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James MacGregor Burns (1918-2014) is a US historians and specialist in leadership at Williams College. His work is foundational in leadership, as he established leadership as transformational not transactional. This shaped the trajectory of leadership theory for much of the 20th century. As an academic he wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography on Franklin D. Roosevelt. Influenced by Roosevelt and others he saw leadership as a moral issue, the aim being to transform followers through motivation.

Burns is best known for introducing the concept of ‘transformational’ leadership in his book, Leadership (1978). He contrasted this with ‘transactional’ leadership, which was the dominant traditional model, where managers dealt with employees on a functional transactional level. Transformational Leaders engage with followers in such a way that they motivate and instill values. They set goals to inspire people, to change expectations, perceptions, and motivations. Transactional Leaders deal with people on a more mundane level, telling people what to do, with processes based on rewards for performance or discipline for failing to meet goals.

Burns was deeply interested in the role of leadership in the political process and was a keen observer of political leaders. His political inclinations and values—towards progressive change and the importance of leaders who could rise above mere transactional exchanges to truly transform society, are reflected in his work. He believed in the potential for leaders to be agents of change who could elevate the interests and moral standing of both followers and the broader society. 

Burns had a particular interest in Roosevelt and wrote a definitive two-volume biography. He identified transformational leadership in Roosevelt during the Great Depression and World War II but also studied Churchill, Ghandi and Hitler. His analysis was not limited, therefore, to positive examples of leadership; he also explored leaders who had a destructive or divisive impact to understand the full spectrum of leadership influence. Through his extensive studies, he aimed to uncover the universal traits and behaviors that could be used to inform and improve the practice of leadership across all sectors of society.

He placed a strong emphasis on the ethical and moral dimensions of leadership, believing that true leadership must be grounded in a commitment to justice and the betterment of society as a whole.

Critique

While his initial focus was on political leadership, his theories have been applied extensively in business, not-for--profit, and other organisational contexts. In Leadership, he viewed leadership largely through the lens of political interactions, emphasising the dynamics between leaders and followers in a political context, that context was societal and political change. In that sense his theory has been seen as elitist and fits transformation by manipulation and the abuse of power. This political focus is seen by some as a limitation, as corporations and public sector bodies are very different. 

His theories have also struck some as too idealistic and utopian, ignoring the complexities of different types of organisations and the distinction between transactional and transformational is not always clear. Given the very different times in which he wrote, there is little on the transformational role of technology, either in organisations or training.

Influence

Burns saw leadership as something that lifts both leaders and others in a rising tide. This shift from functional transactional leadership to a theory of leadership that has more psychological and motivational dimensions has been a key feature of most subsequent theories of leadership.

Bibliography

Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. Harper & Row. Burns, J. M. (2003). Transforming Leadership: A New Pursuit of Happiness Burns, J. M. (1956). Roosevelt: the lion and the fox. Harcourt, Brace. Burns, J. M. (1970). Roosevelt, the Soldier of Freedom. Konecky & Konecky

Peter Drucker (1909-2005) from Vienna, Austria, was a hugely influential figure in modern management. He studied in Frankfurt but moved to England where he worked in journalism and banking. Moving again to the US in the 1930s, he became a professor at Bennington College in Vermont. 

Paul Hersey (1931-2012) and Ken Blanchard developed the famous Situational Leadership Model, which suggests that no single leadership style is the best. Instead, effective leadership varies according to task requirements and the maturity level of the team members.

Paul Hersey was a behavioural scientist and entrepreneur who developed the Situational Leadership Model. He was a professor at Northern Illinois University for many years and later became the chairman of the Center for Leadership Studies.

Ken Blanchard, is a prominent author, leadership expert, and speaker, known for his influential work on leadership and management, co-founding The Ken Blanchard Companies, a leading global corporate training company.

Leadership

In the Management of Organizational Behavior (1969) they laid out their Situational Leadership Model. This was substantiated and summarised in the popular book The One Minute Manager (1982) by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, which presents a concise, easily digestible story, illustrating effective management techniques. In Leadership and the One Minute Manager (1985), a collaboration between Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi, and Drea Zigarmi, the principles of the One Minute Manager are applied to leadership, providing a guide to situational leadership.

Situational Leadership Model

Hersey and Blanchard's Situational Leadership Model proposes that there is no single ‘best’ style of leadership. Instead, effective leadership is task-relevant, and the most successful leaders are those who adapt their leadership style to the maturity of the individual or group they are attempting to lead or influence. The theory outlines four distinct leadership styles:

1. Directing (S1)

This style is characterized by high directive behavior and low supportive behavior. Leaders clearly define roles and tasks and supervise them closely. Decisions are made by the leader and announced, so communication is largely one-way. This style is effective in situations where the follower is inexperienced and lacks specific skills, such as the military.

2. Coaching (S2) 

This style involves high directive and high supportive behavior. The leader continues to direct and closely supervise task accomplishment but also seeks input and feedback from the follower, which can lead to more two-way communication. The leader also provides a lot of encouragement and praise to ‘sell’ their message to motivate the follower.

3. Supporting (S3)

With this style, leaders display low directive behavior and high supportive behavior. By now, the follower has developed skills but may still be hesitant to perform tasks independently. The leader facilitates and supports the followers’ efforts and shares responsibility for decision-making with them.

4. Delegating (S4)

This style is marked by low supportive and low directive behavior. The leader provides little direction or support, as the follower is now competent, capable, and willing to do the task. The leader makes fewer decisions and passes on the responsibility for making decisions to the follower.

The effectiveness of these styles varies based on the task readiness of the followers, which includes their competence and commitment levels.

Training

Hersey and Blanchard emphasised that leaders should be trained to be flexible in their management styles. They believed in training leaders to diagnose the needs of their team members and to adopt the most effective leadership style in response to those needs.

Critique

Critiques of the Situational Leadership Model include its simplicity and lack of empirical evidence. Some scholars argue that the model is far too simplistic to account for the complexities of real-world leadership. Others question the model's assumption that follower maturity is the sole factor determining the effectiveness of a leadership style. It places a lot of responsibility on leaders to choose different styles that may be at odds with other methods of management.

Legacy

The legacy of Hersey and Blanchard is entrenched in their development of the Situational Leadership Model, which has become one of the most widely taught and practiced leadership frameworks in the world. It has influenced countless leaders and managers and remains a staple of leadership training programs.

Bibliography

John Kotter is a professor at Harvard Business School, known for his work on change management and leadership. Best known for his 8-step change management process he also has related views on leadership and the management of change, asserting that management involves dealing with complexity, while leadership is about coping.

Leadership

Throughout his career, Kotter has written extensively on the topics of leadership and change management. In his articles, What Leaders Really Do (Harvard Business Review (1990), also in Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail (Harvard Business Review, 1995), he explains the differences between leadership and management, arguing that both are necessary but fundamentally different in their functions and purposes within an organisation. Both laid the groundwork for his book Leading Change (1996), where he explains the most common mistakes organisations and leaders make during transformation efforts and provides solutions for overcoming these challenges.

His later book Our Iceberg is Melting (2006) presents his concept of change management in a fable format. Set in a colony of penguins facing a potentially devastating problem, the book simplifies the principles of his change theory, making them accessible and easy to apply. Then in  A Sense of Urgency (2008) he delves deeper into the first step of his 8-Step Process for Leading Change, arguing that establishing a true sense of urgency is crucial for the success of any change effort. He distinguishes between true urgency and complacency or false urgency, offering practical strategies to cultivate and maintain a genuine sense of urgency.

Kotter’s leadership theory primarily focuses on the distinctions between leadership and management. He argues that while both are essential, they serve different purposes. Management is about handling complexity, maintaining order, and delivering consistent results. Leadership, he claims, is about coping with change, setting a direction, and inspiring people to overcome obstacles.

Change Management Theory

In Leading Change (1996), Kotter's most influential book, introduces his famous 8-Step Process for Leading Change, providing a comprehensive approach to managing and leading organizational change. The book emphasizes the need for urgency and a powerful coalition to successfully drive transformations.

Kotter's change management theory is best encapsulated in his 8-Step Process for Leading 

1. Create a Sense of Urgency: Help others see the need for change and the importance of acting immediately.

2. Build a Guiding Coalition: Assemble a group with enough power to lead the change effort.

3. Form a Strategic Vision and Initiatives: Craft a vision to direct the change effort and develop strategic initiatives to achieve that vision.

