Competencies and careers in the new economy

I just returned from Boston where I spent time with a leading health care organization.  It’s the third time in the past three weeks where discussions centered on mapping career growth for individuals and aligning training with competencies. 

While competency management is by no means new, we’re finding renewed interest in it for a number of reasons.  One reason is that organizations are realizing they are going to be faced with an exodus of significant knowledge in coming years due to the demographic shift and baby boomers leaving the workforce.  That’s going to drive a need for greater organization when it comes to developing the people who can take their place.  Another reason is that workers have much more mobility – you may only have people for a limited part of their career and the ability to quickly identify their competencies, address deficiencies, and align to their strengths will be critical in maximizing the value you get from them in the time they are there.

A third reason we are seeing this interest is from an economic development perspective.  As we go through this significant economic shift and try to rebuild our economy people will need new skills to contribute to new jobs in new markets.  The markets we compete in economically are rapidly changing on us and the skills to serve those markets will as well.  As a result we’ll continue to see state and local governments pushing for greater coordination and alignment of jobs, skills, competencies and training.  Stay tuned.

Socio-economic Impact to Learning Styles

An important element to any commuication is understanding your audience. This criticality of audience familiarity likely increases for the authoring and presenting of training. Regardless of the type of training (procedural, technical, behavioral, etc.) it is important to understand not only the demographics of the audience but also their background and culture.

 

As the training materials are developed, audience demographics, background and culture always play an important role in determining the best approach to gain attention and stimulating recall of prior learning. But culture and background can also provide us with important information about how learners processes inforomation. Understanding someone’s learning style is critical to developing the right interactions and learning sequences.

 

One of the components of audience analysis that is often over looked is influence of socio-economic factors on how we learn. Ruby Payne, in A Framework for Understanding Poverty, describes several factors that contribute to how we process information and make decisions. Some of the factors she discusses include language registers and story structure.

  

Language Registers

Payne describes the following language registers:

• Frozen – language that is always the same. For example, the Lord’s prayer, wedding vows, etc.
• Formal – The standard sentenece syntax and word choice of work and school. Has complete sentences and specific word choice.
• Consultative – Formal register when used in conversation. Discourse pattern not quite as direct as formal register
• Casual – Language between friends and is characterized by a 400-800 word vocabulary. Word choice general and not specific. Conversation dependent upon non-verbal assists. Sentence syntax often incomplete.
• Intimate – Language between lovers or twins. Language of sexual harassment

In some socio-economic situations, casual register is the only one used and children growing up in that environment may not experience the Formal register that is used in business and higher education. It seems that most formal training developed for the corporate environment is also based on formal register. This could signficantly impact the successful implementation of a training program and the performance outcomes desired.

 

Story Structure

 

Closely related to language registers is story structure. According to Payne,

 

• Formal-Register Story Structure moves from beginning to end with a plot, where the plot is the most important part of the story. 
• Casual-Register Story Structure could begin with the ending or the part with the most emotional intensity. In this format stories are told in vignettes with audience participation. The story typically concludes with comment about the character and his/her value. In this structure, the most important part of story is the characterization.

 

It is easy to see how very different these structures are. And it leaves me thinking about the following questions:

 

• How does this difference in approach to story structure impact learning sequences and activities?
• How can instructional designers and trainers help those more comfortable in the Casual Register Story Structure increase their comfort with the formal register structure used in formal training?

 

Payne points out that educators can, and should, work to provide opportunities to help students learn to be successful in their context. She does not suggest that one story structure is better than another or that one language register is better than another. However, she does point out that various contexts have hidden rules that expect its partcipants to know. And as learners better understand the hidden rules and what they need to know to be successful, the more likely they are to achieve success in that context.

 

You can use the resources below to learn more about Ruby Payne’s research or pick up a copy of her book at Aha! Process.

 

 

Podcasts on iTunes

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=202219814

YouTube videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZSQVENiUMM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-k7vWvCeeM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqkgu7HQ1qc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw3AOuVfqbc&feature=related

Articles:

http://www.ahaprocess.com/files/PovSeriesPartsI-IV.pdf
http://www.ahaprocess.com/files/Article-WhereDoWeGo.pdf
http://www.ahaprocess.com/files/Moving_from_MC_to_Sit_Pov_03032009.pdf

Leadership in a Down Economy

We engage with many organizations on the topic of leadership development and it’s approached from a variety of perspectives. They range from the viewpoint of a discretionary training investment to a strategic imperative vital to the growth of the business.

What’s become very interesting to is how leadership manifests itself in the current economy…and what organizations are doing to implicitly develop the character of leaders during these times. We can teach people all day in a classroom what they should and shouldn’t do in various leadership situations. But difficult times challenge the character of any leader and that is where real leadership is learned.

