Rachel
Burnham writes:
Whenever I write a blog, I always feel slightly apprehensive about its
reception and more so, when it contains strong opinions or personal
stories.
Today, I feel this particularly, as I want to share a
story from my involvement in my local church and I know that that most people
who will read this won’t be Christian and may be of another faith or of no
faith. But I have decided to go ahead
anyway because the focus of this story isn’t religious but is, always in this
blog, L&D.
Anyway, enough preliminaries…on with the story.
Some years ago, I was part of a small working group from
our church with charged with the task of helping to build relationships between
the congregation and the community. To
my great delight, this was not a committee, nor a talking shop, but a small
group of five that generated ideas and put them into practice, not on our own,
but working with lots of other people, both within and outwith the church. I hadn’t thought of this before writing this
blog, but interestingly out of the five, three of us ran our own businesses –
an L&D consultant, a painter & decorator and (appropriately) a
carpenter – I wonder if we had an entrepreneurial bias?
We did all sorts of things, some traditional, many not. We had some great successes; some middling
successes, which we built on; and some out and out flops – in relation to the
latter a summer outing to hear brass bands particularly comes to mind!
What was interesting was the way the group worked. It was a great group to be a part of – we
often disagreed, but no one was negative for the sake of it, no-one was
grandstanding, people listened and built on other people’s ideas. I remember lots of conversations which
included ‘why don’t we…’ ‘would it be possible….’ ‘how could we make that
work?’ ‘and we could also…’ ‘alternatively we could…’ and lots and lots of laughter.
One of the many things that made us laugh, was the phrase
‘It’s a ‘something’…’ which we used very frequently. It was a phrase we used when we were
developing an idea, but wanted to keep it fluid. It allowed us to explore possibilities,
without the limitations of placing a label on what we were planning. We would identify the characteristics of the ‘something’
– its purpose, who needed to be involved, who we would like to be involved, its
look & feel and so on, but leave open what it was until we were well down
the road with imagining it.
In my work as an L&D consultant, I often work with
people new to L&D (and some who are not so new to L&D), who are quick
to jump to talking about designing & delivering a face to face ‘training’
session. I know that many stakeholders
in organisations can also be quick to make that leap. I spend a lot of time encouraging a more open
approach, which might include blended learning options or even alternatives to
face to face learning sessions or formal learning. There is such a range of possibilities that
can meet learning needs and help improve performance - it is important to
consider what will be most effective in that particular situation and not to
shut off worthwhile avenues from the outset.
It helps to use language thoughtfully to ensure we
haven’t already made assumptions – so sometimes I talk of learning ‘solutions’
– though that always sounds to me, too finished and polished, for a process
that might be rather more emergent and evolving. Sometimes, I use learning ‘intervention’ –
though that always sounds such a jargon term (even to myself) and also as though
it is done to you, rather than with you.
Which brings me back to using ‘it’s a ‘something’…’
. Messy, open, full of potential and
possibilities, specific to context – just what L&D should be.
Rachel
Burnham
14/4/16
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