4. Enlist a Volunteer Army: Encourage a large group of people to spend time and energy making the change happen.

5. Enable Action by Removing Barriers: Remove obstacles to change and empower individuals to execute the vision.

6. Generate Short-term Wins: Plan for visible improvements in performance, or "wins."

7. Sustain Acceleration: Press harder after achieving early changes.

8. Institute Change: Anchor the changes in corporate culture to ensure long-term success.

Views on Training

He emphasises the importance of continuous learning and adaptability in the modern business environment and is an advocate for training that not only develops individual skills but also fosters an organizational culture that is responsive to change and encourages innovation.

Critique

While Kotter's ideas are widely respected, some critics argue that his approach to change management may oversimplify complex organisational dynamics. Critics often point out that the ‘linear’ nature of his 8-step process doesn't fully account for the unpredictable and iterative nature of change in real-world scenarios. Additionally, Kotter's focus on top-down leadership in driving change can be seen as limiting in organisations that thrive on decentralized decision-making and employee empowerment. Asa theorist he also misses the considerable role that technology now plays in leadership and change management.

Legacy

Kotter's legacy in the fields of leadership and change management is significant. His theories have shaped contemporary understanding of how effective leadership differs from management, and his 8-step process for change is a staple in business schools and organisations globally. Kotter’s work has not only influenced how leaders think about and manage change but has also provided a practical framework that many have used to guide successful transformations in various organisational contexts.

Bibliography

Henry Mintzberg is an academic at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His work on management includes the study of managerial roles, strategy formation, and organisational structures. He is highly critical of contemporary theories around Management and Leadership.

Organisations

In The Structuring of Organizations (1979) he presents a comprehensive framework for the complexities of organisational structure and categorises the structures of organisations into five main types:

1. Simple Structure

A low degree of departmentalisation, wide spans of control, centralised authority, and little formalisation. It is flexible and fast to respond to changes because it has a simple reporting structure and an informal way of operating. This could be a small startup with a few employees where the founder makes all the major decisions and management is handled informally.

2. Machine Bureaucracy

This structure is typified by a high degree of formalisation and centralisation, with tasks and roles clearly defined through a hierarchical structure. It is efficient for routine tasks and stable environments. For example, a large manufacturing company with assembly lines, such as the Ford Motor Company in the early 20th century, would be a classic example of a machine bureaucracy.

3.Professional Bureaucracy

This operates with a high degree of autonomy for professionals within the organisation. It relies on highly trained professionals who demand control over their own work. This could be a hospital, where doctors, nurses, and medical staff have specialised expertise and operate with a certain level of autonomy in their respective areas of professional practice.

4. Divisionalized Form

This type of structure occurs in large corporations that operate under multiple divisions. Each division acts as its own company, with its own set of operational functions like finance, marketing, R&D, etc. For example, General Electric, which had numerous divisions each focused on different product lines like aviation, power, healthcare, and renewable energy.

5. Adhocracy

A flexible, adaptable, and informal organisational structure that emphasises innovation and creativity. This structure is common in dynamic, complex environments where the ability to respond quickly to changes is crucial. Could be tech companies like Google, known for their innovative culture, where employees are encouraged to work on projects they are passionate about, and hierarchies are less pronounced. He discusses how these different structures correspond to different types of organisational structures that need different strategies.

Management v Leadership

Organisational complexity led him to write in Managers Not MBAs (2004) where he criticises traditional MBA programs for producing graduates with a misleading view of management and responsibilities. He criticised MBA Programs for overemphasising quantitative and abstract aspects of management, at the expense of experience and insight into organisational dynamics. As organisations are complex, with very different structures and problems, management training, he believed, should be rooted in real-world experience that develops managers who understand these complexities and the role of leadership within them.

He criticised the separation made between 'management' and 'leadership', as he thought they were intertwined. Managers need to be leaders, and effective leaders need to understand management. Neither did he agree with Leadership theories and courses that promote Leadership traits.

What was more important was a holistic and engaged form of management, where managers were wholly involved and immersed in the operations of their organisations, getting to grips with the detail and dynamics, especially of people.

Communityship

He also promoted the idea of Communityship over leadership. Leadership is exaggerated and puts people on a pedestal, when a healthier, less hierarchical and more communal attitude is necessary. 

Critique

His five category models is seen by some as too rigid and doesn't sufficiently account for the rapidly changing nature of contemporary organisations. The model can potentially oversimplify complex organisational dynamics and interactions. There vis also a sense of his work being rooted in the machine and manufacturing age.

Bibliography

Mintzberg, H., 2004. Managers not MBSs. Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Mintzberg, H. (1979). The structuring of organizations. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall. 

Barbara Kellerman is a Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Long a critic of most approaches to leadership theory and training, she focuses more on what leadership is not, with more of a focus on what she calls ‘followership’. She has written many books on the topic, from Bad Leadership (2004) to The End of Leadership (2012), won many awards, and is an accomplished international speaker.

History of leadership

Critical of the recent 40 year focus on leadership, she is critical of those who ignore the longer history of leadership, from Plato onwards. She points to his view that someone should only become a leader at 50 or above, as lived experience is often critical. Calling on Machiavelli, Locke, Hobbes, Montesquieu, Marx and others, she is surprised that this rich set of reflective views from history are ignored in modern leadership scholarship. In particular, she is critical of the ideas that leaders in themselves are critical for success, the ‘Great Man (usually)’ theories of leadership that focus on qualities and traits, as if there was an essence of leadership that can be distilled and used as a potion or remedy. Hitler, she claims, did not kill 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. In fact, he killed not a single Jew, so reading history just in terms of biographical causality is a mistake.

Power, Authority and Influence

For Kellerman, the Pollyanna world of leadership literature and training is unreal. What is real, are; Power, Authority and Influence. Never have we had so much attention, books, money spent and training on leadership – and so little of it. We must therefore look, like good historians, at context.

Leaders pay themselves more and more, are glad to reduce costs and numbers of employees, shift to cheaper manufacturing and services abroad. Often referring to Putin, Xi Jinping, Erdogan and Trump as examples of leadership as the exercise of power. Leadership industry

Leadership industry

She sees the ‘Leadership industry’ as a 40 year aberration, an industry that has dominated management training, to its detriment. In general, she is dissatisfied with the fixation on leadership and the focus on traits of leaders and leadership. Look around, she asks, and see if leadership has improved after 40 years of this focus on leadership and leadership training? The scholarly evidence for success is scant. Leadership, she thinks, needs to be seen as a system not a person, which is why she is sceptical about the leadership industry and its often trite recommendations. It has become a money making proposition, a leadership-industrial complex but, she claims, it is complex in another sense, in that it cannot be taught easily and quickly.

Leadership ‘attribution error’

Critical of the leadership industry; the countless courses, workshops, books and rhetoric devoted to Leadership, she puts most of it down to an ‘attribution error’ - the tendency to attribute all success and failures to leaders and leadership. This, she regards as a basic and naïve mistake but one that drives untold amounts of unnecessary spend in organisations on consultancy and training.

In fact, most of the sophisticated political developments have been about the devolution of power away from leaders to others. From the end of the 20th C into the 21st C this has continued with the devolution of power. Cultural change and therefore context, have rendered leaders less important.

Most of the books and research focus onon traits for leaders and fail to focus on bad leadership, so she proposed seven types of bad leader in Bad Leadership (2004):

1. Ineffective

2. Rigid

3. Intemperate

4. Insular

5. Corrupt

6. Callous

7. Evil

What we have to recognise is that things are often volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, globalised and driven by technological change. These contexts are complex, so rather than focus on traits, look at the complexity of context as it is plural, proximate, distal and temporal. This is not about you, it is about change.

