Carol czulauf@acad.suffolk.edu sent me a copy of the top 10 HRD trends,
according to the respondents to the July 1997 National HRD Executive
Survey.
They are:
CURRENTLY
1. Computer skills training
2. Teamwork training
3. Shift from training to performance
4. Decision-making and problem-solving training
5. Rapid deployment and deployment of training
6. Systems-thinking training
7. Demonstrating training outcomes
8. Measuring performance outcomes
9. Shift from training to learning
10 Making a business case for training interventions
NEXT THREE YEARS
1. Shift from training to performance
2. Computer skills training
3. Shift from training to learning
4. Virtual organizations
5. Demonstrating training outcomes
6. Measuring performance outcomes
7. Delivering training to meet specific needs
8. Emphasis on knowledge management
9. Rapid deployment and deployment of training
10. Teamwork training
My question to the list is:
Is the training in the underlying thinking skills that we need to do and
apply all of the above training (ie. demonstrate outcomes) missing in all
our corporate training programs ? As managers and trainers, all we tell
our staff is "think out of the box", yet we never explain what this is or
how to do it.
The Conference Board tells us that "thinking skills" are the new core
competency for all staff in the 1990's, not just in traditional area for
SR VP's in marketing, new product development and strategy. Japan's MITI
has stated that using IT, creativity and innovation is the new focus for
education in Japan over the next 5 years.
I propose however that most North American employees or their bosses have
never thought about how they think and what effective thinking actually is
Stand back and consider: thinking skills are the key denominators of
effectiveness for all the training above. Here I have in mind both
critical (logical, judgmental, convergent) cognitive thinking skills
needed for most computer operations, general decision-making, the
convergence in problem-solving and system-thinking and the creative
(lateral, exploratory, divergent) thinking skills needed for strategic
competitive thinking, learning how to learn, pattern recognition,
opportunity spotting and opportunity creation, assumption challenges, and
creative problem-solving etc.
Teaching thinking is ignored by most corporations and most schools. Each
feels the other has responsibility for it and consequently it never gets
done. We used to teach thinking skills in most gifted programs, but with
budget cuts, that's become a dispensable luxury in some cases.
Consider the paradox: We expect students and staff to be math-literate. So
what do we do? Back in grade 1 and 2 we teach everyone the operacy skills
behind math...the plus, subtract, multiple and divide. Once we master
those basic math-related thinking operations we go on to higher order
applications. Most students master this without much difficulty.
Yet when we switch domains from numbers over to fact, ideas, concepts,
values, assumptions and notions ( the content for all other subject areas
in school and later at work) we totally ignore the thinking operations
needed to explore or create new ideas.
If we are all good natural thinkers, then why would we need to train all
our staff the 10 training program areas above? Shouldn't we be good at it
without any training ?
I'd be interested in knowing what corporations are doing in this area and
how effective it is? What does your company rate or measure?
Walter Derzko
Director Idea Lab
wderzko@pathcom.com
(416) 588-1122
--"Walter Derzko" <wderzko@pathcom.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>