Serendipity and Learning

Microlearning by itself is pointless. Unless micro learning is preceded by skill building, supplemented by opportunities to practice in a safe space with opportunities to receive feedback, microlearning is about as effective as watching ads. If content has to be more and more condensed because peoples attention spans are reducing, then Netflix would not be making series, people would not be playing games for long hours. That is an engagement or interest question . So, if your content is not good enough or your learners do not find it interesting enough, well, you have to solve for that first.  Learning metrics will not give you causation by and large. By and large it will be correlational. As an L&D professional, your job is to build better correlational metrics. Going after causation is not going to work. Investment in content platforms almost always will not give you great returns or great adoption. Especially if you are a start up. So invest wisely. Unless, of course, you ha...

I read a fascinating article in Swarajya magazine the other day by Sanjoy Mukherjee (the content is behind a paywall), on Prashnopanishad and on questioning. Apparently the story goes that the students asked 6 questions, one after another and after one question was answered, they asked the second one and so on. Each question took them to a higher level of consciousness and so on from which they never turned back. That got me curious about the Prashnopanishad. ( From the wiki page ) The opening verses of Prashna Upanishad describe students who arrive at a school seeking knowledge about  Brahman  (Ultimate Reality, Universal Soul). [13]  They ask sage Pippalada to explain this knowledge. He does not start providing answers for their education, but demands that they live with him ethically first, as follows, [13] तन् ह स ऋषिरुवच भूय एव तपसा ब्रह्मचर्येण श्रद्धया संवत्सरं संवत्स्यथ यथाकामं प्रश्नान् पृच्छत यदि विज्ञास्यामः सर्वं ह वो वक्ष्याम इति || To them then...

Story is the new black. Everybody wants to tell stories. Every marketeer, every technologist, every HR person - everyone. (However when the finance guy tells you stories, you know something wrong is happening - but leave that.) Is there is a danger with stories. Like everything overdoing stories may not help. But my theory (trademark alert) is about two things. One, a story being used as part of an initiative at work - cannot just be a story - it must leave the listener with a 'how to'. Otherwise, it is just a story. And the second danger with that is that if it is a story about person x in an organization by person y who the audience knows about - the audience, most likely, knows the story and the story behind the story and every member in the audience already has their perspective of your story. So let us say, you shared the story of a great project that was led from the front by person x. And this is told by person y. But I already know what person x did in that pro...

I have written about this before , but, if you want to build change in the organization, would you not use your managers to drive it? I mean, engage an external consultant by all means, but your managers have to lead the charge and your leaders have to be viscerally engaged in the change process. That means it is not enough if your managers and leaders are certified in a (any) methodology and they regurgitate it. ( See here  on why that might not be enough.) But it is an interesting question. On how does one build change? Change culture? The answer is in the sustenance of the change. What happens at a session is an event. But culture change is not an event. It is a process. A long drawn out process. And it is necessarily led by the leaders. And their reportees. And their reportees. And so on. A friend was talking about an Indian services company to me. This company sponsors major running events today (yes, go take a guess). In this company, from the top down, the company i...

Many moons ago, an organization faced a problem. They had rolled out a survey and the survey showed a drop in some points on some parameter (I can tell you, but I would have to kill you). And then, with remarkable, alacrity, along came a program that was touted as the solution to all ills related to survey points dropping down. Consultants were engaged. A master program was created. Supporting technology was conceptualized and all budgets for the project were green lighted. The portal was built. Calendars were cleared out. Sessions were organized. Master trainers were trained and created. These master trainers then spread the message among the minions. They did it. But then real work caught up with them. So, the boxes were ticked. And they went back to work. And the survey happened again. And they waited. With bated breath. For the next survey result. Which came. And the scores stayed there and in some cases, dropped down. And then the sessions and the trainers were remembered a...