The opportunities presented to us for leadership development in the current climate are unprecedented. But unfortunately most organizations will miss them. Those organizations that have a real commitment to their future and to building the leaders of tomorrow can leverage the current climate to define what their organization is about.

It’s interesting to take a look at the organizations (formal and informal) you’re a part of and ask the question of how future leadership is being developed and defined through the events of the current economic climate.  The future cultures and character of organizations are being defined every day.

Open Mind

Here are a few quotes I like to keep in mind whenever I think I have all the answers.

Everything that can be invented has been invented.
–Charles H. Duell, Office of Patents, 1899

There will never be a bigger plane built.
–A Boeing Engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that carried ten people.

Ours has been the first, and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality.
–Lt. Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861

We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out.”
–Decca Executive, 1962, after turning down the Beatles

With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big slice of the US market.
–Business Week, August 2, 1968

There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.
–Ken Olson, president of Digital Equipment Corp. 1977

This telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.
–Western Union, memo, 1876

No imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?
–David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urging investment in the radio in the 1920’s

Who wants to hear actors talk?
–H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927

PLAY – Good For You And For Business

I love creativity in all things. As I look for creative ways to educate and train I happened upon this video. Here Tim Brown, from Ideo, discusses creativity in the workplace and how it breeds innovation. Yet, what I think I like best about his entire presentation is the way Tim got the audience involved in his talk. So, set aside 20 minutes and enjoy this TED Talk by Tim Brown.

more about “Presentation Zen: Play is good for yo…“, posted with vodpod

BTW- Don’t you love the way his designers/thinkers get into the role of the user/client in order to deliver a more powerful solution?

TiER1 In The News – Full Speed Ahead

From Cincinnati.com | By Mike Rutledge

A leader of one fast-growing downtown tech firm thinks his business may grow by 50 percent next year.

Tier1 Performance Solutions CEO Greg Harmeyer said part of that expansion likely will happen in Cincinnati’s northern suburbs or Dayton, and near Fort Knox, Ky.

Tier1 is an information-technology business with about 40 fulltime employees, plus consultants. It helps large organizations update their employees so they can perform better.

Tier1 uses online training and other technology to spread information to organizations’ employees, sales forces, distributors and even their customers. That’s especially helpful for businesses with employees spread across the country or globe.

“You’ve got to quickly educate them, or get information in their hands so they can do their job, and that’s what we help with,” Harmeyer said.

Read more…

Design Thinking

Just a couple of weeks ago I read a great article called Design Thinking at Harvard Business Online. In that article, Tim Brown says, “Thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products,
services, processes—and even strategy.”

As the article progresses, Brown goes on to discuss what it means to think like a designer through Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation. He also takes the reader through the Design Thinker’s Personality Profile to help us better identify these thinkers in a variety of organizations and roles.

That particular article by Tim Brown requires a nominal fee for downloading but there is a video presentation on the same topic available at MIT World.

Mobile Learning On The iPhone

I just saw an interesting article about a learning app for the iPhone on CNet.

Add ’study guide’ to the long list of tricks you can do with your iPhone. Cram ($9.99) is a solid application that lets you create and import tests on any topic. You’ll be able to take scored multiple choice quizzes or go into study mode, in which Cram provides you with a series of digital flash cards. Cram will flash the question and you decide with a click when the answer appears.

Cram is fairly simple to use, but there is a correct order for getting started. For instance, you had best register for Cram online before you attempt to use it; you can’t currently register from the iPhone.

If you’re planning to create your own test material in preparation of an exam, you should consider crafting that online as well. While you can technically–and fairly easily–compose questions and answers within Cram, typing a series of multiple choice entries is faster work with a standard keyboard. If you intend to reuse multiple choice answers to trip up yourself or others, your computer’s magical cutting and pasting abilities are indispensable.

Read more…

Cool Visual Learning Tools

If the visual display of content is something that you ponder over on a regular basis (and what good e-Learning developer or Instructional Designer doesn’t?), be sure to visit Visual Literacy today. There are all kinds of fun things to discover. One of my favorites was the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. Check it out!

Should Cell Phones Be Used In Education? Hall Davidson Thinks They Should

It’s in your pocket: teaching spectacularly with cell phones. Great speech by Hall Davidson from Discovery Education Network about using mobile phones in education, the kind of talk many teachers and administrators need to hear. The first thing Hall said was to take out and turn on our cell phones

There is a large potential for cell phones in education, but current best practices are small. Mobiles have lots of functionality, including:

• Telephone
• Text messenger
• Still camera
• Video camera
• Video player
• GPS device
• Podcaster
• Music player

Are we really going to ignore a device this powerful? Can we, when it has all kinds of applications for teaching, learning, school-to-home, administration?

In general, we still take cell phones away, and school districts ban them (e.g. during school hours). However, if this is a tool for adults, we need to teach kids how to use it.

Read more…

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