A New Age of Reason

As a former HS History teacher, the Age of Reason (17th-18th Cent.) was one of my favorite areas to teach.

I was always in awe of some of the great minds in human history that seemed to all live within about a 200 year period. Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire, Franklin, Hume, Kant just to name a few. These folks and their peers in science and technology all lived at an incredible time in history when an awakening of inquiry took place. Although real time collaboration rarely happened, these folks influenced each other over time and space (sound familiar?). This era was chock full of revolutions in technology, politics, science, economics, and society.

As I personally question my own professional understandings and am constantly influenced by thinkers over time and space, I am wondering if we are entering a New Age of Reason. In particular in the area of organizational learning? The parallels seem pretty close in my opinion.

To start, here's my quick-n-dirty on the Age of Reason (purposefully simple & non-exhaustive!) to set the stage for some small comparisons.

One can argue that the era began with the Renaissance, a “rebirth” of ancient beliefs from Greece and Rome. This in turn led to new scientific “discoveries” about our solar system, gravity and physics. This “Scientific” revolution spurred on a questioning of the physical world. The new scientific questioning began to challenge and threaten the Catholic Church in Europe (supreme authority). New technologies (e.g. the printing press) hastened the transformation and new ideas were quickly and economically shared with the masses. Questions of faith and questions of government authority led to New Protestant faiths emerging. Capitalism and Democracy grew as colonialism and industrialization challenged agrarian social traditions. Discontented and empowered people rebelled and self-determinism led to political change internally and overseas…

Simply put, this was a time when the mysticism, religion, and superstition of the Middle Ages was challenged.

What do you see happening today in organizational learning?

Today, Thought Leaders are questioning the mysticism of formal learning being the end-all-be-all, they are disputing the religious doctrine of L&D departments and “learning” organizations, and they are contesting the authority of today’s “Cathedrals of Knowledge” – the LMS.

Are we in, or on the cusp of, a New Age of Reason in organizational learning?

The ideas of Democracy challenged traditional political organization (Absolute Monarchy) much as Connectivism and Wirearchy stakes their legitimacy among traditional theories and ideas of knowledge and organizational learning structures.

• Representative government displaced Feudal Kingdoms much like we see the long standing Training and Development Departments giving way to empowered learners making their own decisions about what to learn, when to learn and how to learn.

Web 2.0 is our time’s Printing Press…Twitter, Blogger and Amplify spread ideas quicker than if they were posted on a Church door.

This is a time of Enlightenment for many. And like German philosopher, Immanuel Kant described it; enlightenment is the “freedom to use one's own intelligence.”

Kant, further defined enlightenment this way: “Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority. Minority is the incapacity of using one’s understanding without the direction of another. This state of minority is self-caused when its source lies not in a lack of understanding but in a lack of determination to use it without the assistance of another.”
http://bit.ly/6dsHm All About History - Age of Reason-Open Society

So today, in organizational learning, it is not that many do not know what to learn, what to use to learn or how to drive their own learning that prevents real knowledge and stellar performance... it may partially be our blind obedience to the institutional structures & traditions in the places we work. It may be our "state of minority" that causes us to unquestionably follow the "learning experts" within organizations; many of whom shackle workers to archaic systems and worse, archaic thinking about what and how best to learn.

In the Age of Reason, political discourse in local coffee houses inspired revolutions. Today, we can find Thinkers like those of the ITA challenging conventional wisdom in the modern coffee houses of the Internet; Blogs and Twitter chats are today’s Penny Universities.

Spurred on by obvious logic, Learning professionals and workers at all levels are fighting the good fight in their organizations- expanding their opportunities to learn through social and informal channels.

The perception of the Enlightenment during its time, and the new ideas that were presented, were often seen as radical, and even dangerous. Today though these ideas of inquiry, democracy, self-determinism, and rationality are taken as unquestionable truths... Some day too, and I suspect quite soon, these truths in the New Age of Reason will be self-evident in that we have the right and responsibility to to learn anytime, anywhere, and by any means.

It's Time to Reframe the Language

I've been thinking more and more about the words we choose and the connotations they drive.

A few years ago Cognitive Linguist George Lakoff wrote a book called Don't Think of an Elephant which speaks of how politicians leverage language to control the debate. He uses examples like "Tax Relief" where support of lower taxes (on the wealthy) can be more easily justified if we place the connotation in people's minds that taxes are a bad thing by indicating we need relief. Also, naming a law the "Patriot Act" in a time of crisis makes it much easier to vote for regardless of the fact that some of the provisions of that law may be quite intrusive for many Americans. My favorite however is how he breaks down the "Gay Marriage" issue. By framing the debate around homosexuality and the "institution" of marriage many politicians have gained support for initiatives that, for many, basically means allowing the Government to determine who you can and cannot marry. Scary thought, eh?

Recently Harold Jarche shared a link on Twitter to a post by Dan Pontefract titled "Call it Collaboration, not Enterprise 2.0 or Social Business" In this post Dan is speaking about the language we choose (maybe a form of edu-speak) that disconnects us from the business leaders.

I agree and empathize with Dan when he says:

"I have to evolve and stop using it (Enterprise 2.0). I’ve had to explain the term Enterprise 2.0 more often than I would have liked over the past 18 months, and if I’m doing that too often, then something is definitely not sticking."

Not only is it not sticking or resonating, its downright distancing learning professionals from the C-suite. To an exec focused on the bottom line, we are mumbo-jumbo speaking shaman when we use this lingo at the strategic level...

But allow me to take this down a bit further and say we are not helping ourselves at the tactical level either.

It may resonate in one circle when you refer to your PLN as tweeps, but in another (the folks who basically pay your mortgage) you likely equate to a counter-culture hippie during the 60's.

Recently a higher executive (who knows and acknowledges my belief in social learning) sarcastically remarked upon hearing my phone chirp; "Just get a tweet?"

At a basic level, yes...yes I did just get a Tweet. but the content of that Tweet was a response and a link to a specific request I made to a prominent expert in Europe regarding the use of QR codes in learning. Which, if we employed, would help to extend learning opportunities to our most mobile employees giving them JIT access to performance supporting resources which ultimately would enable them to do improve their coaching ability. i.e. a major business impact!

But my simplistic acknowledgement of it as a "Tweet", recognizing only the vehicle used to carry the communication, reduced its importance drastically.

Two years ago I spoke at a local conference and shared this Newsweek article, Don't Tweet on Me, with the participants. In it, the author states that "Twitter has become a playground for imbeciles, skeevy marketers, D-list celebrity half-wits, and pathetic attention seekers."

OK, we all know that this isn't the complete story but guess what? That is the perception and I find that beyond the professional circle I move in, a circle with folks of great intelligence, this is STILL the prevalent belief. Perception is Reality.

So, what are you talking about? Are you Tweeting? Blogging? Texting? Networking? on a Wiki? watching You Tube? etc...

Or

Are you Researching? Validating? Reading? Testing? Connecting with experts? Collaborating? Observing?

Knowing your audience is a fundamental rule for designers and presenters. We need to show we know our audience in the c-suite too when using and promoting collaborative media and work to reframe the language.