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The Special Challenges
for Learning Organizations
By Michael Grant
More and more of our clients are from learning organizations.
Learning organizations are those where learning is the core “business”
of the organization. These include formal colleges and universities,
not-for-profit and for-profit educators, membership-based professional
associations and sector associations. Essentially, any organization
whose primary mandate is to educate learners, members, or clients is
a learning organization. There are literally thousands of these
organizations in North America.
Learning organizations have particular challenges as they develop
online learning. I wanted to address these challenges in a series
of articles in our Breakthrough Briefing over the course of the next
month.
What Makes Learning Organizations Different?
Learning organizations are different from other organizations (say
companies who use online approaches for training) when it comes to implementing
eLearning. They are distinguished by the fact they:
- Usually have a significant face-to-face program
- Have developed the internal capacity to design and deliver face-to-face
programs
- Have management systems (financial, human resources etc.) built
around face-to-face programs
The Impetus to Introduce Online Programs
In working with learning organizations, we find that there are three
motivations for creating online learning experiences.
1. Current learners are requesting it:
This is especially the case for national, state or provincial-wide associations
which are based in major urban centers and are facing demands from members
not in these centers for more flexible approaches. Even members
in urban centers are demanding online programs simply for convenience.
2. The organization wants to attract new learners:
Our Director of Education, Rick Nigol and I took up this motivation
up during one of our webinars: How
to Grow Your Education and Training Programs Via eLearning.
Savvy managers of learning organizations recognize that their share
of the learning marketplace is constrained by the mode of delivery.
Online learning allows them to grow.
3. Improved learning experiences: Improved learning
experiences through eLearning…huh? Classroom education is very
good at delivering a certain type of learning experience, especially
when led by a skilled facilitator. But online learning has other
advantages in terms of sustaining learning, preparing people to learn
face-to-face, and enhanced learner interaction. As such, learning organizations
are often looking at ways that the online learning experience can enhance
the overall learning experience. You may have heard of this referred
to as “blended learning.”
Getting Started: The Key Strategic Challenges
It is very rare to speak to managers of learning organizations who
do not understand these reasons for moving to online learning delivery.
And yet the percentage of learning organizations that are actually doing
something about it is very small indeed, probably no more than 15 per
cent.
As far as I can tell the main reason is that they are stuck.
They know that it makes sense to do something, they know they know,
but they just can’t seem to get out of first gear. Here are some
reasons why:
1. Institutional inertia: Even if a particular
manager understands the need to move to online delivery, that manager
may have difficulty making this case within the organization.
He/she may not understand all the aspects of the implementation challenge
and therefore are easily derailed by the other smart people who can
point to all the weaknesses of online delivery. That is why we
started doing online and face-to-face Discovery
Sessions so that we can help these people based on a rational discussion
as opposed to myth and conjecture.
2. Development model: the learning organization
sector is dominated by indirect funding models that make a weak connection
between improvements in reach and quality of learning and resources
for development. Many colleges still operate within a catchment
system that limits their capacity for growth. Associations often
will not have development budgets or investment strategies. There
are innovative ways to overcome these funding models either by improving
the ties between reach and financing or by making the case for online
learning based on other criteria that an organization values (eg. member
retention or satisfaction).
3. Internal capacity: eLearning is not like classroom
learning. It requires an expanded capacity in some areas (e.g.
web development, media) and a competency innovation in others (e.g.
learning design, facilitation). The trick is to leverage the strengths
of your existing capacity, understand your core competency and strategically
“in-source” capacity based on your core competency and stage of development.
Skilled managers are very good at knowing what they are good at and
have a plan for getting other help as needed and learning by doing.
What’s Next?
I will discuss how learning organizations should go about making
the case for online delivery. In later issues I will address
the specific case of learning organizations and capacity development,
ongoing management of eLearning initiatives and evaluation processes.
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I have written a lot lately about
understanding your organization's core competencies with respect to
producing eLearning, and knowing when to "contract in" needed help as
necessary. Sometimes it will be necessary to bring in learning design
expertise, or programming expertise, or you may have to buy or lease
some learning technologies to help you meet your goals. I call this
process "dancing with vendors" (with apologies to Kevin Costner).
Charlene Douglas has a unique perspective
on client-vendor relationships. She has been on both sides of the dance
- as a client with the 
