Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance...

Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance (Essential ... | Jay Cross | Cycling to knowledge

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Informal Learning:...

	Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance (Essential ... Jay Cross Pfeiffer, 2006 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Most learning on the job is informal. This book offers advice on how to support, nurture, and leverage informal learning and helps trainers to go beyond their typical classes and programs in order to widen and deepen heir reach. The author reminds us that we live in a new, radically different, constantly changing, and often distracting workplace. He guides us through the plethora of digital learning tools that workers are now accessing through their computers, PDAs, and cell phones.

Highly Recommended

Jay Cross has written an invaluable book here for many reasons.

It can be hard to face up to, but the medieval basis of our education is suddenly and starkly out of touch with the needs of a post-network society. After reading this book, it's hard not to face up to that fact, because we now have a compelling, if nascent, alternative. The web enables a wholly different, but infinitely more effective approach to learning - through self-direction, and peer collaboration, motivated by individual choice, for example. As Jay points out, given the complexity and pace of change of 21st century life, we simply must change. (I have an 8 year -old daughter in school and it pains me to see what she's going through when it will all become obsolete in just a few years.) He outlines a kind of proto-pedagogical alternative, taking 'natural' learning as its starting point. He blends online/offline ideas with ideas from design, motivational psychology, etc, but is careful not to lose sight of learning objectives.

As an educator/trainer of over 20 years myself, I believe the book succeeds. Jay isn't a tremendous stylist, nor are his ideas wildly original, but he does exactly what is needed. He makes the case for alternative approaches to learning in a clear and simple way with plenty of diagrams, and examples. Although his focus is on corporate training, rather than traditional education, the implications reverberate. He brings years of training experience, together with an optimistic outlook to practice what he preaches. Having read his blog o ver the course of severalk months it has left it's makr on my own

The book is almost a metaphor for the kinds of challenge we face: hard to pin down, constantly changing, yet sometimes so obvious that we fail to see the significance. Jay doesn't have all the answers because that is the kind of (medieval) certainty he cautions against. He has brought an important discussion into the light of day. I don't know anyone who wouldn't benefit from this book.

Ken Carroll

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Cycling to knowledge

Formal learning is like riding a bus, it goes, starts and stops when & where someone else decides (bus driver and urban transport committee) - informal learning is then like riding a bicycle, you choose the time, route and destination.

Way more learning happens in the coffee room than the classroom, but firms continue to spend way more on formal training than informal learning - there is a huge disconnect right there. The theme is similar in KM - formal structured tools, top-down mandates, ROI and the smells of project management dominance, do little to enhance agility, awareness, creativity, shared understanding and meaning - which add the real value.

Jay talks about unblended learning, emergence, grokking, envisioning, unconferencing, connecting, conversation, community, web2.0 and JDI (just do it). He makes the point that classes are dead, that every learner needs to cultivate an ecology, share via voicing, communicate using stories and build common text by collaborative editing (wikis).

Jay has written this timely book in the form of short stories and vignettes, recounting his experiences and perspectives. I did not find much new stuff, although there are many interesting examples and truths, but Jay managed to hit the high spots so often, I was nodding in agreement as I read along. Clearly we all have to assume responsibility for our own awareness, learning and critical inquiry. Jay neatly illustrates the tools, hints at the practices (which need more refinement) and paints the landscape.

http://informl.com/

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Seeing the "Educational Economy" More Clearly

The value and ubiquity of informal learning is presented clearly and passionately by e-learning champion Jay Cross in this book. The notion of informal learning is very familiar, and most of us will understand immediately what Cross is getting at: every conversation, web site, conference, or collaborative enterprise tends to yield some new insight into the world. We are simply learning all the time.

The title of this review relates Cross's notion to one of my own observations about ubiquitous learning - namely, the "educational economy". Every one of these informal learning events is like a "transaction" in which some knowledge is shared, and in return the understanding or even reputation of the sharer is increased. The "real" educational economy, is very difficult to formalize, so what Cross would call "informal learning" is (to me at least) the portion of the educational economy that we have had trouble accrediting or otherwise keeping tabs on socially. Formal learning describes those artificial mechanisms, such as courses, (which Cross loudly proclaims are dead), that are easy to keep tabs on and can yield some educational benefit.

Informal Learning is, at its heart, a book rich with discussion of how we learn best, and what situations contribute to organic, self-driven learning - particularly in the workplace, but the ideas presented are really universal. Jay appropriately spends time discussing how the Internet has become the ultimate self-education tool, pointing out that "...my son and his peers [learn] everything from homework assignments to network administration on the Web. [That's] also where he learned a lot more than his dad ever did about meteorology, PERL, San Francisco politics, environmental action groups, obscure singers, and much more..." (166)

I'd like to sum up here just by sharing a quote from the book that I included on SR's website: "Many learners today are not self-directed; they are waiting for directions. It's time to tell them that the rules have changed. It's in their self-interest to become proactive learning opportunists." (175)

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The Power and Value of "A Natural Way of Learning"