Followers

We have become fixated and obsessed by leaders at the expense of followers and the common good. As we overestimate the power of the leader, which we think where power, authority and influence lies, we correspondingly underestimate the power and influence of followers. Yet there is no leader without a follower, leaders do not exist without followers. The focus is therefore on the wrong end of the problem. We have too many leaders, which is the cult of individualism not community, when what really matters is to be realistic about followers, again a complex concept, which she classifies into:

Isolates

Bystanders

Participants

Activists

Diehards

Leadership and followership are intertwined. In understanding the idea and varieties of followership, one therefore understands leadership. The idea that everyone is a leader is, for her, ridiculous, as they are in practice, mostly various types of follower. The Western trajectory, since the Enlightenment, has seen power and influence wane and become increasingly devolved, so we have a very different context, one where followership is dominant.

Critique

Kellerman’s categories have been criticised for their potential to pigeonhole individuals into static categories. There's also a concern that by focusing primarily on follower types, the theory may overlook the relational aspects between leaders and followers and how these relationships impact organizational culture and effectiveness.

Influence

Interest in Kellerman’s ideas have grown in the light of recent political events, especially in the US. She saw a turning point with Nixon and Monica Lewinsky in 1998, which degraded attitudes towards leadership. Will we continue with these more recent political divides? Avoid the regression to autocracy? We are seeing serious cleavages in countries, as followers have had enough of their leaders, now seen as the elite and out of touch. We have seen this in the US, France, UK and many other countries. A big mistake in business schools is to see that leadership courses focus on the organisation not the common good. We need to move away from this fixation on leadership.

Conclusion

It is unfortunate that serious scholars, such as Kellerman and Pfeffer, are often ignored by scholars, consultants and trainers in leadership, as they offer a more sophisticated interpretation of the complexity of the issues, rather than the delivery of simple platitudes. Along with Pfeffer at Stanford, Kellerman provides a refreshing and more sophisticated theory of leadership and followership that escapes the normal focus on traits. Leaders are much more weakly positioned than they used to be. Influence matters more. Hierarchies are more horizontal.

Bibliography

Kellerman, B., 2012. The End of Leadership. New York, NY: Harper Business.

Kellerman, B., 2008. How followers are creating change and changing leaders. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School.

Kellerman, B., 2004. Bad leadership: What it is, how it happens, why it matters. Harvard Business Press.

Kellerman, B., 1999. Reinventing leadership: Making the connection between politics and business. SUNY Press.

Kellerman, B., 1984. The political presidency: Practice of leadership. Oxford University Press, USA.

 

Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organisational Behavior at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. His interest in human resources, organisational theory and behaviour has led him to reflect on the nature of leadership and leadership training. He has written about evidence-based management in Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-based Management (2006) where he dismisses popular business wisdom in; leadership, strategy, change, talent, financial incentives, and work-life balance, often touted by consultants and training companies in favour of hard decision making based on data and facts.

Leadership

In Leadership BS (2015), Pfeffer eschews what he sees as the usual platitudes in Leadership theory and training, for a more realistic view of the world as messy and complex. He exposes what he sees as the nostrums, stories, fictions, anecdotes, promises, glib simplicities, bromides, romanticism and myth-making feel-good nonsense that passes for Leadership training, his solution being realism. The aim is to reject the normative wishes with evidence and the realities of the workplace.

Unequivocally, he claims that the Leadership industry has not only empirically failed, with study after study showing workplace discontent, but also that it contributes to that failure. As the cult of leadership has risen, its perceived effectiveness has fallen. Bullying, stress, discontent are the norm and he presents a huge amount of evidence to show repeated failures in so called ‘leadership’. What he uncovers is an almost wilful avoidance of evidence, measurement and data. Despite the $20-$40 billion spend, the results are depressingly disappointing. He goes as far as suggesting that the very construct of leadership, as presented in much leadership consultancy and training, was invented as a simplification to deliberately obfuscate the real complexity of the workplace. 

Leadership training

His arguments against ‘Leadership training’ are pretty damning. Many who offer leadership consultancy and courses have never led anything and if they have their track record is rarely one of substantial success. In fact, he sees too many compensation consultants and linked to the leadership industry and many with a woeful lack of actual expertise & knowledge. This leads to glib advice and recommendations that peddle inspiration not the realities of management. They often rely largely on storytelling and anecdote, and rarely include evaluation as part of the process (apart from primitive happy-sheet course data and self-evaluation). The leadership industry is therefore wholly unaccountable.

In the content he finds stories and anecdotes (as opposed to evidence) that are exaggerated, even fabricated. They also conveniently ignore actual successful leaders that don’t fit their neat model. These myths are counter-productive as they produce cynicism in employees. The rhetoric is not matched by actual action and behaviour. Worse, those who don’t conform to the out-dated leadership model don’t get promoted and may even get fired. Others, such as women and certain cultural minorities, that value modesty and collaboration, can also suffer. 

Leadership traits

A further critique centres around precise leadership qualities or traits. They are, he thinks, wrong-headed, as they focus on attributes not action and decision making. Given that the book was published in 2015, he was prescient in identifying Trump as a typical product of the charismatic leader cult. He played the leadership game and won. Pfeffer therefore punctures the idea that ‘modesty’ is an admired and effective leadership trait. He draws on Maccoby’s book The Productive Narcissist (2003), and his own evidence, to show that modesty, far from being a virtue, stops managers from thinking for themselves and being resilient in the face of adversity. It is energy, confidence and dominance that gets them where they are, not modesty. The Leadership industry may be holding back women and other potential managers by promoting false promises, such as modesty. He also accuses HR and talent management companies of being dishonest here in training for these qualities then recruiting the very opposite.

He also questioned that staple of leadership courses - authenticity - as a quality for leadership. He flips this to show that good managers need to do what people need them to do, not what they as managers simply want to do, not pander to their own views of themselves. Flight attendants, shop assistants, sales people and many others don’t operate by being totally ‘authentic’, neither do managers and leaders. He describes the “delicious irony” of leadership trainers who “train” people to be “authentic”, as if it is a trait that can be acquired in a classroom. Being authentic is for Pfeffer pretty much the opposite of what leaders need to be.

Much as trust would seem to be desirable in leadership, it may not be that simple. Bernie Madoff inspired ‘trust’. Trust, like faith, can lead one into real trouble. It may be desirable not to trust lawyers, competitors and politicking managers. True objectivity and realism may only be the result of not trusting everyone to tell the truth within an organisation, as you will be misled, even duped. You need to be on the mark, alert to deception, moves, protecting the organisation and that means distrusting some people.

Counterexamples

Rich in real examples of leaders who were less than ideal, he shows how leadership training misses the mark most of the time – especially with the titans of tech; Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison. Political, sports and other leaders get a similar treatment. Most of the positive examples turn out to have serious flaws. So, when we look at what are called successful leaders, they turn out to be very different from what the leadership industry tells us. His recommendation is to get serious on the research, mainly what is effective, then hold so-called 'leaders' to account - not with happy-sheet nostrums but real accountability. It is not that he promotes immodesty, being inauthentic and telling lies, only to recognise that leaders and employees are people and that human nature always wins out. The remedy is to identify what you need from proposed leaders and then to make sure that they perform to those measures. This is where HR and remuneration committees fail. They pretend to be doing this when what they actually do is pander to an outdated cult of leadership, based on outdated concepts of the nature and value of leadership.

Complexity

Pfeffer’s challenge is to recognise reality and accept that the workplace and people are much more complex than the feel-good training courses suggest. In reality, leaders’ behaviours are often at odds with those of the organisation. Their interests in terms of rewards, promotion and progress are often at odds with those they manage and even the organisations they lead. There is a lack of definition, theory and practice around the concept and it often distracts from the real needs in workplace learning.

He recommends that you:

   Build your power base relentlessly (and sometimes shamelessly)

   Embrace ambiguity 

   When the situation demands change—adapt

   Master the science of influence

It is not that leadership training is wrong, just that getting things done requires trade-offs and tough decisions. The danger is that organisations handicap themselves by training leaders to embrace utopian behaviours and avoid bold decisions, innovation and the realities of organisational growth.

Critique

Pfeffer has been criticised for being too forceful in blaming learning and development for the ills of Leadership theory and training. They argue that complexity does not negate efforts to instill good practice in leadership.g 

Conclusion

The fundamental problem outlined in Getting beyond the BS of leadership literature (2016) is to confuse ‘ought’ with ‘is’. Just because you think something ought to be the case doesn’t mean it is. In fact, confirmation bias tends to produce the wrong solutions in this area, driven by moral and not organisational imperatives. The division of leadership into good and bad traits is a mistake, as it uses a problematic approach to human nature and ignores context. Quoting Machiavelli’s The Prince (1532), he says it is sometimes necessary to do bad things to achieve good results. Leaders need to be pragmatists.

