Don’t fall at the final hurdle
As the 2016 Rio Olympic Games get into full swing this week, I’ve been considering where in the Learning and Development industry we tend to fall at the final hurdle.
I’ve been observing lately spectacular learning design followed by incomplete execution. Watch out for this pitfall!
I’ve seen wonderful learning journeys signed off at an executive level, along with the budget to complete them – and yet not all of the elements are always implemented.
So much focus is placed on designing and implementing the workshop that other elements of the learning journey frequently fall to the wayside. Often times other elements aren’t even considered let alone implemented until after the workshop design is done, or worse, after the pilot has run! This makes for a swift back track to try and cover missed steps, or results in the element being scrapped altogether.
We heard of one organisation who planned their learning transfer support element, gained sign off at a top level, communicated this to participants, and then failed to initiate their learning transfer until multiple cohorts had already run. This creates a disjointed, unbalanced environment.
We heard of another organisation who planned for the end point of the learning journey to be an alumni get together. This was after their learning transfer coaching and looked set to be a really good reflection point for groups at the end of the program.
Things were looking good, the program had run with the content well received, and they were setting themselves up for the learning transfer follow up process by checking in on all the elements. When the program lead was asked when the alumni get together would be happening, he said “oh that’s been dropped from the program”.
I was disappointed. I passionately believe that learning transfer is crucial to the success of any learning initiative, but also that even at the end of a learning transfer process, you need to set people up for continued success. Celebration is a really good idea at this point – the participants as a group can perhaps share ideas and successes. Sometimes, we also get the manager involved in a specific learning transfer call to set them up with how they are going to continue to support the growth that the individual has created so far.
How you finish your program is essential. Moreover, ensuring that you follow through on the design of your learning journey is critical.