Thought Leaders: Elliott Masie on What You Need to Know about Corporate Learning, Performance and Emerging Technologies

Elliott Masie is an internationally recognized futurist, analyst, researcher and humorist on the critical topics of technology, business, learning and workplace productivity. He is the editor of Learning Trends by Elliott Masie, an Internet newsletter read by over 46,000 business executives worldwide, and a regular columnist in professional publications.  He is the author of a dozen books, including the recently authored free digital book called 701 E-Learning Tips.  He is the convener of Learning 2005, a new global conference.

He heads The Masie Center, a Saratoga Springs, NY think tank focused on how organizations can support learning and knowledge within the workforce. He leads the e-Learning Consortium, a coalition of 191 Fortune 500 companies cooperating on the evolution of learning strategies.

Elliott's professional focus has been in the fields of corporate learning, organizational performance and emerging technology. He has developed models for accelerating the spread of knowledge, learning and collaboration throughout organizations. Elliott is acknowledged as the first analyst to use the term e-Learning and has advocated for a sane deployment of learning and collaboration technology as a means of supporting the effectiveness and profitability of enterprises.

Elliott serves as an advisor to a wide range of government, education and non-profit groups. He serves as a pro-bono advisor to the Department of Defense and was appointed by the President to the White House Advisory Council on Expanding Learning Opportunities.

He lives in Saratoga Springs, owns thoroughbred horses, and travels extensively each year.  

The following interview with Elliott Masie is a condensed version of HR.com's live, one-hour webcast.  To access the archived interview, please click here.

To access a schedule of upcoming Thought Leader interviews, please click here.

KE: Our topic today is What You Need to Know About Corporate Learning, Performance and Emerging Technologies. Much of what we talk about is going to be centered on now and in the future, but just before we go there I would love to hear a brief retrospective from you on e-learning. Was it over hyped? Did companies go overboard and push too much, too early?

EM: I don´t think they did. I think any new phenomenon is vulnerable to hype, whether we talk about competency management, or quality, or any element of technology. I think some of it got pumped up by the dot-com stock frenzy when people thought that oodles of money would be made in the e-learning field. Ironically, the theory was that if it was online, it ought to be free. I also think there was an initial misunderstanding that we would just be able to take what we do in the traditional world and pour it over to the e-world. Ultimately, what we need to do with any technology is invent new uses for it. E-learning has, in many ways, succeeded. Depending on the corporation, 10 to 40% of learning is happening via formal e-learning. Was it the demise of the classroom? No. Was it going to be perfect? No. Was it going to make your business suddenly more profitable? No. But I do think it has served a really powerful purpose. Now, it is interesting to think about what´s next.

KE: In your experience, are there types of learning content where e-learning is just not the best option?

EM: E-learning works best in its pure e-learning sense when the content is pretty concrete. If I have to learn how to transfer my 401K, that is perfect for e-learning. If I need to learn the six steps for conducting effective performance reviews, that is pretty good material for e-learning. If I have to learn how to deal with things that are either ambiguous or highly textured, then pure e-learning becomes a little bit more difficult. In those cases I want to be able to use dialogue, reflection and multiple perspectives. E-learning is also not going to work by itself for things like welding or other physical skills, although, you can use e-learning as a part of the process.

KE: I think you touched on a very important point. In the beginning there was some feeling that it was either/or. It was either going to be an e-learning solution, or a traditional classroom solution. Now, fortunately, we are moving into hybrid learning solutions.  But, before we go there, you´ve been using the term "extreme learning" in the circles in which you speak. Can you talk to us about what you mean by that term?

EM: We define "extreme learning" as learning that leverages emerging technology. Extreme learning is something that not everyone is doing, but it is easy to do. Extreme learning might involve games. We think about how we might use games for compliance. It is extreme learning if we think about how we develop operation and procedural manuals that can be changed on the fly. We are looking at harvesting both technologies and methodologies and even new social patterns and networks that are extreme. The reason that we have to go extreme is that extreme times require extreme measures. This world is operating differently than ever before. That is why I started using the term extreme.

Let me go through some of the elements that are considered the drivers of extreme learning. Keep in mind that you can always take the word "learning" out and replace it with "business" or "HR." One of those elements is velocity. Never before have our organizations had to operate at the speed in which they are operating. Organizations now require velocity. Mad cow is discovered and Wendy´s has to respond to that one minute after the story breaks on CNN. They can´t wait 18 months. We´ve got to think about how to do things in 18 hours or 18 minutes. We also have to figure out how to get the learner educated without having to go to a course. The speed of learning of an organization is one of the greatest predictors of its velocity.