Bibliography

Machiavelli, N., 2008. Machiavelli's the Prince: Bold-Faced Principles on Tactics, Power, and Politics. Sterling Publishing Company, Inc..

Maccoby, M., 2003. The productive narcissist: The promise and peril of visionary leadership. Broadway.

Pfeffer, J. and Sutton, R.I., 2006. Hard facts, dangerous half-truths, and total nonsense: Profiting from evidence-based management. Harvard Business Press.

Pfeffer, J., 2016. Getting beyond the BS of leadership literature. McKinsey Quarterly, 1, pp.90-95

Pfeffer, J., 2015. Leadership BS. HarperCollins.

NotebookLM shows how AI can be used right now in learning. The automatic podcasts will blow your mind.

This is a monumental achievement, as anyone can now take a motherlode of documents and get AI to extract summaries, answer questions, give a timeline, even create a podcast.

We have worked on note taking software adding AI features, and seen it work in practice. This really is an area that is ripe for application, as note taking is an established practice, the bridge between the teacher and learner, the active learning that allows the learner to move forward.

With NotebookLM, I uploaded a large book on learning theorists, at 300,000 words, saved as a 700+ page PDF. It covers 2500 years, with 300 learning theorists and has taken me years to write. Here's the list of Learning theorists and topics covered:

Chat

It gives a pretty good summary, briefing and timeline, century by century, across 2500 years. 

Then, I started to ask it questions, using the chjat function, engaging in dialogue with my own work. It is superb. If every teacher, department, course had its curated content in this context, this would be a boon for students. If you want to know some specifics about a particular learning theorists or more geneal view of a group, it does a credible job.

Learners can ask general questions, then, when engaging in a class or assignment, specific questions, getting carefully considered answers. I asked it some general questions about historical trends, why so few women in learning and so on. Pretty good…

What is impressive are the provenance numbers that link to the source text in hte document for most components in the answer.

Podcast

But the big hit comes at the end. I asked it to do an ‘Audio overview’ of all 300 learning theorists in 700 pages. This was way beyond my expectations. A dialogue podcast, at around 11.5 minutes, was amazingly realistic, with a male and female commentator bounding off each other. The language was informal and sounded like real dialogue. I have since asked people to listen – they ALL thought these were real people.

It covered the material well, pulling out relevant theorists and making insightful observations as they took us through 2500 years of learning theory. 

For novice learners who want a friendly introduction, those with poor literacy skills, English as a second language, but also dyslexic learners, this is a wondrous feature. I can see this being a great introduction to any topic, subject, course or assignment. 

Fronting a learning journey with an introductory podcasts seems like a fine idea to me. A brief and accessible introduction to a subject, super quick to produce and prepares the learners for deeper learning.

I can see this getting real traction with learners at school and college.

Take notes

PS

If you want REAL podcasts and deep dives into specific topics in this this content, there are 36 1 hour podcasts in the 'Great Minds on Learning' series here…
https://greatmindsonlearning.libsyn.com/

Further experiment

Experimenting further, here's the NotebookLM AI-generate summary and 10 min podcast from four large articles I wrote on Heidegger, Foucault, Lyotard and Derrida. Just one small section from the huge 700 pager.

A solid paper on the advantages for of self-paced learning. The promise of AI is to deliver personalised learning, sensitive to the learner’s AR (acquisition rate). 

The acquisition rate in learning refers to the speed or efficiency with which a learner acquires new knowledge, skills, or behaviors. It is a measure of how quickly a person can grasp new information or master new concepts. This rate can vary significantly depending on factors such as the complexity of the material, the learner’s prior knowledge, motivation, cognitive abilities, and the methods of instruction being used.

STUDY

tested different ways of teaching multiplication tables (6s, 7s, and 8s) to 3rd & 4th graders

split into three groups: 

• Group 1: learned 2 facts at a time

• Group 2: learned 8 facts at a time

• Group 3: learned facts based on their personal "acquisition rate" (how much they could handle)

RESULTS

Key Findings (from the table and text):

Learning time varied a lot: 

• 2 facts group: 3 minutes

• Personal pace group: 7 minutes

• 8 facts group: 14 minutes

What worked best: 

• Personal pace method (acquisition rate) worked really well

• Teaching 8 facts at once was least effective (only 39% remembered)

• Teaching 2 facts at a time was middle ground (47% remembered)

• Students remembered 76% of facts when taught at their personal pace

One size does not fit all when it comes to learning multiplication facts. The average student could handle learning about 4 new facts at a time. Tailoring the number of facts to each student's learning capacity was most effective. Personalised, self-paced learning works.

Bloom's lesser known research

Bloom is known for his pyramid (he never drew one and it is hopelessly simplistic) but researched this in detail. His other research, rarely known, led him to believe, in Human Characteristics and School Learning (1976), that learners could master knowledge and skills given enough time. It is not that learners are good or bad but fast and slow. The artificial constraint of time in timed periods of learning, timetables and fixed-point final exams, is a destructive filter on many. The solution is to loosen up on time to democratise learning to suit the many not the few. Learning is a process not a timed event. Learning, free from the tyranny of time, allows learners to proceed at their own pace.

Bloom proposed three things could make mastery learning fulfil its potential:

1. Entry diagnosis and adaption (50%) - diagnose, predict and recommend. David Asubel made the point that “The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows” yet pre-testing is relatively rare form of assessment.

2. Address maturation (25%) - personalise and adapt. AI can deliver personalised learning based on continuous assessment and adaption.

3. Instructional methods (25%) - match to different types of learning experiences and time. Sensitivity to the type of learning, a far more complex issue that Blook thought with his falsely progressive pyramid and tripartite distinction of Cognitive domain (knowledge-based), Psychomotor (action-based) and Affective (emotion-based)

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Retention-and-Efficiency-Data-by-Condition_tbl1_281801350

Explore how AI transforms organizational structures, from micro-enterprises to shared services platforms, and learn how platform organizations can adapt and thrive in an AI-driven economy.

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ABSTRACT

Background

Automatically graded programming assignments provide instant feedback to students and significantly reduce manual grading time for instructors. However, creating comprehensive suites of test cases for programming problems within automatic graders can be time-consuming and complex. The effort needed to define test suites may deter some instructors from creating additional problems or lead to inadequate test coverage, potentially resulting in misleading feedback on student solutions. Such limitations may reduce student access to the well-documented benefits of timely feedback when learning programming.

Objectives

We evaluate the effectiveness of using Large Language Models (LLMs), as part of a larger workflow, to automatically generate test suites for CS1-level programming problems.

Methods

Each problem's statement and reference solution are provided to GPT-4 to produce a test suite that can be used by an autograder. We evaluate our proposed approach using a sample of 26 problems, and more than 25,000 attempted solutions to those problems, submitted by students in an introductory programming course. We compare the performance of the LLM-generated test suites against the instructor-created test suites for each problem.

Results and Conclusions

Our findings reveal that LLM-generated test suites can correctly identify most valid solutions, and for most problems are at least as comprehensive as the instructor test suites. Additionally, the LLM-generated test suites exposed ambiguities in some problem statements, underscoring their potential to improve both autograding and instructional design.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) claims to be revolutionary but it is an ideologically-driven sham. It does far more harm than good. Folding in some of the worst learning theory into one 'my way or the highway' approach, it literally makes no sense. It is a barely disguised expansion of discredited Learning Styles theory, with costly and ineffective prescriptions.

They claim its framework promises inclusivity, adaptability, and improved access for all learners. Yet beneath this superficial rhetoric lies a troubling lack of theoretical grounding. It is more of an ideological banner than a well-developed pedagogical method.

At its core, UDL asserts that variability in learning is not an exception but the norm, and that curricula should be designed to offer multiple means of engagement, representation and expression. This sounds progressive, but it begs the question: where is the evidence that this approach is universally effective? Unlike more established pedagogical frameworks that are underpinned by decades of empirical research, UDL lacks the scaffolding of a cohesive theoretical tradition. It cherry-picks ideas from neuroscience, educational psychology and accessibility studies without unifying them into a coherent explanatory model. Consequently, it has become a collection of loosely connected guidelines.

