Creating a Learning Environment LO18385

MJDarling@aol.com
Sat, 13 Jun 1998 10:47:20 EDT

Replying to LO18306 --

Joan,

I'm curious about your organization's goal to become a "world class
training culture." What makes you want or need to focus on this goal at
this time? I'd be genuinely curious about this.

I raise the question because of a concern I have about how initiatives are
framed. Let me explain:

You draw the parallel between the organization's previous commitment to
being a "service excellence culture" and becoming a "training excellence
culture." To me, "service" and "training" are not parallel concepts.
"Service" and "learning" are slightly closer, in that each has to do with
the conscious commitment of an individual employee to do something deemed
valuable to the organization and its customers. But even learning and
service are not exactly parallel. Training is an externally (to the
employee)-designed methodology to help accomplish learning, which itself
is intended to help accomplish something else, such as improved customer
service.

This may seem like nitpicking, but I think it implies a fundamentally
different focus worth considering. If you are committed to making your
organization's investment in training more strategic (a very worthwhile
goal!), you might in any case consider articulating it as creating a
"learning excellence culture," which would focus more on outcomes and
might result in slightly different choices of methodology and measures of
success.

Best wishes,
Marilyn Darling
Signet Consulting Group
mdarling@warren.med.harvard.edu

-- 


MJDarling@aol.com


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