Serendipity and Learning

 2021: Day 1 of school. Teacher asks the kids, "If you could invite a celebrity or two to your house who would that be?" Pause for a moment. If your mind thought, sportspersons, actors, artists - anybody who is conventionally well known - yes, anybody - were the answers the children gave - no. Apparently all the celebrities were YouTubers - rather, famous on YouTube. They were artists, diy-ers, singers, dancers, people who teach various things from workouts to yoga to making things - and almost all of them were non Indian.  The generation of today has a different meaning of celebrities. For them, the celebrities are not the ones covered on TV/newspapers - most of them don't watch TV as TV anyway. For celebrities are internet celebrities. And many of these are not celebrities in the conventional sense - some of them are conventional celebrities in other countries possibly, but mostly they are just someone with a YouTube channel - but of course, someone who has poured their...

 Recently we were talking to a learning consultant and they in in turn introduced us to a "Producer". The producer is the person who produces and creates the learning experience end to end. More than anything else, I liked the term. The fact that it is not a trainer or a designer for that matter or a content creator - but a producer - who is the single point for getting everything right in that learning experience.... Yes, we need more producers! PS: It turns out I was late to this party. Met another consulting firm that has producers - so looks like it is a thing!

 A few years back I worked with a consultant as a freelance trainer. They said they were content specialists. And that they would want to work with expert facilitators and so on. And I said yes.  Then they got their client, supposedly understood the requirements and came up with a content pack for 4 hours.  I went through the content and the content was a pot pourri of slides. There was no structure or framework. All the content was unattributed images from Google with a single text line (after all that was the latest in slide design). Every few slides there was an engagement activity (sometimes directly connected with the topic at hand - at other times irrelevant). Then there were quizzes where chocolates had to be thrown to the audience for answering correctly or making the right points. And there were group discussions where the audience was grouped into teams and left to discuss. Then there were role plays.  The entire content was grouped like a bad movie. A set ...

Often, I have prided myself about being ahead in the technology space. And when I say this, I mean, I am a user of most new things. A trier. An early adopter.  On virtual training however, it turns out I was a digital dinosaur - thought in my head I was a digital native. After struggling with virtual training (I did my first true virtual training in 2020), I felt I have got the hang of it and things seem to be working well. The sessions have gone on well, we have got good feedback.  Imagine my surprise when I met someone who was using digital tools far better than I had ever imagined. Part of it was because there are too many digital training tools and as a trainer -investing in any one (or few) is a dent on the pocket, but the second part was that I did not think they were required - and how wrong I was. And no, none of these uses were gimmicky or the digital equivalent of throwing chocolates at the audience) - they were well thought out, creative and very very relevant from ...

More automation means more training. Isnt this counterintuitive? This article is a very well written account from the perspective of piloting aeroplanes.  In a nutshell it is that as planes become more and more automated - in case of a failure, the risks are very high unless the pilot is skilled to that level and is able to handle an emergency. Todays pilots are those who can skillfully manage a plane. And when they are trained in automation - they know how to handle an issue. What happens in future as more and more basic tasks are taken over by the autopilot? And this might be an issue only for airplanes - no - it isnt. Years ago when I was handling a function, we faced this issue. As the project became more and more automated - we realised that exception handling was becoming more and more difficulty - because the skill levels of the incumbents were low.  This will begin to repeat across functions. And if you think about it - as the basic task becomes more and more easy, th...

The added benefit of reading this book was a bunch of good movies to watch out for - Bird box, Icarus, Roma and Mighty Little Bheem. The last one is pertinent since Netflix has really invested in bringing up the quality of animation of Chotta Bheem.  That apart, the book is a fantastic read. Though everything that Netflix has managed to implement - not every company can - like no company can really become another Amazon.  But some parts stood out and can be done for the most part. Candor and honest feedback for instance. Leading by context, not control as a next step. And the innovation part.  But what comes in the way is 1, the existing culture and 2, the investment of time and effort required in moving these existing cultural icebergs. And most companies fail at 2, because the day to day hustle always comes in the way.  All in all a fantastic read for anyone interested in corporate culture and a lot of things we take for granted as "culture". 

Every company wants to be an Amazon or a Netflix (regency effect because of the two books which I read recently), but few are willing to actually walk the talk in making it happen. Sort of in personal life I suppose - we all want a six pack (or some other goal), but are not very willing to go through the trouble to make it happen. Or even a BHAG - like creating something unique and going to market with it.  A few months back, I had a short coaching conversation with someone. At some point, I said, “Well, I want to do this and I want to do that” and pat came the response “What are you willing to do in order to get that?”