This morning, I attended Bellevue University’s Human Capital Lab quarterly colloquium, where Sue Todd, President and CEO, Corporate University Xchange, spoke about Social Learning. She offered some tremendous insight into how leading companies are fostering a collaborative environment for their people, and embedding learning in execution.
I found myself sitting between an industrial engineer, and a measure & evaluation analyst. I’m sure you can imagine the level of conversation. Words like data points, optimization, quantitative analysis were flying back and forth. This quick view into their world was fascinating. I was hard-pressed to keep up with the content of their discussion, however, the context was well within my grasp. As I listened, I noted a couple of themes, and finally called attention to them, connecting what I was hearing with what I do understand about performance and execution.
The first thing is that without building in feedback loops, you have very little to learn from. Whether you are talking about data points to ensure the most efficient use of space, best tasting ice cream, or quickest way to make a wiki, feedback is data and context, i.e., information. Measurement and reporting are tools more important than ever in this fast changing world.
Second, collaborators must reflect on the feedback and its implications. Without taking the necessary time to consider feedback, you cannot hope to improve in your next effort. A failed project can provide a tremendous amount of information to help you avoid future mistakes, but only if this information is used in planning the next project. Rather than shying away from failure, organizations who embrace it as part of the creative process will generate the greatest learning potential.
Third, the context of the social conversation is the vision leadership defines from the top. Without that direction, you have no destination in mind. If leadership is not involved in social learning, there is little to encourage people to leave their comfortable stovepipes and share information and ideas. Collaboration without vision is like a hamster on a wheel. The hamster burns a lot of energy, but it doesn’t go anywhere.
Social learning is not just getting people together to talk. It must have direction. What emerges from the collaboration should be the result of vision, creative thinking, innovation, and the feedback available to the group. Without those things, you cannot have learning. And without learning, you cannot drive adaptive, nimble and continuously improving business performance.
Tags: e-learning, Learning & Performance, learning technologies, Social Networking, training