One of the other elements of extreme learning is scalability. We all know how to do things really well when we are just doing a few of them. My friend and colleague, Marshall Goldsmith, can coach a CEO and we know it is going to be exquisite but how do we scale Marshall? How do we create Marshall Goldsmith moments for 100,000 employees? We´ve got to think about scalability from a numbers point of view and also from the extremes of the organization.

Six months ago I noticed a shift in how people were talking about learning. Inevitably, when they talked about global learning they talked about taking U.S content, U.S expertise and translating it, localizing it and shipping it around the world. That is not what globalization is about. Globalization is not about taking a U.S centric view of the world and shipping it. If we are talking about manufacturing techniques, we have to be just as prepared to get content from China to be produced and shipped to Brazil. Globalization comes along with scalability in terms of how we do learning on a global level.

Another really important piece is intensity. Too much of learning is "no sweat" learning. All you have to do is look at how people learn things intensely and you see the difference. Intensity is when you see some kids on a blanket at a library listening to somebody telling them a story. Those kids are listening intensely. They are not multi-tasking and talking to somebody on their blackberrys. They are in the moment.

I recently returned from doing some work in China with Cathay Pacific Airlines. While I was there they allowed my wife and I to spend some time in a 747 simulator. We were acting as passengers while two pilots were doing their training. We were simulating landing at the Paris airport and the pilots had no idea that the two engines were going to go on fire as part of the simulation. Those pilots did an incredible job. All four of us had sweat-drenched shirts. The intensity of the story in the library, the intensity of the simulated landing, the beauty of being able to google a question is incredible.

One thing that is really extreme, from my perspective, is the need for personalization. My wife and I recently bought a new house in Saratoga Springs and we renovated the kitchen. I decided that we needed all new pots and pans. I went on to Amazon.com and ordered all new pots and pans. I loved the experience because I was able to see what other people were saying about the different products. Every day I would go online and order a different pot or pan and I had them delivered to my office. Eventually, my wife discovered that I had ordered 37 different pots and pans. She, of course, cut me off at that point. Three weeks later, I received an email from Amazon.com. The first line of the email said, "As one of the leading buyers of pots and pans..." They recognized that I hadn´t bought anything in several weeks and they were even able to tell me that the one pan I was missing from my collection was the 8" omelet pan. They offered to send it to me for just the cost of shipping. Do you think that my wife´s prohibition stopped me from ordering? I, of course, crossed the line. The moral of the story is that personalization worked. Amazon.com used data and context to communicate with me.

When was the last time that HR sent out a note to somebody that said, "Dear Elliott, we notice from your travel records that you are about to fly to Omaha. While you are out there, here are the names of two of our clients you may want to see while you´re there and here are the names of four other people in our organization who recently returned from Omaha. And here are some suggestions of restaurants you may want to eat in while you are there." When learning management systems and HR systems can really harness personalization, then we have a shot at extreme learning.

I once had dinner with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Steve Case. We talked about learning and Bill Gates nearly gagged on his food when he asked me what I thought one of the best learning tools in the world was and I said, "Google." If you think about it, almost every person googles something once a month, once a week or even once a day. In this age of personalization, we need to look at how to make interaction personal. How do we use games, portals, blogs and search engines to make things better? How do we harness new technologies and social networks to make learning more extreme?

KE: I hear a lot of talk right now about companies formalizing informal learning. What are you seeing and hearing - and from your perspective, what works?

EM: We have to look at content and context. Content is the procedure that is in a handbook. We can take a new manager and teach them the 14 procedures for managing staff and doing performance reviews. That is all the content. But the context is the really important stuff. If you have someone who is pretty miserable to be around but is incredibly valuable technically, how do you manage them? I defy you to find a page in a manual that tells you how to do that. That is where content becomes valuable or invaluable based on the context. 

Let me share with you a story about some work we are doing right now at a Fortune 500 company. We are asking employees that have been there less than four months to do the orientation for the new hires. The theory is that the person who has been there four months is probably most aware of what the new hires need and want to learn. You put the content online and then when you bring them together for a conversation you deal with the context. There is so much knowledge out there that we don´t know how to harness. What if there was someone in your company who used to work for the company at which you are scheduled for an upcoming sales presentation? How could you know that? We don´t really harness the kinds of information that would allow us to be smarter and more knowledgeable.

KE: I´m a big fan of blended learning, in which learners are provided with multiple ways to learn. How are you seeing companies use blended learning successfully?

EM: I was one of the early people to start using the term "blended learning." One of the things I found early on was that the magic in blended learning seemed to be in the mix.  It wasn´t just a matter of taking an e-learning program and doing half a day in the classroom. In reality almost all learning is and was blended. The shift that we are seeing is that the blending is changing from being done by the instructional designer for the learner to the blending coming out of the learners themselves. We are finding that if you use a self-service model, learners are starting to create their own blend. Some people want to try learning something themselves and then have a conversation in a group setting. Some people are saying the opposite. In the new world of blended learning we are seeing a change in perspective in how learners are being given more control.