UDL is undeniably ideological in nature, that is its appeal. Rooted in a utopian vision of educational equality, it is executed so simplistically that it does great harm. It devastates actual individual needs by stupidly replicating things across many modalities. By focusing so heavily on inclusion, UDL ignores the realities of constrained resources, teacher capacity, and the complex priorities of educational institutions. It is a simplistic bromide that puts replication over meeting real needs in real organisations. It literally abandons pedagogy on the altar of ideology.

The ideological bent of UDL sidelines alternative approaches that need specialisation or targeted interventions. For example, tailored support for students with specific disabilities often requires highly individualised methods that go beyond UDL's dilute and generic calls for flexibility. In an obsessive attempt to be ‘universal’, it dilutes its applicability to those who really do need personal, specialised attention the most. Ironically, this universalism can neglects the very individuals it aims to serve.

UDL’s slavish emphasis on learner choice and agency becomes an ideological trap in practice. The belief that all students should have multiple ways to engage with content and demonstrate understanding assumes they have a level of maturity, self-awareness, and autonomy that many learners, particularly younger ones. This is quite simply mad. 

An overemphasis on learner freedom leaves less confident or less experienced students adrift, struggling to navigate an educational landscape designed to cater to everyone and, paradoxically, to no one in particular.

Universal Design for Learning aspires to reshape education into a more inclusive, flexible, and equitable system. But its lack of theoretical rigor and reliance on ideological principles leave it vulnerable to critique, means it should be dismissed as an impractical, overhyped framework. It has little to do with the real-world complexities of education, which is why it only thrives on the fringes of Higher Education.

One could well rename it a Universal Disaster for Education.

In 2021, the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) launched an  online training programme to strengthen the implementa

The post Out Of Date Discussions Are Becoming A Big Problem first appeared on FeverBee - Community Consultancy.

I had an epiphany some years back. In a brief conversation with a young woman, in the queue for lunch at a corporate ‘values’ day (I was a Director), opened my eyes up to the whole values thing in organisations. 

“I have my values,” she said, “and they’re not going to be changed by a HR department.... I’ll be leaving in a couple of years and no doubt their HR will have a different set of values… which I’ll also ignore”. Wisest thing I heard all day.

You’ve probably had the ‘values’ treatment. Suddenly, parachuted out of HR, comes a few abstract nouns, or worse, an acronym, stating that the organisation now has some really important ‘values’. Even worse, an expensive external agency may have juiced them up. I genuinely like organisations that have a strategy, purpose, even a mission. But the obsession with organisational values I just don't buy.

Not long afterwards my fears were confirmed. I chaired a Skills Summit, where innumerable HR folk pompously paraded their company values in a series of talks. An endless stream of abstract nouns, all of which seemed like things any normal human being would want in any context, in or out of work - you know the words - integrity, innovation, honesty, customer-focus, community....  After a full day of this stuff I was impressed by the guy who ran a small, very successful software company, who stood at the podium, and claimed that his company didn't really have any stated values and felt that the whole 'values' thing could be replaced by one phrase 'Don't be a dick!". That became a meme some years back and touched a nerve because it cut through the hubris.

Why HR-driven values are out of touch with reality?

Having dealt with hundreds of large organisations for more almost 40 years, I have yet to find one whose values were anything more than platitudes. They are invariably a crude mixture of reactive PR, HR overreach even a marketing ploy. Usually a crude selection from a list of abstract nouns, often forced into an idiotic acronym, they bear no relation to reality. Even when masked by complex consultancy reports and training - it's almost always bullshit Bingo.

Why would we imagine that HR have any skills in this area? In what sense are they 'experts' in values? For me, it is a utopian view of work and organisations. I can remember the day when organisational 'value' lists never existed. People were more honest and realistic about expectations. They came in when HR suddenly decided that they had to look after our emotional and moral welfare - always a ridiculous idea.

Values-washing

The banks were full of this 'values' culture – that was before the financial crash. I worked with many of them. It was all puff and PR. People do not, and don't, buy into this stuff. They can barely recall what the values are. I have values and I'm not interested in what HR, or some external consultant, says my values should be. The even more ridiculous idea that people who don't adopt those values should be forced out is wrong and illegal.

They shove them on the website but few remember them and even fewer care.... The really interesting thing about 'values' is that those companies who feel most compelled to get them identified - banks, accountancies, consultancies, tech companies, pharma companies etc - are the very companies where they were most ignored. They are blatant attempts at value-washing, appearing to be value driven when you are not.

Try these authenticity tests to your company values. Sniff out the hubris and bullshit.

Test 1: Bad acronyms - values created to fit word

If your values set is an acronym, they’re almost certainly inauthentic. The net result of fuzzy HR thinking is so often the ‘bad acronym’. Chances are that someone has shoehorned some abstract nouns into a word that sounds vaguely positive, completely losing sight of the original intention. Are they telling you that their values ‘just happened’ to fall into that acronym? Actually, what happens is that at least some of the values emerge from the acronym. That's bullshit.

How about this from a Cheshire voluntary group: FLUID - Freedom 2 Love Ur Identity. Or another real example of a crap acronym: VALUE - this HR person actually went online as she could only think of Value Added….. and wanted others to fill the acronym out! They did, and she was delighted with, Value Added Local, User friendly Experience. What a load of puff. 

When values are created to fit a word you are engaging in an infantile exercise that treats employees like children. Even worse is the use of middle letters, rendering the acronym, as an aide memoire, completely useless. Here’s a real example. It’s a cracker. PEOPLE: Positive Spirit and Fun, HonEsty and Integrity, Opportunities Based on Merit, Putting the Team first, Lasting value for Clients and People, Excellence through Professionalism. One overlong, impossible to remember acronym with eleven nouns, and I love the way they have to use the ‘E’ in the middle of HonEsty to make it work. This, by the way, is from an HR consultancy.

It’s not that I hate acronyms. They’re great as memorable cues. For example, I rather like ABC (Airways, Breathing, Circulation) in first aid. I also have a soft spot for funny acronyms, such as ALITALIA (Airplane Lands In Turin And Luggage In Ancona), BAAPS (British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeon) unbelievably a real organisation, and DIMWIT (Don't Interrupt Me While I'm Talking).… it’s just that I’m a fully paid up member of the AAAA, the Association Against Acronym Abuse. And let's just quietly forget Microsoft's 'Critical Update Notification Tool'.

Test 2: Alliteration test

You hear alliterative value lists all the time  - 'Imagination, Integrity, Innovation' (two organisations I know have this one set, clearly having cribbed it from the internet, or lists of 'C' words such as creativity, curiosity and collaborative. These are far too conveniently alliterative for my liking. The world is not intrinsically alliterative and if your list of values all start with the same letter - it's forced nonsense. 

Test 3: Negative test

Lists of values are often so obvious that they are hardly worth mentioning. Sure, you can say we all need to be 'Customer friendly' and so on. But who would say that being Customer unfriendly was ever on the cards? The ‘negation’ test is a useful filter. Ask whether any normal human being would deny having the stated opposite or negative value. If the answer is invariably NO, as it’s not a value but a basic, common sense belief. Human nature is a complex thing and people are too different to be corralled into value sets. Beware of BIG words like integrity, imagination, creativity, innovation…… if your values are abstract platitudes – no one will care.

Test 4: Are they really values?

A value is something that determines a moral decision. Yet many organizational ‘values’ are not values at all. ‘Imagination’, for example, is not a moral value, neither I would argue is 'creativity'. I’m not sure that ‘Leadership’ is an intrinsic value, in the sense that Pol Pot was a leader. So, for this test, look at each value in turn and ask whether it really is a value or activity, competence or some other thing? 

Test 5: Diversity problem

There’s something odd about having diversity as a value within a non-diverse, fixed value set. Empirically, people have different sets of values. We know this from large-scale studies, such as the World Values' Survey, going since 1989, in over 100 countries. An organisation is likely to have a mix of nationalities and cultures; religious, secular, liberal, conservative, individualistic, communal. Imposing a single set of values from above may not fit with this diversity of cultures and values. If diversity of values matters, the imposition of a set of fixed values makes little sense. 

