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The Learning Case for Difference: How CLOs Can Make Diversity Work for the Company
Jul 23, 2009
Breakfast Club
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Sep 03, 2009 07:30 am
Grand Hyatt San Francisco
San Francisco, California
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Peak Performance: Pushing Your Enterprise to the Top
Sep 28, 2009 - Sep 30, 2009
The Broadmoor
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Published September 2003
Informal learning is effective because it is personal. The individual calls the shots. The learner is responsible. It's real. How different from formal learning, which is imposed by someone else. Workers are pulled to informal learning; formal learning is pushed at them.
Nonetheless, organizations invest most of their training budgets in formal learning. This stands common sense on its head: Invest your resources where they'll have the least impact.
Many learners today are not self-directed-they are waiting for directions. It's time to tell them that the rules have changed. It's in their self-interest to become proactive learning opportunists. Their reluctance is hardly surprising. Most training is built on the pessimistic assumption that the trainees are deficient. Training's job is to fix what's broken rather than make what's good better. Consequences include:
Several years ago, the late Peter Henschel, then director of the Institute for Research on Learning, posed an important question: If three-quarters of learning in corporations is informal, can we afford to leave it to chance? Here are a few suggestions of what to do.
Support the informal learning process:
Help workers improve their learning skills:
Create a supportive organizational culture:
Jay Cross is CEO of eLearningForum, founder of Internet Time Group and a fellow of meta-learninglab.com. For more information, e-mail Jay at jcross@clomedia.com.
October 2003 Table of Contents

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