So Many Stories

Rachel Burnham writes: Bruising, humiliating, exhausting, baffling and soul-destroying are just some of the phrases I’ve heard used to describe people’s recent experiences of applying for jobs.   I’ve heard so many stories, so many personal experiences of recruitment and selection over the last few months particularly.  And few of them good.  Many of them poor, some of them painful.  And I am sure you’ve heard similar.

There are the sheer numbers of applications that people make and the amount of work that goes into each one – so often to get no response at all, even after being invited in for an interview. Or the slow response – in some cases the     so     very     slow     response.  The organisations that only seem to want to employ someone who has done that exact same job previously.  The questions at interview that are so precise and require you to ‘Tell me about a time when you had to address a member of staff’s repeated lateness on Tuesdays.’  (And they really only seem to be interested in examples that relate to Tuesdays!)  The organisations that start recruiting, then change their mind and then change it back again.  The intrusive questions about personal relationships.   The discriminatory questions about plans for children.  The selection tasks unrelated to the job and with the capacity to discriminate.  And on.  And on.

I’ve been hearing tales of young people being overlooked.  Of older people being overlooked.  And the not so very old too – ie the person speaking is the same age as me! (Whatever happened to ‘you’re as old as you feel’).  People whose experience is a little different – self-employed or gained in a different country or just a little out of the ordinary.   People with a period of sickness; people with a disability who’ve worked & studied all their lives.   Could be anyone of us.

And most of these tales come from people working in HR or L&D.  So they know how the system works.  They kinda understand where the recruiter is coming from.  They may have been faced with similar situations of lots of applications themselves & the challenges this brings.  And still it confuses and still it hurts and still it frustrates. 

It is always right to treat people with courtesy.  It surely is possible to recruit and select and even turn people down, yet leave them feeling valued & appreciated.

So why aren’t we listening?

Why aren’t we doing differently?

Rachel Burnham

11/2/15

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals become even more effective.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance.

Follow me on Twitter @BurnhamLandD

Zoning - In or Out of the Comfort Zone

Rachel Burnham writes: A few years ago we were away on holiday in Dumfries & Galloway and went out for a walk along a headland.   It was a beautiful day, blue skied, white fluffy clouds, seabirds calling out, wildflowers in bloom, one of those days that seem near perfect.  Our path took us alongside a cliff top and suddenly, out of nowhere I was rocked with dizziness and had to sit down right there & then.  I couldn’t move.  I was frozen.  Some other walkers passed us and I was dimly aware of them looking at me and commenting on me.

That was the first indication that I had developed vertigo.   I am no great walker and even less of a mountain climber but I have always managed. Now, whenever, I find myself with a steep slope to get down – I either have to get down on my bottom or backwards very slowly with my hand held by a patient family member.  Either way pretty embarrassing. 

About a year later, I found myself in Central London with a free afternoon and decided to visit Tate Modern.  As it was a lovely day, I decided to walk along the river and cross the Millennium Bridge.  This bridge is well known for its movement and vibration.  Wow, what a challenge that was – for me!  For most people, it would be a straightforward and pleasant way to cross the river.   But for me, on my own, that afternoon it took me right out of my comfort zone.   

I was OK at first, the rocking movement was immediately noticeable, but I wanted to do this and I felt fine & full of confidence.   But that confidence all dissolved as I got out into the middle of the river and the motion got worse and worse, while I started to feel sick and then got stuck – unable to move – right in the middle of a bridge in the middle of London.   I know it seems crazy, but I froze feeling panicked – how on earth was I to get off this wretched bridge, I was all alone, there was no one to help me.  It felt like ages that I stood there – I don’t supposed that it was actually that long.  Because somehow I focused my eyes on the shoulders of a person who was just in front of me and just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.   And slowly, one step at a time, I got over the bridge.

I didn’t see a single thing either side of the bridge, I had to  concentrate too hard on moving forward.  And when I got to the other side, I was shaking and too tired to visit the Tate – I headed straight for a cup of tea. 

But I had crossed the bridge.  (To this date, my family still don’t quite believe that I did.)  

Often in L&D, we talk about taking people out of their comfort zones and challenging them.  We talk as though this is always a good thing.  About the benefits to be gained from trying new things and taking on new challenges.  And this is often true.

But we never really know where the boundaries between zones are for individuals. Where the boundary is between that place where we are challenged & can learn and a place where we are panicked & unable to learn.  If we find ourselves in a place that is too uncomfortable, we can shut down and be so focused on just getting through it, that we are unable to learn much at all from the experience.

