latest issue

january 2012

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preface

Where is L&D? Usually the answer is ‘not where it should be’ – literally.

I once delivered training on a factory site. Administration and management were housed in one, smart building. Manufacturing was in a separate set of buildings. These were slightly scruffier, with the traditional gates marked ‘Goods In’ and ‘Goods Out’.

The training department was in an old manufacturing building at the edge of the site, too small to be of any other use and physical removed from both manufacturing and administration. The implication could not have been clearer than if it had had its own ‘In’ and ‘Out’ gates. This was a separate function which operated like a production line. People were inserted into training, processed and rolled out at the end of the course, equipped – in theory – with everything they needed for their work.

This approach to L&D remains true in most organisations today.  Yet learning is not something that can be compartmentalised and it is not a factory process. It’s something we do naturally, every day, and it plays a crucial part in organisational competitiveness and growth. The idea that the L&D department should exist separately and limit its role to formal training is surely nonsense.

So why does this view of L&D persist? Partly it’s because others at work see learning only in terms of their own experience of schooling. It takes place at a desk, in a room, away from real life. But part of the fault lies also with us. Perhaps 20 years ago, when I was delivering my courses in that factory, classroom delivery was the best we could do. That is no longer the case. Our understanding of how people learn, and the tools and technologies we have to support them, have developed enormously over the past two decades. We have what we need. Only one thing is missing to help us exploit them fully – a clear, shared vision.

It is up to us to transform our vision of L&D from what we have allowed it to be – process-ridden and isolated from the daily life of the organisation. That vision must see L&D as an integrated part of working life. And once we have created that vision, we must share it with our fellows at work: managers, employees and executives. Once they understand that L&D is about a lot more than schooling, we can start what we should really be doing – supporting effective learning in the workplace, every day.

Enjoy the show!