So Easy A Caveman Could Do It

Recently Patti Shank wrote a great response post on the heals of a post by Cathy Moore - Are Instructional Designers Doormats? ...on an area that I have been pondering for some time.

Julie Dirksen's comment in Patti's post really resonated with me. Specifically when she stated "There’s something about instructional design that people think is self-apparent, or easy."

I think, like I believe she does, that most outside of the "learning field" (and some within it) have a superficial understanding of what an ID can do in the creation of formal learning solutions. Several people I have encountered in the past asked if the title was made up!

Generally I find there are parallels to our US education system where educated professionals responsible for formal instruction and deep content knowledge are often looked upon by the public as "baby sitters" with summers off. I strongly believe this perception is being transferred to organizational learning professionals. Additionally a certain truth exists; a SME can, on occasion, with no background in ID or adult learning theory produce an effective formal intervention. For that audience, for that content, and in that context they were effective (by what ever definition they choose (usually a level 1 survey). As a result a myth is born and is perpetuated that "this stuff is not that hard...anyone can do it."

This myth does not exist in law, orthodontics, or plumming for that matter. So I ask - how can we squash the myth and grow the profession?

Willingness vs. Ability to Change

Dave Kelly @LnDDave wrote an interesting post comparing Blockbuster's demise to the changes facing Learning Professionals due to technology advancements. I think he’s right, there are learning professionals resistant to change …but the lack of change is not always due to internal denial as it can be a result of ...girth. So, in the case of Blockbuster Video I’m think girth more than denial was the cause and don't completely agree that they failed to accept that the market was changing. (Although, in all honestly, I don't have any data to support my beliefs, so humor me). Can we consider then that their downfall was less about a conscious choice of denial and maybe a bit more about an inability to be agile?

It seems to me that Blockbuster was like a big, lumbering Brontosaurus that thrived in an era with few predators (competition), an abundant food supply (limitless market), and a warm earth (strong economy). The need for speed and flexibility was not even a consideration. In the end it's not that poor old Brontosaurus (Blockbusterosaurus?) didn't hear the asteroid hit...it's not that she didn't feel the weather getting colder ...being so big and entrenched in their model and in their world she just couldn't evolve fast enough. She was built for an era that was suddenly & quickly ending.

Likewise I think that this happens in many L&D departments too; entrenched in formal, top-down models being THE solution - approaches that may have worked well in “warm earth days." This belief is built upon years of indoctrination by the "Training-Industrial Complex", snake oil solutions, Industrial Age mindsets, and archaic internal processes, hierarchies and politics abound.

I think that another kind of asteroid has struck the L&D world ...it's called a global financial crisis. The weather is getting colder but the good news is that we are not Brontosaurus. We are not our Organizations ...we are not our Departments, we are individuals within who are built to anticipate change, accept change, and be agile of mind. We can work within our systems to change them.

Evolve or die.