To practice diversity is to live with a diversity of values. At the Skill Summit, some companies seemed to imply that if you didn't fit in with their imposed values, they'd try to get you out. Really? When values become reasons to sack people, you've got to worry. Even the phrase 'Don't be a dick' worries me. Companies often have dicks in the workplace. So what? Lots of very competent and talented people are 'dicks'. Elon Musk is a dick. Steve Jobs was a dick. Gates was a dick. Get over it. We're all different.

Test 6: Sniff test

It is usually quite easy to expose the hypocrisy of corporate values, namely the

hypocrisy of an organisation that exhorts ‘values’ by looking at its a) tax affairs b) senior staff salaries, c) senior staff bonuses d) customer list e) behaviours. If the company plays the tax avoidance game using offshore tax arrangements, or transfer pricing – that’s almost every large tech company, Google, Apple, Amazon, Starbucks etc. etc. then add hypocrisy to their values. If the CEO earns a ridiculous amount of money but doesn’t pay a living wage to the people at the bottom, the value of their values is nil. To be more precise, if your company pays the CEO way more than x10 the salary of the lowest member of staff – question the values. If, as a bank or other organisation, you’ve mis-sold, ripped people off and generally fiddled the markets, ripped off suppliers, don’t pay on time - don’t even mention values. 

Read Nagel's Equality and Partiality. It doesn't take long to work out that stated public values are often different from personal values. The same with organisations. You get the idea. Subject your organisation to a sniff test. Take the values and really ask – of the people who have told you that they matter – whether they’re applied at the top of the organisation and in its financial dealings. 

Conclusion

In truth, everyone knows that values are actually marketing exercises, used by organisations as slogans. They have little to do with actual behaviour in organisations. They infantilise people, reduce them to ciphers. Ask the person in the street if large organisations have served society well in terms of values? Banks? Supermarket chains? Tax dodging tech companies? Tax dodging retailers? Football organisations like FIFA? Sports organisations? Political parties? Energy companies? No. 

We have a crisis of trust in institutions because people parrot values which they don’t then practice. The ‘values’ obsession is just another example of overreach by HR. It keeps them occupied and gives everyone the sense that moral purpose has been served. It may even mask the reality of controlling behaviour. When I hear people discuss values, or see ‘values’ training, I hear moralising. Lots of back-slapping and ‘aren’t we great’ type platitudes. We’re all different. It is the workplace not a moral crusade. 

Forget the buzzwords, the brutal truth about company values is that a select group at the top come up with 'values' and we all have to march in step to those values, even though, as most of us know, the further up an organisation you go, the more rarified values become.

Groucho Marx said "I have values and if you don't like them.... I have other values" and if asked whether I change my values if they are not the same as my employer, I have argued with many people for many years that employers and HR have no right to do this. The answer is NO. It's an excuse for one group to impose their personal views on another and is causing untold damage in organisations.

People have values, organisations don’t. 

Today we announced a new chat and channels experience that will roll out to public preview in November.

 

Our customers are our greatest source of inspiration, and over the years we have evolved Teams with the goal of helping them achieve more. Today we are taking the next big step in our journey with a new chat and channels experience designed to help you collaborate more efficiently and effectively in the hybrid AI-infused workplace. It is simple by default, enabling everyone to stay on top of what matters, and powerful on-demand, allowing you to organize information and communicate your way. Let’s take a look:

 

Stay on top of your chats and channels, all in one place

The pace of work has increased exponentially, making it more challenging to keep up with the high volume of conversations, manage messages scattered across different locations, and find information. We’ve redesigned the chat and channels experience to simplify your digital workspace by bringing chats, teams, and channels into one place under Chat. Now, you can easily navigate and prioritize all your conversations without the hassle of switching contexts.

 

At launch, a self-service, guided onboarding flow within the product will help users discover the new experience and configure it to their preferences. Users who prefer to keep chat and channels separate can easily do so during the onboarding process or at any time later, without needing IT assistance.

 

Efficiently triage your messages

One of the biggest challenges in managing a high volume of conversations is focusing on the information that matters most to you now.  To help you effectively triage your messages, we've introduced new filters such as “Unread,” “Chat,” “Channels,” “Meetings,” and “Muted”. For example, with a single click on the “Unread” filter, you can now catch up in one convenient place on all your unread conversations across chats, channels and meetings. If you are looking for a specific type of conversation, like channels, select the relevant filter to further narrow your search and quickly locate the most relevant results.

“Unread” and “Channels” filters selected to efficiently triage messages.

 

@Mentions are used to call your attention to essential messages and ensure that these messages don’t slip through the cracks. The new @mention view gathers all messages directed at you into a single interactive list. Now, you can quicky access all conversations that include @mentions without having to search through multiple conversations. With this view, you can quickly identify where your attention is most needed, select a message, and respond directly from your flow of work.

Select the @mention view for an interactive single list of all your @mention messages across chat, channels, and meetings. Reply directly on the right-side pane.

 

Organize conversations your way

The new chat and channels experience in Teams empowers you to personalize your work environment to fit your needs and organize your conversations the way you prefer to work. The new favorites section is available for everyone by default, bringing together all your pinned chats and channels from the previous experience, so you have one easy-to-access place of your top priority conversations. With custom sections, you can bring all relevant conversations on a project or topic together into one place, be it in chats, channels, meetings, Teams bots or AI agents. With up to 50 sections and 50 items per section, you can efficiently manage even the most complex projects.

Chat list with favorites and a custom section. Organize your chat, channels and meeting chat conversations to fit your needs.

 

Stay on top of new messages and prioritize essential information by organizing your sections. Rearrange your conversation list to keep key discussions at the forefront using drag and drop. Alternatively, sort your conversation list by most recent message or choose to show unread messages only. This will help you address new communications promptly.

Right-click on sections in Favorites to view the context menu and sort a section’s conversations.

 

Save time when communicating

We are making it easier to send a new message in channels and promoting the use of existing channels. This integrates both chat and channels into your critical workflows, so you can Initiate a chat or channel post from the same place – eliminating the need to navigate to the specific channel first—with a streamlined new message feature. This update is also reflected in the keyboard shortcut for creating a new message, Ctrl+N (Cmd+N on Mac), for faster communication.

Initiate a chat or channel post from the same place.

 

Go to helps you navigate Teams effectively without context switching. Quickly navigate to your frequently used conversation across your chat and channels with a new keyboard shortcut Ctrl+G (Cmd+G on Mac).

Type Ctrl+G (Cmd+G on Mac) to navigate to your frequently used conversations.

 

Customize the experience to your preferences

Every user has a unique way of working. Now, you can customize Teams chat and channels to align with your personal workflow and preferred information consumption style. With new controls, you can choose to view chat and channels separately, see message previews, or display all channels in a single list. This way, you create a digital workspace that truly helps you soar.

New controls let you view chat and channels combined or separate and let you choose to show message preview and time stamps.

 

And if you want to stay on top of the most recent channel messages quickly, switch your teams and channels section to display all your channels in a single list, eliminating the need to expand and collapse team sections.

Display all your channels in a single list

 

If you are on the go, customize your experience with mobile-specific settings, such as choosing between viewing messages organized by sections or by most recent. The new experience is optimized for different screen sizes, helping you read and respond to messages efficiently no matter where you are.

 

Availability

Your work isn't limited to just a desktop, so we're excited to bring the new chat and channels experience to all devices for seamless productivity. This is coming to public preview in November to desktop, mobile, iOS, and Android, ensuring you can stay connected and efficient wherever you are.

The new chat and channels experience on mobile, for seamless productivity on every device

 

What’s next

We are just getting started, and we are committed to making Teams more streamlined and simpler with enhancements like threaded conversations. We are beginning to test threaded conversations with customers this quarter and will expand testing in early 2025, with broad availability expected in mid-2025.

 

Embark on your journey with the new chat and channels experience today and transform the way you connect, focus, and collaborate. Customers with access to Microsoft public preview will be able to try out the new interface starting in November. To activate, choose “Get started” when you see the welcome screen for the new chat and channels experience.

