Personalization.The learning provided to workers will be per-
sonalized to reflect their experience, their context, and their com-
fort. By building learning in small, deployable chunks, often called
learning objects,the organization will start to customize what is dis-
seminated. For example, for some workers, the only information
that is needed in our example is “Cut open the box to show the
three components.” Others might need to see a video step-by-step
procedure. Personalization is of key importance to increased accep-
tance of knowledge management and e-learning.
Feedback, compliance, and cycles. Learning dissemination
requires a loop back from the learner to the source. In our example,
headquarters would ask other stores to send in any innovations and
changes they made with this item, as well as to indicate that they
had adjusted the display according to the updated suggestions.
(This allows headquarters to confirm the relationship between this
change and any increase in sales.)
Deploying a learning network, in terms of technology and
learning methodology, can result in a dramatic change in the speed
to learning. Of course, the process has to be managed for potential
overload. If new instructions descend on employees every hour,
they will quickly be ignored, and local initiative will decrease dra-
matically. Too much conversation in the world of learning has been
about learning management systems and knowledge management
systems, with a focus on server-like technology. I am much more
interested in the learning network that is built by headquarters and
distributed to employees. The network should be the gossamer
thread that carries knowledge and learning in a bilateral fashion
from and to the frontline employee!
ConclusionLet’s borrow a phrase from the Department of Defense. The DoD
uses the word readinessto talk about training. What is the state of
readiness in your organization’s learning network? Could you have
10 LEADINGORGANIZATIONALLEARNING