Keynote reports for the AITD 2012 conference: Future trends that are already here…

Dr. Jay Cohen (you can visit his website here) reported on his PHD studies about Learning Transfer and the role of the Front Line Manager in Learning. He wants us all to ensure that the managers in our organisations are Learning Leaders, helping us create the results from Learning rather than leaving it to us (in L & D) to create the results.

He shared worrying studies from UK that a CIPD study reported only 21% of managers were coaching their teams. It’s a concern I share that people are just too busy to have developmental conversations with their staff. I like to think that the effect of development can be magic but stress that it won’t just happen by magic. Managers and Leaders need strategies and tactics to help them. Dr. Jay suggested that priority needs to be that the expectation of managers involvement in learning is set in role descriptions, job advertisements and KPI’s and that being a Learning Leader is a role essential not a optional activity. Food for thought.

Charles Jennings from the UK also spoke the importance of the role of the manager in the context of 70 / 20 / 10 framework being the way forward for Learning and Development. For those unfamiliar with the framework it is 70% being informal on the job learning, 20 % learning through people and 10% learning in a classroom / workshop environment. It’s widely acknowledged that the percentages aren’t an exact science but show the trend away from classroom learning as learning content is so easily available now ‘think TED, You Tube, Itunes U, learning needs to be focusing on context of application.  Charles talked about the key elements of learning experience, practice, conversation, and reflection. While Charles and I didn’t agree on everything – I’ve decided I favour the evolutionary approach towards 70/20/10 rather than revolutionary one –  it was great to hear his call to arms for L & D professionals to change the way they are playing the game.