Welcome screen to the new chat and channels experience

 

Streamline your users onboarding experience and learn more via our hub adoption.microsoft.com. Learn more from Teams product leaders on the vision for the new chat and channel experience on our Meet the Makers episode and get started today:

 

Join the upcoming Ask Microsoft Anything - Microsoft Teams new chat and channels event on Tuesday, November 12, 2024, from 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PST, to engage with Teams product makers, ask your questions, and share your feedback about the new chat and channels experience in Teams. 

 

Learning Technologies 2024. Great to see some people, have a hot and sweaty browse round the exhibition and chew the cud over a few bottles of beer in The Fox, that’s always fun. But the best time to ask questions about the future is not during the euphoria of the party, but after. What is actually happening? Where are we going?

AI headlines

It is the Learning TECHNOLOGIES Conference. We are in the most important technology transition since the invention of writing, an existential technology that is literally changing what we are as a species, therefore what we learn, why we learn and how we learn. AI was headlining at our Glastonbury. But as Ben Betts said, and I agree, it was all content production and add ons. The real AI in learning was like the Sex Pistols battering it out down the Thames, completely ignoring the Establishment in the Exel. It is so disruptive a force that no one knows how to deal with it, so they try to package it, contain it, get it to create courses, use it as a signal – look we’re down with this new tech! But no one is buying it - metaphorically or literally. It is bypassing L&D.

L&D folk playing little role when Copilot is introduced and may play a diminishing role in these choices. This is now an enterprise level decision as it leads to increases in productivity. Training may not be the best lever here - productivity tools and performance support seem more powerful and the evidence suggests they're working. I have a whole rack of research papers and data on this. As productivity rises through performance support, the need for courses will diminish. AI is being adopted by everyone and organisations are seeing hte benefits but like water it is a rising tide, with no ebb that may be dissolving old methods of training See my analysis here.

This very point was well made by Egle Vinauskaite and her recent report. This should be turned on its head, as the business is seeing massive uplift through productivity and performance support using AI outside of L&D, yet still thinks AI is about course production.

I suspect that footfall and stand space were down this year. I know one large company who spent half what they spent last year. Others, who I know are not making money, were still spending large. But there was just this general commentary and feeling that it was same old, same old.

Freelancers certainly finding it tough. This was confirmed in this fascinating study where dramatic falls in freelance jobs in hte very sweet spots where instructional designers sit - writing, coding, image generation. This is marked after the introduction of GenAI.

What was on show were old, not new, technologies. Where was the real meat around agentic workflow, the real impact that Sora and other tools will have on video in learning, how sophisticated RAG, large context windows and open-source models are in AI, it's real power in performance support. How often did you see those two words 'Performance support'? 

Loss of direction

There were good people saying the same thing we’ve heard for decades about our lack of business alignment and our failure to look outside of our bubble to what is happening in the real world. Donald Taylor always teases this out nicely and Heather Stefanski and Chara Balasubramaniam said what had to be said. But our failure on this front has been gargantuan. We are now a supply, not demand-led industry . We decide what people want – yes it’s DEI and Leadership and resilience – and hose it out. There is no attention paid to evaluation and we wilfully ignore the evidence showing that all of this spend could be a waste of time and money. The evidence is frightening – so we turn our head away. All of those people in those horrible Fred Perry type tops, with their embroidered logos, selling you renewal licences on their LMS, more content and compliance training. All of those little companies on the fringes, spending money they don't have but desperate to be noticed. We are not at the forefront of organisations leading the charge. This is a ship that has lost direction.

Flipped L&D

We may even have a flipped L&D, where we are serving some abstract notion of what we want organisations to be rather than supporting hte development of individuals within organisations. Our focus on Leadership has left the rest somewhat abandoned. Our focus on compliance is all about protecting the organisation from its own employees, the focus on DEI is about splitting organisations into groups and often setting them against each other. In all of this personal agency has been lost. We are being told what to do.

Speaking to investors they’re struggling to identify anything other than old-school companies, flat on ideas, low on revenues. In general, I spoke to business owners who are seeing revenues falter. They see what Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI are doing and want to see how this will make companies grow. In truth we have failed to tie learning to productivity and growth. We have tied it to the mast of old solutions and old technology. I genuinely don't see how we are now contributing to increasing productivity, bringing employees with us and generally improving organisations.

More courses

Few love what we do. They tend to roll their eyes at the mention of yet another several hours of e-learning from your LMS. They really don’t like that cartoony, page turning stuff, peppered with multiple choice questions and speech bubbles. We carpet bomb employees with compliance, DEI and other courses they don’t see a real need for – there’s always another abstract noun to cover – ‘resilience’ whatever…. We know that most learning takes place informally and that performance support really matters and that AI does this wonderfully – yet what do we see – wall to wall LMS and course content vendors. Even there, note that Skillsoft had a tiny stand - sign of the times!

Inward looking

Joan Keevill, Niall Gavin and a few others did a good job on reporting but notice how L&D do so little reporting now on social media. What there was often just puffery – who was speaking, how great they were, silly pics, not what they said, when what we needed was discussion and debate. I think that’s a sign of this inward -looking culture. We no longer share as much substance as we did. However, it was good to see John Helmer and Rob Clarke there doing their thing and hopefully we’ll get more from those great sources when its all over.

Future

These shows have to happen but they tend to become rituals. A chance to meet your mates, have some fun, get out of the office. But how many are actually counting the cost, wondering where all the leads are? Facing tough financial times? Did we challenge or backslap ourselves? I see little evidence, apart from Daniel Susskind, of real, honest challenge. To be fair I have found it at other conferences – the smaller events, OEB with its Big Debate, on social media, live podcasts on contentious subjects at the conference. Exel is such a soulless place. At least Olympia had some soul and you could pop out to the real London.

 

What an exhilarating experience! I just wrapped up a panel discussion at the Achievers Recognition Next 2024 one-day deep-dive forum in Toronto. Immersive events can be exhausting, but not today. My mind is still spinning from all the energy in the room. Between the topic (The Future of Recognition), the roster of smart panelists, and […]

The post The Future of Recognition: Where Do Employers Go From Here? appeared first on TalentCulture.

Corporate sustainability and performance: a bibliometric review for two decades
Dhawal Sharad Jadhav, Subrat Sarangi
Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, pp.-

Over the past years, business strategies have been designed to improve ‘firms' financial and non-financial performances and achieve sustainable development, leading to corporate sustainability. This article is a bibliometric analysis of two decades of the relationship between corporate sustainability and firm performance, identifying the research focus and the gaps for future research.

The bibliometric review of corporate sustainability and performance research is between January 2004 and June 2023. As per the Web of Science database, the theme's research commenced around 2004, growing gradually till 2023. Five hundred thirty-nine published articles by peer-reviewed ABDC-indexed A and A* journals in English have been reviewed. The bibliometrix package in R software is used with VOSviewer for the bibliometric analysis.

The study's findings indicate a lack of research on the theme from developed and underdeveloped nations. Further, the analysis reveals five clusters of research: (1) business sustainability, (2) corporate sustainability reporting, (3) corporate sustainability, strategy, and innovation, (4) stakeholder and corporate sustainability, and e) corporate sustainability assessment.

The future research areas proposed are on two major themes, namely, corporate sustainability and organizational competitive advantage, including sub-themes such as “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and financial performance” and “greenhouse-gas emissions” and “market orientations,” respectively. There is a need for more research in developing markets, a comprehensive definition of corporate sustainability, and further exploration of the theme linking strategy and innovation.

So we’ve tried our best to explain what is RSS and why it’s important to learn how to use. And as we said it’s hard to explain probably because the power of RSS is really something you need to experience first hand.

We’re really into RSS — RSS power users may be an appropriate title since we grab every RSS opportunity to make our lives easier and maximise our ability to interact effectively with others.

Remember that using RSS is a simple and effective way of keeping in touch when new information is added to a website without having to visit the site; instead information is brought to one location, a feed reader, to read whenever convenient.

Let us show you some of ways to use RSS with an RSS Reader.

Subscribing To Blogs

Read a lot of blogs by subscribing to their RSS feeds because blogging isn’t about working in a vacuum; it’s about the conversations.

Conversations aren’t about you just writing a reflective post that invites / encourages / evokes readers to express their opinion by writing comments on your post. It’s also about you engaging in conversations on others’ blogs by linking to their posts and writing comments on their posts.

To engage effectively in blogging conversations, you need to subscribe to blogs that interest you.

