Skip to main content

When disruption happens

Some days ago I attended a technology presentation. On Learning and Development. The vendors (like many others) have a grand (working) platform of technology enabled learning. And with the season being one of analytics and data – they offer a bouquet of data and analytics as well – more than what you know you can do with it.

As technology becomes more and more prevalent, traditional trainings are taking a back seat. There are e-learnings, e-assessments, MOOCs and e-everything. Traditional trainers have a reason to run scared. And this is true across the spectrum – any type of training.

But very often, the first state is one of denial. "This wont affect us". But the fact is that it will.

Whenever a technology reduces cost, improves scalability and provides consistency to anything – any industry – the industry will face a shake up.

When mass manufacturing came by, this happened and the hand crafted industry went through a dip.
Automatic watches wiped out the HMTs of the industry.
When cinema happened, theatre faced the same issue. Ironically, video made the same threat to cinema.
When e-learnings happened, training faced the same threat. And now MOOCs threaten universities.
When IRCTC happened, training clerks were thrown out by Indian Railways. (No, you can pause your breath on this one for now)

You can take any example and the answer is the same.

Denial was the first recourse for all these industries. But denial wont help.

Because this will shake up the industry. Like all the earlier disruptors did in their respective areas. The laggards will be wiped out. And then, like with all disruptions, those who reinvent themselves will prosper significantly.  So, the question is, how does training prosper? Ah, I wont say it that easily, will I?  

All I can say that there is a significant set of people and training organizations who really need to do better. Deliver better trainings. With passion. Explore. Push the boundaries. Ensure knowledge. Consistency. Recognize that the learning process is a constant and that as trainers they need to learn as well and stay on top of the game. Dive deep. And not stay in mediocre platitudes. Every single time. With every single customer. Open new markets. Open new customers.

And it is not just vendors who face the threat. And this is true even if you are in a training department in an organization. Your job is not safe anymore – especially if you think you can exist as a pen pusher to execute vendor solutions. Imagine an Amazon like marketplace where all vendors are listed, with ratings from peers and all vendors a click away. Ah, that whoosh was the sound of the pink slip. Yes, the same- exact same thing above is needed for a training team as well – more passion, more understanding, more value.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Be Civil. Make nice!

Popular posts from this blog

Zero to One

Zero to One by Peter Thiel is a nice read. (Yes - if I sit down to write a book review - the book has to be worth it - and usually good - so most of my book reviews are about good books.You can stop here if that's the information you seek.) Where this book scores is in contrarian thoughts and contrarian questions that make you think. It starts with a four big lessons learned from the 90s dot-com crash that is, Make incremental advances, Stay lean and flexible, Improve on the competition and Focus on product, not sales. Just as you warm up to it, he says, the opposite rules are more correct - which are: It is better to risk boldness than triviality. A bad plan is better than no plan. Competitive markets destroy profits. Sales matters just as much as products. And finally leaves with a simple definition of contrarianism - it is not to oppose the crowd (or follow a smaller or newer or older crowd) but to think for yourself. "All happy companies are different"...
Post a Comment
Read more

The man who saved Pumpelsdrop

This was a story we had in college if I am not mistaken. Perhaps it was in school, but a delightful story it was. The story goes somewhat like this ( reproduced from here ), but the college version we had was slightly different from this.  I t was a dull, gloomy and a depressing morning in a town named Pumpelsdrop in northern England. The Great Depression had brought all the businesses to a standstill. The bored automobile dealer was spending time alone, as usual. But, this seems to be an unusual morning as an odd entity (customer) appeared on the horizon. A man in a bright suit walks up to the dealer and says, "I need to buy a Rolls Royce Phantom II. We have a business conference coming up and I need to impress my customers". Then proceeds to pay 10% of the deal with a single check for 2000 pounds. The rest he says will pay when he takes the delivery.   The auto dealer was stunned. He was delighted to hear that someone is holding a business conference of some kind and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Anti networking year

I dont usually go out of my way to network. But over the last few years, I ensured that I spend some time creating new connections. It is a small fragment of my time that goes into it, but what I realised was that some of those networking events were not really working out. I also took time to post about the things I do (mostly on Linkedin) and here (nobody reads this - this is more of a note to myself).  It seemed to be the same set of people saying the same set of things. So, this year I have decided to step back.  Unless it is a truly unique event, I wont be going to any event - and thats how the unconference happened.  Unless it is a really significant update, I wont be posting about it.  And spend time creating and doing the things I like to do. Perhaps read more. Or write more. It is April now and I have done well so far.  Managed to read a few books. Actively working on a few creations. And then some. Lets see.  So for all I know, I might write less ...
Post a Comment
Read more