KE:   You talk about learning in the ´continuous, global, digital virtual world.´ What are the big issues that companies need to address if they are to be successful with corporate learning that crosses all cultures, time zones and languages?

EM: I think we need to understand that most people know most of what we are teaching them. We have got to stop re-teaching what people already know. The moment you go into class and someone puts up a slide with four quadrants on a new way of viewing management, you have flashbacks of quality circles and management by objectives and so on. You have heard 98% of it and you spend all your time trying to filter through what you already know. We need to understand that most learning needs to be incremental. As we go around the world we need to understand that a great deal of learning happens out of curiosity rather than out of agendas and instructional design. If we do a good job of raising curiosity, then we can respond with an incredible amount of resources and people will take what they need.

KE: All estimates predict that in the coming years we are about to lose a large number of experienced people through retirement. What are smart companies doing to capture the implicit knowledge residing in the minds of these seasoned people?

EM: Unfortunately, we are not doing a lot to capture their knowledge. How do we ask someone who can retire at 60 to stick around until they´re 68 but start working 10%, 15% or less per year? We need to look at how we retain some of those people as consultants and coaches. I do think we need to look at ways in which the overt and tacit knowledge of our organizations are found and captured.

KE: Have you found any good examples using technology to capture the implicit knowledge that can be so difficult to gather?

EM: Developing a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list is actually a very low-tech way of gathering implicit knowledge. If you are going to retire in a year, start developing one FAQ a day. Think about what a gift it would be for the person coming into your job to receive that information. Who are the people you call every day? Who are your coaches? That does not require a lot of technology. I would rather see something be wide-tech instead of high-tech.

KE: Okay, I want to talk about one of my pet peeves for a minute. It´s about lack of follow-through on training, particularly in the realm of leadership training, given that´s what I focus most on. Companies invest heavily in training for their leaders and aspiring leaders. The training ends. Period. It is the minority of companies that have any type of systematic follow-through. What gives?

EM: They are talking more than they are walking. Even down to when they go to buy their learning management systems, people want competency and performance components, but you go back a year later and they haven´t used most of it. I think that there is a real desire for people to get to performance. The problem is that for the most part, we don´t know how to engage at a contractual level someone moving step-by-step to performance. It is a contracting issue. We need to have managers who understand the need to get to performance. Another piece of it is that we generally don´t give people developmental projects anymore. We are so busy performing today´s job. I always enjoy giving a person a developmental project, even if I don´t need the outcome of it. I know that the project itself will yield great value for the person doing it. I would like to see us go back to that. I´m less interested in what people learn and more interested in their self-perception of their readiness to do something. When people come back from a conference I always ask them what they feel more ready to do than they were before they left. That is a different question then asking them what they learned. I love the concept of readiness because it pushes things in a different way and moves it towards application.

KE: In a conversation you and I had awhile back, you talked about the notion of hiring and promoting people based on their ability to learn. What might that look like, in practical terms?

EM: One of the interesting things that you can do is, as part of the interview process, give people something to learn. I have found that when I have made bad hiring decisions it has been because I have overestimated someone´s ability to learn. In some cases I give people a book, ask them to read it and when they come back for the next interview, we have a conversation about it. It is interesting to see how well they can learn. How well can they teach? That is also important. I sometimes ask people to explain how to get to their house. I didn´t hire someone once because he couldn´t describe to me how to get to his house in a clear way.

KE: Our audience of HR professionals is looking for ways to help make their companies great, or even greater. What recommendations do you have for them on how to ensure learning improves performance?

EM: I think the number one piece to remember is that learning is not necessarily something you have to create and deliver. In some cases you just have to get out of the way to allow learning to happen. Training we have to deliver, learning happens. It is important to realize the hurdles to learning. One of the hurdles to learning is that if all of our learning is bundled into multi-day classes that require you to be away from your desk, then you are away from learning. If I have to fill out seven forms to get a book to read then that is a hurdle to learning. If you don´t give me a way to identify someone in the organization that has done what I am about to do and can act as a resource, then you are standing in the way of learning. There are things we can do to create training and learning but I really want to encourage people to get out of the way.

The best thing you can do is look at your parents and your kids. Your kids will require a very different world of learning. They have instant messaging and iPods and blogs. Your parents on the other hand, are going to be able to tell you wonderful stories. We have to make sure we are not just creating learning in the style of our generation, but are reaching out to the ones before us and to prepare learning for the ones after us.

Elliott Masie is convener of Learning 2005 in Orlando, Florida October 30 - November 2, 2005. To find out more, visit www.masie.com.