Training Industry Quarterly - Fall 2008 - (Page 25) 3 Ways a Learning Leader Can Leverage Learning Advances 1. Introduce employees to new people, processes, and resources ■ Learning ■ ■ Gaming and simulation technologies Deploy tools that do learning/reading for the learner 2.0 technologies (podcasts, vodcasts, blogs, wikis, RSS, social bookmarking, etc.) communicate and leverage the findings from an Organizational Network Analysis leaders share the responsibility of introducing their employees and workforces to new people, processes and resources. In terms of people, learning leaders can: Cultivate enterprise communities of practice (CoPs) Encourage knowedge sharing amongst individuals with senior leaders, tie learning to business objectives, and develop a balanced scorecard organizational storytelling in order to elicit desire for positive change learning and development, and knowledge management to become part of the organizational learning strategy Identify skill gaps and start succession planning just-in-case, short bursts of learning available in podcasts and vodcasts Integrate learning into pre-hire and post-hire processes Deploy blended learning courseware Develop smart evaluation strategy Research and educate ‘How to run better meetings’ Research and educate ‘How to brainstorm better’ Formalize an After Action Review process and dialogue mapping approaches and technologies ■ Implement Web ■ Perform, ■ ■ ■ Begin 2. Encourage employees to take responsibility for their own learning Encouraging employees to take responsibility for their own learning will aid in the acceptance of these new processes and technologies. If an employee takes a moment to engage with a new technology, they may find that there is a benefit. Discussing these benefits with colleagues will also aid in the success rate of the new technology adoption. 3. Reward employees for learning and teaching, mentoring and facilitating Learning leaders should embody the teaching, mentoring and facilitating traits that they expect their employees to engage in. “What gets rewarded gets done,” so get creative with your rewards. Let employees vote for their own awards, or learn about an employee’s hobby and award related gifts. It is what Ken Blanchard taught us in the One Minute Manager, catch them doing something right and award them right away. ■ Employ ■ Negotiate ■ ■ Create ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ Mindmapping which would give groups and individuals the ability to share, learn and innovate in real time. What is Enterprise 2.0? Enterprise 2.0 is the ability for companies to be more agile, flexible, transparent, social and innovative organizations. The lines between traditional departments such as HR, IT and training are blurring. Information and knowledge can be shared and improved in real time. What might be beyond Enterprise 2.0? Maybe organizations will no longer be single, monolithic organizations. Maybe customers, partners, suppliers, outsourcers, distributors, resellers and many other kinds of entities will extend and expand the boundaries of the enterprise, all in an effort to enhance collaboration, sharing and innovation. Maybe organizations will leverage and embrace the Web services model and the mobile learning of their employees to offer better products and services for their customers. Maybe this will all happen at a faster rate due to the increased availability of knowledge sharing and learning. The benefits of Enterprise 2.0 are increased knowledge retention, more adoption of knowledge management approaches and higher levels of productivity. In Summary Why are we interested in learning and leveraging these technological advances? Etienne Wenger said it best when he commented that “Organizations only keep people as long as they enable them to leave, which is the employment paradox.” Organizations, and managers, need to focus keeping their workforces engaged and challenged. Introducing, encouraging and rewarding managers and employees for leveraging new learning technologies can be a catalyst for business success. Along with building mutual trust, respect and appreciation, these benefits will prove to earn optimal business performance, especially from the perspective of operational excellence. John Hovell is director of knowledge management for ManTech International Corp. A practitioner, speaker and writer, John has been instrumental in the creation and execution of ManTech’s enterprise KM strategy. In 2008, he was honored by Training Magazine as one of the top ten “Young Trainers to Watch.” 25 Training Industry Quarterly, Fall 2008 / A Training Industry, Inc. ezine / www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ http://www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ
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