Trainers and coaches often say that what they enable is not just ‘learning’ but also ‘behaviour change’: that classroom-based events are opportunities for learners to plan and practise DOING SOMETHING DIFFERENT in their jobs. That if all that was needed was new knowledge being transferred into the heads of learners it would be cheaper and easier to just buy them the right book.
So why not do that, anyway? Put together a list of appropriate and useful business books and buy them for your staff. In comparison with the price of training, especially training involving international travel and accommodation, book learning is relatively cheap. There are probably already budgets in HR and other departments for publications but they are often forgotten, seldom managed or measured.
Reflectors and Theorists respond well to book learning. It is highly effective for the transfer of large amounts of complex information. It can also influence knowledge and attitudes, although it is less effective for transfer of skills. But you can make the learning more ‘sticky’ for Activists and Pragmatists by setting up regular (monthly or quarterly) Book Groups, where the readers are brought together for a meeting to discuss the book and its implications, and make action plans for the organisation. Books Groups also make sure that the books themselves are read: people don’t like to turn up to meetings when they haven’t done the preparation.
So: identify learning needs, choose and buy the appropriate books and set up the Book Groups (you’ll need champions and/or chairmen). Most of the monitoring and evaluation will happen through the reports of the Book Group champions but you can also set learners short tests or quizzes to reinforce and assess the learning.
Over the next few weeks this blog will look at the range of – often ignored – learning opportunities available in organisations. In this busy high-tech world we must not forget books: they’ve worked well for hundreds of years, and will probably continue to be an economical way of passing on large amounts of information for a long time yet.
In my organization, we do the same thing with online courses.i.e After the learning need is identified, a group of six people max will take the online course within a week (a champion is there to make sure that the course is successfully completed)and then a meeting will be scheduled to share knowledge and and allocate opportunities for implementation.
ReplyDeleteThe book learning is a good idea but it doesn't work here in Oman as we do not have a 'reading culture'.
I tried to establish a 'book club' section here but I was told that the readings had to be in poster form!! Short and concise. Then I knew that book learning is not something that people do enjoy doing in their busy schedules. Instead, we shifted into online learning where somehow there was an initial acceptance to take it forward..