Meir Navon's Blog

Thoughts, insights, beliefs and nonsense about LEARNING

How Do You Build a High-Impact Learning Organization?

Josh Bersin brings up some highlights of his study on this subject - http://www.ltimagazine.com/ltimagazine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=172413

2 main interesting points :

1. Technology is important , but if you invest too much on it and neglect the methodology or the needed processes- it's not going to work.
2. A strong CLO is crucial to a well functioning and aligned training function.

Take a look .

posted by: meirnavon at 08:52 | link | comments |

Apparently training can come back to bite you !!

Sales Training Factors in Vioxx Case

. Although it's still in dispute, the way sales reps were trained to answer questions about Vioxx is becoming an important issue in the first lawsuit against Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based pharmaceutical giant Merck over the drug. A game called Dodgeball trained Merck sales representatives how to answer questions from doctors about the drug, and the prosecution has said that the game essentially taught them how to avoid questions about the drug's safety.

According to a November 2004 article in CaliforniaHealthline, a daily news digest on health-care policy and politics provided by the California HealthCare Foundation in Oakland, a 16-page instructional marketing document gave sample physician questions about safety. The correct responses were listed for these questions as "DODGE!" But Merck's general counsel, Kenneth Frazier, said the response referred to the game and was not an instruction to dodge the actual question.

At the trial on July 19, the head of Merck's epidemiology department, Nancy Santanello, testified that the game was not intended to teach reps to dodge questions, despite its name. The prosecuting attorney, Mark Lanier, brought up the subject by showing an internal Merck memo that described the training. He asked why trainees could only move on to the next round if they gave Merck-approved answers to questions about safety or dodged the questions.

Santanello explained that during the training exercise, sales representatives holding a card that read "Dodge" could skip the question. Prosecutor Lanier suggested that sales representatives were encouraged to dodge this and other questions from doctors about Vioxx's cardiovascular dangers. But Santanello disagreed: "You're trained to answer questions from physicians — not to dodge questions."

Vioxx, a painkiller that was pulled off the market in 2004, may have increased users' risk of heart attack or stroke. The current lawsuit is over the death of Robert Ernst, a Texan who had been taking Vioxx for about eight months before he died of arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat.

posted by: meirnavon at 09:33 | link | comments |

Informal learning, Jay Cross and Wikis

Walk the walk and talk the talk: Jay just started a wiki on informal learning. What a natural and obvious combination.

Let's all contribute our 20 cents to it!

http://internettime.jot.com/WikiHome

posted by: meirnavon at 12:08 | link | comments |

Vendors are not permitted? 

Couldn't help myself, but to comment on Jay Cross' blog on "The Future of Talent "  http://metatime.blogspot.com/2005/07/future-of-talent.html#comments :

A very interesting event, but due to the facts that's far far away and the topic is not high in my priority list, I'm not applying to participate 

Having said so, I feel empowered to tackle the subject of "vendors are not permitted" : Who is a vendor? One of the main organizers of the vent (Mr. Kevin Wheeler) is a vendor! His company sells the very services that you are talking about and developing in this event.

I'm certain that no manipulation was intended here, but this doesn't sound kosher…

I've met this issue many times before, mainly when potential customers meet untactful vendors in conferences and wish to God they hadn't left their home/office that morning.

We all stand to lose if we prohibit some of the best thinkers the entrance to certain events.

It's a problem, but the way of dealing with it is not fending them up. It's having very strict behavior codes and implementing them harshly.

One example is the "Israeli training Community" that I've started a few months ago in its steering committee sit side by side vendors , customers and academic people without either side feeling threatened by the other.

Hoping for your feedback.

