The graphic that follows got away from my when I hit the wrong key but I sort of like the zen effect. Think of it as a visual koan. Look at it first and what follows will make more sense.
What is the value of keeping KM, learning, performance support, and other means of improving human performance separate? Aren’t we all aiming for the same objective?
Performance support (embedding the smarts in the job) is often faster/better/cheaper than training (putting the smarts into the worker’s head). Job aids don’t forget; people do. Yet performance support (PS) is underutilized. Everyone has a training department; no one has a performance support department. Semantics keeps many corporations from using the appropriate tool.
In the past, before the ascendance of knowledge work, it may have made sense to keep PS separate from training. Today’s human performance professional should have the option of choosing from the alternatives instead of overlooking PS because “it’s not my department.”
Taking this logic a step further, I questioned the utility of maintaining walls between training, knowledge management, OD, communities of practice, performance support, and a host of other disciplines.
The eLearning Guild’s DevLearn Conference and KM World take place simultaneously this year. I’m trying to get a dialog going to explore the value of convergence of our thoughts, if not our practices.
Warning: the next page is for right-brainers only.
Breaking down vestigial disciplines
- “A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
For shallow draughts intoxicate the brain
And drinking largely sobers us again.”
People are born with an innate desire to make sense of their world. They explore, experiment, and follow the examples of others. Their minds form patterns that put them in charge of their circumstances. They gain the understanding to prosper in society, work, play, and life. That’s what learning is: discovering patterns that improve a person’s fit with the ecosystems she takes part in.
Before global commerce and culture became densely interconnected, life unfolded at a leisurely pace. What one learned in youth lasted a lifetime. Rare discoveries, insights, and inventions slowly trickled in to replenish humankind’s reservoir of knowledge.
Networks have made it easy for people to build on one another’s ideas, turning the trickle of new knowledge into a torrent.
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