As is frequently the situation, I read this book in combination with another, Return on Learning, in which Donald Vanthournout and his associates on Accenture's Capability Development team explain how their firm achieved an ROI of 353% on its commitment to enterprise learning. I highly recommend both Return on Learning and this book and, if possible, read in combination. In the Introduction, Jay Cross makes a number of crisp assertions, several of which are certain to generate controversy. For example, "Workers learn more in the coffee room than in the classroom." Rather than take this out of context, I continue the excerpt: "They discover how to do their jobs through informal learning: asking the person in the next cubicle, trial and error, calling the help desk, working with people in the know, and joining the conversation. This is natural learning - learning from others when you feel the need to do so." So far, no pyrotechnics. Cross continues: "Training programs, workshops, and schools get the lion's share of the corporate budget for developing talent, despite the fact that...," and then, "this formal learning has almost no impact on job performance. And informal learning, the major source of knowledge transfer and innovation, is left to chance."

Presumably several of those who read this review agree with Cross (as do I) that the value of formal learning tends to be exaggerated when, in fact, much of it has little (if any) enduring impact; and, that the value of informal learning tends to be underestimated when, in fact, the extent to which an organization achieves its objectives (whatever they may be) is determined almost entirely by how effectively those involved (at all levels and in all areas) communicate, cooperate, and collaborate (i.e. the Three Cs) on what must be done to achieve those objectives. For those in need of a single source to guide and inform their design and implementation of a knowledge exchange program that maximizes the Three Cs, Cross has written it.

Here are a few of the key points he makes throughout his narrative:

"Formal learning is like riding a bus: the driver decides where the bus is going; the passengers are along for the ride. Informal learning is like riding a bike: the rider chooses the destination, the speed, and the route."

Comment: That said, all organizations need traffic control, once the ultimate destination has been selected.

"Formal learning takes place in classrooms; informal learning happens in learnscapes, that is, a learning ecology. It's learning without borders."

Comment: That said, it seems reasonable to expect productive and beneficial application of what is learned to avoid what Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton aptly characterize as a "knowing-doing gap." Cross duly notes, "Executives don't care about learning; they care about execution."

Meanwhile, we are well-advised to keep in mind what Peter Drucker observed in 1963: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all."

"It's not who you know that's important; it's who those others know."

Comment: Obviously, ever-expanding networks of contacts is very important. Those we know can connect us with those they know. We are also obliged to reciprocate.

"Most training is built atop the pessimistic assumption that trainees are deficient, and training is the cure for what's broken."

Comment: I agree. However, there are formal training programs now available as well as superb instructors to conduct them that can substantially improve various skills that include reading, reasoning, writing, public speaking, decision-making, problem-solving, and situation analysis.

"Created long before knowledge work was invented, accounting values intangibles such as human capital at zero and counts training as an expense instead of an investment."

Comment: In most organizations, that is true but thanks to Peter Drucker, Howard Gardner, Peter Senge, Thomas Davenport, and others, the situation is changing (albeit too slowly) and recently published books such as this one and Return on Learning will accelerate the transition to enlightenment at the governing board senior-management levels.

Years ago, after a substantial tuition increase at Harvard had enraged many parents, then president Derek Bok responded with a suggestion: "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."

"Imagine having an in-house learning and information environment as rich as the Internet. You'd have blogs, search, syndication, podcasts, mash-ups, and more. You'd also have a platform just about everyone already knows how to use."

Comment: And imagine such an environment that also provides formal training programs that strengthen various skills (i.e. those relevant to learning, communication, management, and leadership) of all who share that environment so that each can take full advantage of all the opportunities available. What about the bottom-line? "Management must assign enterprise-level accountability for learning." Cross is dead-on: Without proper governance, there would be chaos. Is Cross recommending a balance of learning with work? No. "As work and learning become one, good learning and good work become synonymous."

Don't stop there. Why not establish and then sustain outstanding learning that occurs both formally and informally? In that event, outstanding learning and outstanding performance become synonymous.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out the aforementioned Return on Learning. Also, John Hager and Paul Halliday's Recovering Informal Learning: Wisdom, Judgement and Community as well as Corporate Agility: A Revolutionary Model for Competing in a Flat World co-authored by Charles E. Grantham, James P. Ware, and Cory Williamson, Kevan Hall's Speed Lead: Faster, Simpler Ways to Manage People, Projects and Teams in Complex Companies, Dean R. Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement: Rethinking the Way We Measure and Drive Organizational Success, and Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution co-authored by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson.

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Powerful and visionary

I've read articles by Jay Cross for years, and was pleased to get his book on the seminal topic of Informal Learning. Jay has a history of identifying trends and technology use for learning (he was among the first to use the term eLearning) so I was keen to read his thoughts on informal learning.

Widely acknowledged as the lion's share of corporate learning, informal learning is a difficult subject because it is even more nebulous and difficult to measure than formal learning. While there is a body of work on how to measure formal learning results including Kirkpatrick's levels, we have yet to determine realistic methods or measurements for informal learning. This book helps guide the learning industry in the right direction.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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