My favourite episode of Blackadder is the one in which Baldrick burns the manuscript of Dr Samuel Johnson’s dictionary. As Edmund scrambles to re-write the tome, Baldrick contributes a definition of “dog”: Not a cat. While his definition is comically inadequate, it’s also unassailably accurate. Indeed a dog is not a cat; so if you understand what a cat is, the contrast will help you understand what a dog is. I reminded myself of the skit as I ruminated over the ever-louder call in Organisational Development circles for a “skills-based learning” strategy. At first blush, the phrase seems parado ..read more

The title of this blog post is borrowed from Deloitte’s summary of the priorities of C-suite executives (which in turn is borrowed from the Daniels). Why they chose the phrase to represent their findings is clear: “When asked to choose their focus areas among the 10 core business priorities broadly categorized across growth, purpose, people, process, and technology, more than 60 percent of the executives surveyed chose seven or more priorities, and 25 percent chose all 10.” This is no surprise to me. Over my years in the Learning & Development sector, I’ve seen a similar approach to capab ..read more

Has our conference attendance rate returned to pre-pandemic levels? I’m not sure. I attended several last year, and while there seemed to be plenty of attendees at each one, most combined L&D with HR to bump up the numbers. Which is fine, given they’re allied professions, so long as the content pitched to the latter doesn’t squeeze out the value sought by the former. Another gripe I feel compelled to share is the spectre of sales emails and even phone calls following attendance. The barrage I received after one particular event was so voluminous that I’ve vowed never to attend it again. On ..read more

Another year has flown by, and once again I’m pleasantly surprised by the number of articles I managed to post in-between the trials and tribulations of life. In December I like to review each one with a view to identifying a common theme. This time around, I’ve noticed that I – perhaps more directly than usual – presented my ideas in the form of proposals. As to their decency, I’ll let you be the judge… In Not our job I proposed we Learning & Development professionals defend our remit.   In The right stuff I proposed we recruit an evaluation specialist.   In Approaching perfec ..read more

I respect Malcolm Gladwell as a thinker, but I’m disappointed by his Grand Unified Theory for fixing higher education that he espouses in an episode of the Revisionist History podcast titled The Tortoise and the Hare. I won’t spoil the surprise for those who haven’t yet heard it, but suffice to say it’s born out of his experience in taking the hallowed Law School Admission Test (LSAT). Malcolm argues the exam favours hares, not tortoises, even though tortoises make better lawyers. His animalian analogy reminds me of the cartoon Our Education System. While the cartoon makes a valid point about ..read more

The term “Agile” means different things to different people. To some it’s the powerhouse of efficiency and productivity; whereas to others it’s a vague label at best, or an empty buzzword at worst. And I can see why the conflict arises: because two forms of agile exist – one with a small “a”, the other with a big “A”. Small “a” agile Small “a” agile is a 400-year old word in the English language that means to move quickly and easily. In the corporate context, it lends itself to being open to change and adapting to it, while maintaining a healthy sense of urgency and prioritising delivery over ..read more

As a blogger, I’ve been struggling. Historically it has been a rewarding pastime for me – both personally and career wise – but it has also been challenging. It’s time consuming, it requires large doses of vulnerability, and on occasion the reaction from my fellow “professionals” has been downright unprofessional. Combine that with some private matters and a dwindling readership, I’ve been wondering if it’s worth it any more. Prior to posting I don’t know earlier this year, an illustration tweeted by Harsh Darji convinced me to give it another crack; and I felt passionately enough about transf ..read more

We’ve all been there. The organisation invests an obscene amount of money in a course library, and after much fanfare and an initial spike of excitement, activity steadily dwindles until the platform resembles a ghost town vacated by all but the most enthusiastic of fans. Similar problems with learner engagement beset other forms of digital training too; whether it’s the famously low completions rates of MOOCs, or the constant chasing up of laggards who are yet to complete their compliance modules. So when David Swaddle called out for tips to help fight what he described as “zombie digital lea ..read more

Despite its honesty, the humble phrase “I don’t know” is widely feared. From the fake-it-til-you-make-it mindset of consultants to the face-saving responses of executives, we puny humans are psychologically conditioned to have all the answers – or at least be seen to. Of course, demanding all the answers is the premise of summative assessment, especially when it’s in the form of the much maligned multiple-choice quiz. And our test takers respond in kind – whether it’s via “when in doubt, pick C” or by madly selecting the remaining options in a quasi zig-zag pattern as they run out of time. But ..read more

I’ve never understood the rationale of the 80% pass mark. Which 20% of our work are we prepared to do wrongly? It might explain the universally poor state of CX that companies are evidently willing to wear, but it’s arguably more serious when we consider the acronym-laden topics that are typically rolled out via e-learning, such as OHS and CTF. Which 20% of safety are we willing to risk? Which 20% of terrorism are we willing to fund? There has to be a better way. I’ve previously contended that an assessment first philosophy renders the concept of a pass mark obsolete, but went on to state that ..read more