it a chore to wade through reading material and courses. They dislike the idea of too much externally-provided training instead of individually motivated learning.

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Yes, there seems to be no end to the issue. No, they are trying their best to solve the problem.

Learning is complete only when the learner has internalised the concepts and can apply it to a situation. Present training methods create an atmosphere of entitlement and passivity where training resources are largely wasted. Employees in a knowledge society need more interpretative abilities. They have to draw on a variety of skills to adapt to unpredictable changes. To do that they need more support from leadership.

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Advertise with Us A Xerox Inc. study showed trainees retained a paltry 13 per cent of skills six months after training if managers failed to coach and support them when the skills were actually being applied. The actual learning objectives are to master soft skills like awareness of oneself and others coupled with the acquisition of communication and leadership skills. ADAPTABILITY THE KEYA In such an uncertain and fast-changing, globally-interdependent business environment, we need a manager and leader who can quickly let go of the past and adapt to changing circumstances. No individual, including a highly charismatic CEO, can train or command someone else to alter attitudes, beliefs, skills, capabilities, perceptions, or level of commitment. Instead, the practice of organisational learning, which involves developing and taking part in tangible activities, will change the way people conduct their work. Through these new governing ideas, innovations in infrastructure, new management methods and tools, people will develop an enduring capability for change. Concepts like TQM, Kaizen, business process re-engineering and large scale information management tools such as ERP and CRM, which rely heavily on change management, have either failed to take root or their performance has been sub-optimal due to learning disabilities (Peter Senge: The Learning Organisation). Once behavioural changes take place any type of new initiative can be introduced. This mindset change is brought about by a learning process and consists of typically three steps - acquiring, interpreting and applying knowledge. To move towards a learning organisation, we have to implement three principal types of learning (David A Gavin: Learning in Action, HBS Press). These are: * Learning from the present - Intelligence * Learning from the past - Experience * Learning from the Future - Experimentation

Intelligence gathering is focused on the present and relies on developing skills in uncovering and using available data and information relevant today. Over 70 per cent of information in databases is unutilised due to lack of information-handling skills. Employees who are aware of their business environment and possess analytical skills to interpret this can provide innovative solutions and roadmaps for their organisations growth. AIMS OF LEARNING Experiential learning is aimed at disinterring past experiences, whether successes or failures. Corporate success produces strong cultural norms. Such strong cultures, however, are also resistant to change and reduce the flexibility of organisational responses. On the other hand, learning from past failures ensures that these are not repeated.

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Boeing Co. studied two of their most successful product development projects, the 707 and the 737, and two less successful ones, the 727 and the 747. The combined observation was brought into developing the 757, and helped cut down its development time by 10 months. Experimental learning emphasises the active rather than the passive. Increasingly, past knowledge is proving inadequate to prepare for the future. Therefore, experimentation, piloting (Tom Peters: Thriving on Chaos) under constraints of time, knowledge and resources, followed by observation and reflection, allow new concepts to be introduced and embedded in the organisation. As people practice the skills they learn, the chances of behavioural change are far greater. What to learn is followed by how to learn. The following seven principles of learning (Institute of Research in Learning promoted by Xerox) provide the framework for creating a learning environment in an organisation. 1. Learning is a social activity, not an individual activity. The social dynamics of relationships in an organisation allow work to be accomplished. Learning is faster in an organisation which ensures that the social fabric, especially related to peer relationship, is strengthened. 2. Knowledge, activity, and social relations are closely intertwined. A group of knowledgeable persons would collectively have far greater knowledge than the most experienced expert. Strengthening peer and cross-functional exchanges allows people to learn from each other. 3. Learning is an act of membership. It is not just the activity of a sole individual, but the primary vehicle for engagement with others. Senior management is especially prone to learning disabilities as they get increasingly isolated from large parts of the organisation. 4. Knowing is engagement in practice. Acquiring information in training sessions without a clear roadmap of bringing the learning into the workplace allows gains to dissipate quickly. Only at the workplace can knowledge be tested and mindsets changed. 5. Engagement is inseparable from empowerment. Empowered employees can take charge of their learning and apply these in the workplace. 6. Failure to learn is the normal result of exclusion from participation. Greater the number of employees taking part in group or team activities, the more the benefits from learning to the organisation. 7. We already have a society of lifelong learners, but what is learnt is not necessarily what organisations want. Realignment of personal and organisational learning objectives would allow both to gain. The emphasis in this new learning process is on worker employability rather than job security. Employers provide opportunities, tools, and support to help employees develop skills and maintain employability; the employees have the responsibility of managing their careers and taking advantage of the opportunities given. Thus, employees must be career self-reliant. They must continually update their skills. They must have a plan for enhancing their performance and long-term employability.

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The new relationship between the employee and employer is described as a contract through which individual needs and those of the organisation are balanced. The role of leadership is to create an environment where employees take responsibility for their own learning. They offer opportunities for professional growth and engage their employees in challenging work. They foster open communication and employees are made aware of problems upfront in the hope they will be part of the solution. The use of technology optimises the lifelong learning process by allowing employees to participate in learning from one another through storytelling, informal apprenticeship and mentoring relationships. All these aspects of effective learning are as old as human civilisation. Regarding closing down your training departments, Imperial Bank of Canada did just that. One can start by eliminating or reducing elaborate induction programmes. The author is general manager (Knowledge documentation) at Nicholas Piramal (This article appeared in the July 2002 issue of Indian Management magazine)

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