It is good to offer stretch.  It is not good to force it on someone else.  It is good to encourage taking on new challenges.    It is not good to push someone else.  Though it is good to push yourself to try out new experiences, new responsibilities, new styles, new ways of thinking.  It is great to offer choices.  It is great to be invitational & to encourage people to ‘walk with you’ in a new direction and to walk alongside in support.

I have been reflecting over the last few weeks about how I challenge the people I’m working with.  How I challenge friends & family.  And how I challenge myself.  I am not sure that I have been getting the balance right and want to do better.

I think I have been making too many assumptions about what will stretch and be a helpful challenge for others, based on my own experiences and not listening/observing enough.  I could be more responsive to what I notice.

How do you challenge the people you work with and yourself?  How much challenge is a good thing?  How do you widen that learning zone and spot when the panic zone is being approached?

 

(By the way, 'Zoning' is the title of one of my very favourite albums by the jazz pianist, composer & arranger Mary Lou Williams. It is well worth listening to.)

Rachel Burnham

14/1/15

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals become even more effective.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance.

Follow me on Twitter @BurnhamLandD

Informal Learning - Search for a Pattern

Rachel Burnham writes: I had the pleasure of reading through Paul Matthew’s ‘Informal Learning at Work’ earlier in the autumn as part of the preparation for an earlier post about informal learning.  

Informal learning refers to learning that is outside of formal training or education and is a type of learning that has always been around, but is of growing interest & importance to organisations and L&Ders currently. 

I was particularly struck by the wide range of different methods of informal learning which Paul Matthews sets out in the fourth chapter.   These are illustrated by a set of excellent practical examples.   There were so many different types of informal learning contained within the chapter that I found myself overwhelmed and unable to get an overall sense of them.  What I needed was a visual!

So, I decided to have a go at grouping these learning methods and creating a diagram to illustrate them.  Paul Matthews warns in the chapter that the methods ‘don’t fit nicely under simple headings’ (Matthews, P 2013 76) and I know now that this is true.  But I have still given it a go – see what you think?

I have begun at the centre of the diagram and a group which I have titled ‘Starting with the Individual’ – these are all methods which an individual can initiate for themselves, no matter what else is going on in your organisation.

The second grouping and much the most numerous, focuses on informal learning methods that are essentially ‘Person to Person’ and primarily one person to one person, such as coaching, shadowing, asking colleagues – they all seem to have conversations at their heart.

There is an undeniable blurring across to the next grouping, which I have called ‘Learning in Groups’.  I have put social learning here – but this could also apply to ‘Person to Person’ and some of the other categories.  Here you find learning methods that are all about learning with many other people – of course not necessarily face to face.

In the bottom right hand of the diagram, I have placed a couple of approaches to learning that relate to ‘Management Style’ and I am sure that others could be added here.  For example, it seems to me that delegation could be usefully included here.

In the centre of the bottom of the page, I have collected together a number of ‘Resource-based Approaches’ which include help-desks, on-line help and various kinds of content provision.

The divide between ‘Resource-based Approaches’ to the final grouping of ‘Social Resources’ is so weak, that I have shown this as a broken line.  The distinction for me is that for the Social Resources, the format may be provided & supported by the organisation, but the content comes from learners themselves.  Whereas with ‘Resource-based Approaches’ the organisation is in control of the content.  These ‘Social Resources’ may be integrated in with content provision sourced from elsewhere,  but they do have distinctive features because of their home-made ‘socially generated’ content and therefore they also link with the ‘Learning in Groups’ category.

I took the decision to exclude ‘appprenticeships’ from the diagram, although it does appear in Paul Matthew’s list – I felt that in their current format in the UK these are more formal than informal and so decided not to include them.

I have found this a useful exercise to help me get my head around some of the range of possible methods within the area of informal learning.  I would be most interested in your views on this.

And do read ‘Informal Learning at Work’ if you haven’t already done so!

Rachel Burnham

10/12/14

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals become even more effective.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance.

Follow me on Twitter @BurnhamLandD

Breaking our Complacency!

Rachel Burnham writes: I had the opportunity last week to participate in the CIPD’s Annual Conference in Manchester and took part in a number of excellent sessions on the Thursday.  I have had a week to let my thoughts on those sessions marinate and here is what I have come up with.

One of the sessions I took part in was led by Rasmus Ankersen and was titled ‘Curing Business Complacency: Creating ‘Hunger in Paradise’.  He spoke about the risks of successful businesses becoming complacent and then suddenly finding themselves unable to stay ahead because of leaps forward by other businesses or because of other changes in their environment.   This is familiar territory - the story of how Nokia overlooked the threat from Apple is well known.  More interesting was the story of how SAP looked behind the headlines to realise, in 2010, that their key stats were only superficially telling a success story and had the courage to dig behind this & face up to their reality.  

