I don’t know about you, but I am in the thick of conference season, on all sides of the globe. I have just returned from a great time at the ASTD conference in Washington DC last week alongside around 9,000 other training and development professionals. I met really interesting people, attended great breakout groups and listened to some fantastic keynote speakers.
What I love about these conferences is that they make you think outside the box and often teach you, or remind you, that being a success at what work is not just about being good at your job. And this was definitely reinforced by my favourite two keynotes – Arianna Huffington and Kevin Carroll.
Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, talked about redefining success beyond money and power. This new success model, called The Third Metric, redefines success to include wisdom, well being, wonder and giving – rewriting the rules of how we live our busy lives. What is particularly interesting is that the model was born from a very simple lesson – which Arianna learned, quite literally, in a pool of blood. If you haven’t already seen it, watch her TED talk in 2011 and hear her story – she leaves little room for argument!
Kevin Carroll is an author, speaker and agent for social change, inspiring businesses, organisations and individuals to embrace the spirit of play. His message – which is also both simple and learned from tough personal experience – is to rediscover the importance of play and creativity to maximize your own personal and business potential. Amazing to think that the concept of a red rubber ball can really make a difference – and yet how many off us can honestly say that we take the time to ‘play’, in any shape or form? Again, a fantastic TED talk. Take the time to watch it, you won’t be disappointed.
More inspiration at the conference came in some really great breakout groups – and I am thrilled to report that learning transfer was really coming to the fore with people recognizing and talking about the important link between change and learning – YEY!
But alas, here also came the real challenge for me, as most people are still just trying to tick the box. There is still a belief that if they just tick the box to say that they have learnt something and put into place, that they are going to create sustained behavioural change. Anyone who is a regular reader of my blogs and has read my book will know that for me, you can’t just tick the box. It’s about stretching yourself, about ownership and structured reflection. So I’m really interested to see how this ‘tick the box’ approach at learning transfer unfolds for them – perhaps it is at least a step in the right direction.
And so to the surprise news from the conference with the ASTD changing its name – literally a corporate rebrand overnight, with the convention center changing all its banners and colours whilst we slept. The name has changed from the American Society of Training Development to the Association for Talent Development – really tackling their global prospective with a refreshing focus away from training and towards talent development.
This new perspective was reinforced throughout the conference with a lot of talk around the fact that the key role of the L&D Professional is performance for individuals. And we all know that I think learning transfer can help with that.
So a very successful and inspiring ASTD – or should I say ATD. And I haven’t even mentioned that it gave me an opportunity to form some new strategic partnerships – all of which will be revealed in due course.
I am now looking forward to connecting with more people at the AITD and ElNet conferences in Sydney this week – I’ll be speaking at both, plus signing my new book at the Footprint Books stand at the AITD. So come and say hello if you are there
Emma
