10/18/09 my blog for 10/20 class
So as I continue to read more adult education material, and seek out more adult ed career opportunities, I keep seeing more and more related evidence in my daily routines. Much like when you decide to buy a car, you begin to see that very car you want everywhere. Its like a new job/career field idea is opening up in front of me. But then I have to do the hard stuff of finding more folks to talk with and putting myself out there to find a job opening.
The Dixon text was great – it helped me realize more theoretical framework around this field. The Schein text is helping me see application of that knowledge. In Chapter 5, I read the following statement on page 100 and realized another thing I could do would be to follow in his footsteps:
My consulting assignment was to help them do a cultural analysis to develop better measurements of the division’s performance.
How cool to be paid to interview a company and do a cultural analysis of them. I know I don’t want to be a consultant, or freelance, I want to work for a company and have structure and salary, but the idea of doing that type of work is fun. I need to keep finding other types of fun job ideas.
I had an information interview this week with someone from my company’s inhouse training group and she talked about how they typically use the ADDIE model for instructional design – and I knew what she meant! She also talked about the typical adult educational theories and referred to knowing the audience, engaging and working together. It was refreshing to feel comfortable with what she was describing. Its just something I find I feel more about than the typical business marketing work I’ve done thus far in my career. I need to keep talking more to folks in the adult education/ corporate training industry and one day I’ll find a role that will fit both my skill set and long term interests.
Back to this course. So, I’m just as fascinated by this organizational learning material as I was last semester with the strategies for teaching adults material. However I see the org learning as much more complex and challenging as I’m living through the org learning transfer/maintainence/storage issues in the three temporary roles I’ve held this year at my company. I continue to be surprised how difficult and challenging it is for companies to keep their knowledge catalogued and organized.
There are two challenges I find I keep thinking about related to this field and my current company. The first is something I keep remembering one of my class mirror reflectors wrote a while ago: "How do you change the mindset from training as a requirement and an inconvenience to training as a privilege and an opportunity?" Why am I always so excited about signing up for something when others see it as a bother? How can we affect those people? I don’t have an answer and don’t suppose we’re lucky enough to find one simple answer. I think that’s why there must exist the field of adult education – to try and encourage participation and interest. That’s why corporate training classes are not straight lecture. They’re (if they’re good) not boring. They’re engaging and full of diverse activities.
The second is the challenge of maintaining knowledge across a large organization and across time. We have an amazing amount of very intelligent workers in my company. And while they’re incentivized to succeed individually, typically by doing so its benefits the company. As a relatively new company less than 15 years old, they’re figuring things out as they go. But in my few 3 years there, I see how much knowledge/learning falls off the charts. It's strange its so difficult. Its just odd in a smart company, its so hard to have user friendly systems in place to share/maintain learnings. I compare it to the oddity i see in the fact that in this 21st century, us humans haven't found an easy way to control forest fires. We can walk on the moon, create electricity, and cell phones, and satalites, but we can't stop forest fires. Just like smart companies Schein and Dixon discuss, as is my own company, its a very difficult challenge. I want to work somehow in confronting that challenge.
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I enjoyed reading your post and I often find myself thinking about many of the same things. Throughout this program, my knowledge and appreciation for adult learning programs has continued to increase, and I am excited about where this degree might lead me in the future. I also loved the description in our text of being hired to complete a cultural analysis of a company. However, I am of the same mindset that I don't think I desire a consulting career, so I'm not sure what the perfect "adult learning" job is, but I am confident that there are many wonderful opportunities awaiting us and I am eager to see what the future holds for people in this program. It will be interesting to follow the paths of our classmates and see where the future leads them.
ReplyDeleteWhile I enjoy my education/training position at my current company, I do still fight the mindset of training as an "inconvenience or a bother." Although I know many people there appreciate my efforts, I sometimes wonder if the healthcare industry is the best place for my talents, considering state regulations control so much of the education and training we offer. Plus, I also "dream" of working in an environment where people are eager to participate and truly appreciate learning opportunities, rather than being forced to go. The participants in my training sessions normally leave happy and appreciative, but the fact remains that they were required to attend and likely would not have attended had it been an option. I still ponder ways to change the mindset to an appreciation of learning opportunities and an enthusiasm to participate.
As far as the second challenge you mentioned, I am not sure what the solutions is for that one either. I often see that phenomenon in my workplace as well. I see people and departments that are functioning well individually, but in many ways they are not successful working together. There seems to be a disconnect between certain individuals or departments, where each is dedicated and working hard to achieve specific goals, but sometimes it doesn't seem as if the different groups are working toward the same goals. I'm not sure if it is a result of ineffective communication, but I agree that knowledge is often "lost in translation" somehow. In large corporations, I can see how different units can end up operating in their own bubbles, seemingly unaware of the challenges and goals of the other "bubbles". I would love to hear your thoughts in future posts on improving communication between units or individuals to reduce that "loss of knowledge" that seems to occur in large office environments. Keeping everyone "on the same page" is harder than it seems!