Guide on the Side or Expert Expediter

Christine Martell’s post on ASTD today concerns how we, as training natives, might need to adapt to use social learning.  She references Ray Jimenez’s post expressing similar concerns.  Christine asks,

What do we do when content is generated by the users? Ray suggests we become trainer-facilitator-network weavers. Is our role shifting to be more of a guide? Creating rich resource pools which learners can dip into as needed?

I’m beginning to understand more why Ray is agonizing over social learning. Not only are we being asked to help others make fundamental changes in how they interact with technology, we need to do it first in order to be able to guide others.

Is our role shifting?  I would say YES and NO.  Social learning is a companion to formal learning.  They coexist and compliment each other.  In some cases social learning can take the place of formal learning, but from what I have seen it is not too often.  There will always be those who will focus on formal training and not need to really change much.   Their focus and strength is on, for example, creating e-learning content or facilitating an ILT.

There are others, however, who will need to change – and I would venture to say that this is more of us than the former group.  The reason is because of something that Christine said above, “Not only are we being asked to help others make fundamental changes in how they interact with technology…”  Usually this is an I.T. function (using new technology).  Social learning bleeds over into other departments’ functions.  In fact, I have seen much of social learning bleed not only there, but also into HR, strategic development, marketing, sales, legal, customer support…  Where should this originate from?  There have been those from other departments who have wondered if I am not stepping on their toes when I implement social learning.   Where does it end?  The short of it is that we need to expand beyond the formal learning roots.

We need to become Learning Facilitators in this role.  We help others learn from each other.  We don’t get in the way.  We help connect people.  We help facilitate the interaction and learning.  We don’t filter it, force it, ignore it or heavily moderate it.  Taking this role on is something we are not used to and can be down-right uncomfortable.

When I did presentation to a group of trainers and introduced this idea, they were taken aback because they didn’t want to lose control.  So far, all the information flows through the training department – how can we let that go?

Well, that thinking is a facade.  We trick ourselves into thinking that we have control of the information.  We may have control of some information but I guarantee you that more information and learning is going around the training deparment than through it.

And, yes, we need to be the first to go through it.  (Not that we don’t have enough to do!)  Then we can lead others through.

OR…

Here’s a radical idea.  Let them lead us through it.  There are those in our organizations who understand Web 2.0 much better than the training deparment do. They are individuals who have been using this type of learning (without calling it that) for a few years.  Use them.  Let them help you.  They can be a huge asset.  Then, apply it to learning and the end business goals.