Your friend,

Meir Navon 

 

posted by: meirnavon at 11:00 | link | comments |

The High-Impact Learning Organization

    Bersin & Associates announced the availability of its newest report, "The High-Impact Learning Organization: What Works in the Management, Operations, and Governance of Corporate Training." Targeted to CLOs and other training executives, COOs, and HR management, the 160-page report looks at 12 factors that impact the efficiency and effectiveness of a learning organization. The study, which is based on interviews with learning executives and detailed surveys from 350 global companies, was sponsored by Peoplesoft, Wells Fargo, Plateau, and Saba .  

"This research has helped us identify clear commonalities among high-performing training organizations," said Josh Bersin, president of Bersin & Associates. "These critical factors are important to any organization committed to employee training and skills development because they can help maximize investments in time, resources, and expertise. Training and HR executives can use this study to guide training-related decisions, refine budgeting processes, refine organizational structures, and work more effectively with business units throughout the enterprise."  

Bersin research said examples of factors that promote effectiveness and efficiency of corporate training include:   

- Centralized budget management, often overseen by steering committees, eliminates the purchase of duplicate content and drives vendor consolidation. The most efficient organizations track all training dollars, whether spent centrally or by business units. A CLO or other high-level executive often manages the budget and may even penalize departments for unauthorized spending.  

- The most effective organizations invest in e-learning and related technologies in order to increase reach, range, and impact - not to reduce costs. These organizations move beyond "courseware" to blended programs, learning integrated into business workflows and learning on-demand.   

- Organizations that spend the time and money implementing an enterprise-wide LMS have much higher effectiveness and efficiency. These LMS investments tend to take two to three years to fully implement and they are supported with a set of shared services for content integration and administration. Enterprise LMSs provide detailed data on the activity, efficiency, utilization, and impact of training investments - providing the foundation for solid decision making.  

On the flip side, the research found that examples of factors that can negatively impact a training organization include:  

- Centralized training organizations that are inadequately staffed and budgeted not only fail in meeting the needs of business units but often "open the door" to unauthorized and uncontrolled training-related spending by business units. In the long run, this approach can cost a company much more.   

- A lack of focus on the development of enterprise-wide standards and templates for training significantly weakens a training organization. The most effective organizations invest most of their resources into leveraging their instructional design skills and training experience throughout the enterprise. 

- A failure to focus on a measurement strategy impedes decision making. The most effective organizations have a team member who understands assessments, analytics, databases, and business measurements.   

Other factors evaluated include staff and resource allocation; the designation of CLOs; organizational structure and management of training; use of shared services for technology, content development, and outsourcing; role of learning/performance consulting; measurement and reporting; partnering with HR; chargeback and allocation models; and the impact of steering committees or councils. 

 

Bersin & Associates will conduct a free webinar highlighting results from the study on Thursday, August 4, at 2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. To register for the event, go to www.bersin.com. For more details on the "The High-Impact Learning Organization," including a table of contents, go to http://www.bersin.com/research/high_impact.asp. 

posted by: meirnavon at 21:45 | link | comments |

The slow "death" of a blog...

I didn't post a new message for a week and before that my posts started being sporadic. Is this blog dying?

Well, I think so…Why? Did I lose the interest? Is it a lack of time? I don't think so!

My belief is that I miss the interaction with readers and surfers and just don't see the point anymore in conducting very interesting conversations with myself…It just doesn't work for me.

This is an issue that I see in much more famous bloggers than me – in the learning arena.

Why don't people leave comments when they read the blog? I believe it's mainly due to the same reason, that there are people that are leaders and other that are followers (and sorry for being so self presumptuous). The last ones (who are the vast majority) just want to read, enjoy and go on with their routine chores.

Can somebody, please, contribute hers/his thoughts?

posted by: meirnavon at 10:26 | link | comments (1) |

Macromedia Integrates Breeze and Captivate

Macromedia has made a great step forward in putting in place a rapid eLearning tool , which is the integrational product of Breeze and Captivate. I don't honestly understand companies that are still buying different products...

Take a look at: http://www.ltimagazine.com/ltimagazine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=169237

posted by: meirnavon at 12:15 | link | comments |