Look, I’m no expert in the space of Learning & Development. I’m just an observer from the inside and a little frustrated with the speed at which & space that the industry is operating. It’s not just sad. It’s downright depressing.
The only positive that can be salvaged out of this, is the journey that L&D is about to begin. A journey towards improving the performance of the learners by focusing on them. Yes, we’re barely scratching the surface of modern learning. Compliance courses are being done for ‘completion’ only. Values, who cares about diving deep into values even? The skills ecosystem is alive and kicking because of enthusiastic entrepreneurs, companies with a modern/contemporary approach, perhaps they will not just thrive but also drive the growth in L&D. How much of the moneys that is being spent on learning is being measured against the performance of the learners?
First, let’s establish the fact that, the learning department in an organisation exists to improve the performance of the learners which affects the performance of the organisation as a whole. This is probably the ‘why’ of the industry, I’m sure there could be more why’s but this one would be more common than the others.
If you agree with this, then how would you rate the last learning based program you did/contributed to, with this ‘why’. The bottom lines of the companies don’t understand subjectivity, they shouldn’t. Performance is an art that can be objectively measured. So can the performance of the learners. How far off are you from the achieving the basic fundamentals? This is the question we all need to ask ourselves.
It’s a long journey, it will be a tough one 🙂
LXP as an idea & a philosophy has gained momentum in the past few years, We’re living in a world that is dominated by products that are user-centered because of the of the screen & tech revolution. The currency of this revolution is our attention & anything that fails to hold our attention can be qualified as badly designed. L&D somehow has always played catch-up to the way the world has evolved. It continues to do so with LXPs. This inertia is something that I don’t understand.
LXPs adoption, according to me, can be the tipping point that transforms the learning & development community to become contemporary in its approach and also declare the intent of keeping with the times.
Some might have a view that LXPs is just an enhancer to the LMS. I’m sure, it can be. But, if you think about it a little, that compulsory content on compliance or induction can also be easily imported into the learning path of the learner on the LXP. So can the other HR processes.
The modern learner is overly stimulated by the social media & content platforms ( audio, video & text ) in her/his leisure time, even you are. Your courses are fighting with Netflix, Spotify, LinkedIn Learning, Coursera etc. for their attention, & even yours. I don’t even want to get into the debate of who’s winning.
There are four aspects of the modern learning process that are getting consolidated through the LXP.
- Aggregation of the learning content
- Content Showcase, Management & Personalisation capabilities
- Learning Analytics for the Learners & the organisations
- Social Learning capabilities
Perhaps a consolidation of these four features with decent use of Data Science, Analytics & machine learning will really enhance & elevate the benchmark of learning & development.
We need to focus on the learners. They need to be learning a lot through the week & the month in order to work efficiently and grow themselves, which impacts the growth of the company they work with.
Long Story Short, think long, think learner.
