Chief Learning Officer - January 2009 - (Page 32) ket conditions and our interaction with or response to those changes all make up a learning executive’s perception of what interventions should take place. Orient “Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.” – Jonathan Swift, author and satirist We are made up of our experiences — both individually and corporately — so observation is different for each of us. Our orientation to what we observe becomes the basis for decision and action as we feed forward in the loop. Factors such as cultural traditions and genetic heritage determine how we observe our environment. Analyses and syntheses, previous experiences and new information all affect our orientation to the world around us and how we interact with it. These are the categories used in the loop to explain orientation as a means of making a decision. When incorporated together, they allow us to create a story about what’s happening in our environment and to respond. Since business is an ever-changing situation, previous experiences and new information allow for adjustments in orientation. The danger here is not to let culture and heritage impede the flow of new or contradictory information. An example of this is the historical learning model in the health care industry. Traditionally, clinical educators designed the courses and determined what was taught and what was discarded. There was no thinking around how the training was delivered or if the content should be changed. The loop enables learning executives to provide better guidance and control to their organizations about what type of learning needs to take place, how should it be delivered, who should be involved in the development and what outcomes are expected. Decide “No one learns to make right decisions without being free to make wrong ones.” – The Rev. Kenneth Sollitt Decisions come from orientation, not observation. But the results show up in the observation phase of the loop. Many people skip or don’t take into account how orientation affects their decisions. It is the lens through which we “see” everything. Our perspective on each of the categories in the observation stage is filtered through our cultural traditions and genetic heritage. It always will be different and ever-changing, with variations depending on our environment. Once you observe your environment in terms of politics, demographics, economics and technology, you can orient to what you care about inside those areas and develop a hypothesis for action. Only then can you choose a course of action. While this might seem simplistic, if you’ve ever tried to get a group of people to make a decision, you understand just how hard it can be. The decision part of the loop is where leadership shows up, not by having all the answers but by leading the organization in determining a course of action. Differing assessments, diverging points of view and open discussions all characterize the decision phase. Having specific goals, measurements and a process for gathering assessments to feed the observation phase all should be part of the decision process, especially when working to reorient people to new ways of thinking or acting. Last but not least, speed is the key. The whole purpose behind using the loop is not to get bogged down in a staged process. It is to increase the velocity at which decisions can be made in an effort to produce action consistently and effectively. Figuring out what learning needs to be developed and then executing on that are the two fundamental things a learning organization has to deal with. Culture and genetic heritage play a large role in what we observe and our conclusions about our environment. If you work at Wal-Mart, it’s all about low cost, whereas if you work at Nordstrom, it’s all about customer service. If you have younger workers, they want learning delivered via the Web or with mobile content. All of this gets filtered and sorted as we orient to what we care about. Analyses and synthesis are the formal and informal processes each organization chooses to implement as part of the decision making process. Boyd describes this process as “reaching across many perspectives; pulling each and every one apart, all the while intuitively looking for those parts of the dissembled perspectives which naturally interconnect with one another.” 32 Chief Learning Officer • January 2009 • www.clomedia.com http://www.clomedia.com
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