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Features

Published May 2008

What Really Moves People: How Learning Changes Employees

  

  Adam Nelson

“It’s not the agony of the quest; it’s the rapture of the revelation.”
– Joseph Campbell, Author and Mythologist

I have been asked to write this to convince you that certain kinds of learning programs will yield real impact. But I don’t think you need much convincing. So let’s get them out in the open and consider what they mean in practice.

I’d also like to encourage discussion on it. Collaboration and diverse viewpoints make us whole, and what I’d most like to do is incite rage, debate, panic and passion. I want to learn with you. That is, I want to participate in an industry that learns, not just “the learning industry.” So please write me, call me and tell me I’m crazy because, in my opinion, in the past 10 years, the conversation has barely progressed. Only the techniques are different, and frankly, they’re not that different.

So here they are. The salient points of this article in three easy steps. Read no more after this, if you like:

1. The most critical step to the sustained impact of a learning program is providing a highly engaging experience that impacts the heart and mind of the learner.
2. A second key to sustained impact is the ability to engage the learner in a continuous process of individual change, through ongoing application, practice and reinforcement, as opposed to a one-time learning event.
3. Technology plays an important role to effectively enable and accelerate this process on a large scale, allowing organizations to reach the critical mass needed to achieve broad-scale change and drive tangible business results.

Agreeable enough, right? The prioritization may rumple a few feathers, but they’re at least in the ballpark. But the problem is our industry is out in the parking lot.

Candidly, I’ve always been somewhat of a cynic with regard to changing people, which isn’t the worst thing to be in a market where learning is “managed” by a database and individuals learn how to have “difficult conversations” from an animated slide show. Sometimes, you just have to close your eyes. But that time is not now. That time is over.

I know you, the reader. Well, I don’t actually know you, but that will not deter me from gross generalizations. I’ve met with you to design management programs and global change initiatives and, on occasion, just to experience your renowned campus cafeteria. And I know it doesn’t surprise you in the least that engagement engenders change. Whether it’s John P. Kotter’s portraits in The Heart of Change or Patrick Lencioni’s portrayal of connection in The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, we all know that people don’t change without engagement. Not really. Not for long. Not deeply.

It’s a universal, everlasting truth. The key to a truly successful development program lies in the intersection of organizational change processes, individual change processes and adoption: It’s the tissue of it, the circulatory system, the connection.

Comments

Posted By Hermann Green Wednesday May 7, 2008 01:19:30 AM Liked the article. Want to move in that direction. How do you get there? Where do I find the particulars for this kind of program?

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