Ankersen encouraged us to compare ourselves not to someone who makes you look good, but too someone or an organisation that makes you need to stretch.  He described how constraints and scarcity can drive new thinking, which is a topic I have been reflecting on a lot recently.  His overall message being that if it isn’t broke, consider breaking it.

Now, none of those messages were for me particularly new, but they resonated in a new way with me in the light of the two earlier sessions that I had participated in at the CIPD conference.  Both of these were more focused on L&D – the first looked at ‘Creating the Learning Practitioners of the Future’ and had thoughtful sharing of practical experience from both Helena Moore and Andrew Jacobs.  The other session had the almost ‘if-it-is-a-HR-event-then-we-must-have’ compulsory speakers from Google, on this occasion Aimme O’Malley and Steph Fastre, who were most informative and spoke on the subject of ‘Tailoring the Learning Experience: how people data can help’.  Although the session titles didn’t immediately suggest this, there was a coming together of themes from both of these sessions.

For me, Andrew Jacobs, summed it all up by immediately starting his input with a challenge for all of us in L&D ‘if we don’t change in L&D, we will die’.  All of these speakers shared examples of just L&D is changing & being approached differently within their organisations.  

Common themes include:

• Encouraging curiosity amongst staff and ‘allowing’ access to the information & learning they are interested in, rather than controlling access
• L&D as curators not teachers;
• Focusing on supporting a learning ecosystem (Google) or a sustainable environment that supports learning (Jacobs)
• Rethinking old ways – what we know about learners (Google) evaluation & what we measure (Jacobs – to find out more read Andrew’s blog on ‘The ClotheslineParadox’, which he referred to in the session) 
• Learners negotiating & directing their own learning (‘Just for me’) or becoming ‘masterful learners’ at Google
• Importance of learning from/with peers eg 85% of courses are run by fellow Googlers!
• Learning needs to use methodology that is appropriate - technology is an enabler, but quite low tech can be very effectively used.

Key ideas:

• ·       L&D as curator rather than controller;
• ·       The value of informal & social learning; and
• ·       Enabling work as a learning environment.

Clearly there are organisations who are adopting these ways of working and this is where there is a link with Ankersen’s session.  I think many of the organisations adopting these approaches are facing constraints & scarcity.  Here are the  4 factors which I have identified as influencing the adoption of these new approaches to L&D:

1. The need to do more with fewer resources – this can either be due to a reduction in the actual resources available, as has been the case in many public sector organisations or because the organisation is growing and so there is a need for an increase in scale as at Google.
2. Expertise – Again, there are two aspects of this, firstly that the speed of change is such that it is impossible for us in L&D to keep pace with the new learning required.  And secondly, that the range & depth of expertise required throughout the organisation is such that we in L&D struggle to meet the range of needs, if we take the approach that we have to control the learning taking place.
3. Effectiveness – Learning that is closer to work and learner-led is effective and for example, much reduces the difficulties faced by workshop based learning in being transferred into practice.  New insights from neuroscience and behavioural science are adding to the case.
4.  Expectations of learners – Our expectations & demands as learners have changed.   The way we interact with the world, with information and with technology means that our expectations are for instant access to information, answers and support when we need it.  We have less wish for spoon feeding (Moore) and more wish for personal direction – though we may want support with this.

If you are working in an organisation that is comparatively well resourced for L&D and where it is possible, just about, for L&D to maintain the illusion of operational expertise and where learners are less demanding – then you may be getting by taking a more traditional course based approach – but for how long?

If you are an L&Der with some decent facilitation skills, who uses interactive learning methods in your face-to-face sessions and who is approachable & available post session to coach & support learners, you may even be getting reasonable results - but for how long?

Let’s shake ourselves out of our complacency now, because if we don’t the future of our organisation is at risk and the future of our profession too.

So here are a couple of steps to take:

Research & reflect on the ideas shared in this blog – why not

•  read some of Andrew Jacob’s excellent articles on his blog titled ‘Lost and Desperate’ or
• watch the first episode from Learning Now TV, particularly the interview with Denise Hudson Lawson who talks through how she introduced these sorts of changes or
•  read Paul Matthews book ‘Informal Learning’ which is a great introduction to using informal learning in the workplace.  He is also interviewed on that first Learning Now TV programme, so you can hear him talk about it too.

But don’t reflect too long!

Start experimenting now – try out some new approaches – run small, fast tryouts and review.  Don’t expect them all to succeed.  The speakers from Google mentioned many times that they are always trying new things out & experimenting and they very often fail.  But you can learn from that and sometimes they will work.

I would very much welcome your comments & responses to these ideas.

Rachel Burnham

13/10/14

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals become even more effective.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance.

Follow me on Twitter @BurnhamLandD