Effectively Managing Comments

One of the most important tips for keeping up the conversations on blogs is being very effective at managing your comments on other people’s blogs. Getting good at this is when you use tools that track comments posted on other people’s blogs plus subscribe to the RSS feed from these tools.

Whenever a person comments on a post that you have commented on, their comment is transferred from the post into your RSS Reader, so you can choose to immediately respond back if you want.

Managing Interactions on Flickr

Flickr is really cool Web 2.0 tool that didn’t initially grab us back when it started because we didn’t get the whole idea of sharing photos online and it’s whole social networking aspect.

Make Flickr friends and comment on their photos; your friends’ newest photos and any comments you make are automatically fed from Flickr to your RSS Reader (here are instructions of how to do it).

This interaction has shown a different glimpse of their life compared to what can be seen from reading their blogs or following them on twitter.

RSS is More Than Blog Posts

As Rafa Ribas said about a previous post on RSS:

There is more to RSS than just blog posts. You can RSS news, comments to your posts or others, audio and video, comic strips (I am an absolute fan of xkcd.com), other people’s bookmarks (del.icio.us), and so on and so forth. In summary, RSS is a bit daunting at first, but absolutely amazing in its potential.

We’ve only given a small glimpse into the ways to harness the power of RSS. Remember to look out for the RSS icon whenever you visit a web site and consider if subscribing to it’s feed will make your life easier and/or more fun.

FINAL THOUGHT

So have you set up a feed reader yet? If you’re just getting going – please let us know what’s working for you and what’s not.

If you are experienced with using RSS how about telling us about the different RSS feeds besides blog posts that you subscribe to, and why you like subscribing to them.

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider Subscribing For Free!

Knowledge management (KM) is more than just a concept; it’s a strategic approach that ensures your organization can leverage its collective expertise. You can develop a more effective strategy for securing leadership buy-in and implementing the program if you understand the benefits of knowledge management. In doing so, you’ll also have a better grasp on the true advantages of using a KM system to unlock the potential of your team’s insights and experiences, driving growth and innovation.

Without a robust knowledge management system, organizations risk losing valuable knowledge and missing critical opportunities to boost efficiency and enhance customer experiences, underscoring the importance of organizational knowledge. As you explore this article, you’ll discover how implementing robust knowledge management can transform your organization.

Defining Knowledge Management

Knowledge management is the process of systematically capturing, distributing, and effectively using knowledge within an organization, as described by KM expert Tom Davenport. This process not only preserves valuable insights but also enhances accessibility, ensuring that critical knowledge is available to those who need it when they need it.

The primary goal of knowledge management is to enhance performance by making the right information available to the right people at the right time. But what exactly constitutes this invaluable information, and how do we identify and leverage it within an organization? These crucial pieces of information are often referred to as knowledge assets.

What Are Knowledge Assets?

Knowledge assets, or intellectual capital, represent the accumulated organizational resources, including databases, content, guides, policies, and procedures. These assets are integral to knowledge management, leveraging organizational expertise to meet strategic KM goals. 

Similarly, knowledge management is essential for effectively managing knowledge assets, as it ensures that valuable organizational insights, data, and expertise are made accessible in the most organized and efficient manner possible.

The benefits of these assets are vast and help process knowledge management solution requests in a more streamlined approach. This is because leaders may see the value of company knowledge and Enterprise Intelligence in a new light. 

Knowledge assets come in four forms: experiential, routine, conceptual, and systemic, each playing a vital role in the organization’s knowledge framework. Here’s a detailed breakdown of these four categories:

1. Experiential knowledge assets

These are knowledge assets attained through the joint, direct involvement of the organization’s members. Known as tacit knowledge, this type of knowledge is gained through personal experience and context. 

For instance, employees might gain tacit knowledge by shadowing a more experienced coworker or asking questions of a subject matter expert, illustrating the advantages of knowledge management.

2. Routine knowledge assets

Routine knowledge assets, another type of tacit knowledge, have become embedded in the company’s actions and processes. These include knowledge about company culture or the best ways to perform everyday tasks, showcasing the benefits of knowledge management systems to business.

3. Conceptual knowledge assets

These are more definitive assets based on the judgments of customers and employees. Examples include brand designs, customer data such as customer profiles, market research, and customer insights reports, which demonstrate the advantages of the knowledge management system in enabling informed decisions.

4. Systemic knowledge assets

Like conceptual knowledge assets, systemic assets are definitive and explicit. They include company policies, procedures, and process documentation—standard documentation that employees must be familiar with to perform their jobs well. This emphasizes the benefits of knowledge management systems.

Recent trends in knowledge management emphasize the growing role of AI and machine learning in enhancing knowledge assets. Gartner research predicts that by 2026, enterprises leveraging AI systems will see at least a 25% performance advantage.

Proper classification of knowledge assets underpins improved decision-making, streamlines operations by reducing redundant efforts, and provides a clear overview of an organization’s existing knowledge and potential gaps. All these outcomes contribute to enhanced competitive advantage and innovation.

What Are The Benefits of Knowledge Management

The benefits of knowledge management in an organization extend across various facets of organizational functioning. Fostering a culture of learning and knowledge sharing enables your team to work more efficiently and effectively, ultimately leading to improved performance and outcomes. This strategic approach transforms individual insights into Enterprise Intelligence.

1. Faster access to knowledge and information

Speedy access to vital information can significantly ease onboarding new roles like a Director of Customer Service. A centralized knowledge management system ensures that new hires and experienced employees know exactly where to find the needed information, demonstrating one of the key benefits of knowledge management.

According to Bloomfire’s Value of Enterprise Intelligence Report, a strong knowledge management program can save employees 3.9 hours per week, boosting workforce capacity by nearly 10%. This is like gaining 98 full-time employees for every 1,000 staff members.

2. Improved efficiency and productivity

Efficiency in the workplace means streamlined processes where employees don’t waste time or energy. Knowledge management systems reduce the time spent searching for information, allowing employees to focus on more impactful activities, which is a prime example of the advantages of knowledge management systems.

Organizations with strong knowledge management practices see a 15-30% boost in productivity, leading to significant cost savings, according to an Aberdeen Group study. This translates directly to a healthier bottom line and more efficient operations.

3. Informed decision-making

Knowledge management equips decision-makers with a comprehensive view of the data and insights available throughout the organization, facilitating more informed decision-making. 

For instance, by providing quick access to past project outcomes, market research, and competitor analysis, knowledge management enables leaders to make more informed and strategic choices, rather than relying on partial information or intuition.

This advantage highlights the importance of knowledge management within an organization, enabling informed and strategic decision-making. While many types of knowledge management systems cater to this goal, a KM hub that fuels the use of Enterprise Intelligence, like Bloomfire, can supercharge this benefit.  

4. Enhanced customer service

Knowledge management enables customer-facing employees to access the company’s knowledge base swiftly and deliver the information customers need without delay. This capability is crucial in providing timely, consistent solutions to customers, highlighting the benefits of knowledge management systems to businesses.

A well-organized knowledge base, enhanced by AI-powered insights, can boost first contact resolution (FCR) rates by up to 25%. Such immediate access enhances customer satisfaction and strengthens brand loyalty. It also empowers employees to resolve inquiries efficiently, improving operational effectiveness. 

5. Cost savings

One of the fundamental advantages of knowledge management systems is cost-effectiveness. Savings arise from reducing employees’ time searching for information, needing fewer systems to store knowledge, and minimizing errors and duplicated efforts.

For example, a company implementing a KMS might see a significant drop in support tickets because customers can find answers themselves. Similarly, new hires can get up to speed much faster without extensive one-on-one training, saving valuable person-hours.

6. Increased employee engagement

Creating a knowledge base allows employees to contribute their expertise and insights, fostering a sense of ownership and satisfaction. This engagement benefits the business and its employees, benefiting knowledge management systems. 

Companies utilizing robust knowledge management practices have reported a 15% rise in job satisfaction. This often stems from a collaborative environment where shared understanding flourishes, leading to more informed decision-making and continuous improvement.

7. Innovation and growth

A culture of knowledge sharing empowers employees to add to the organization’s knowledge base, enhancing collective intelligence. This environment fosters innovation and unlocks new growth opportunities, highlighting the key benefits of knowledge management. 

For instance, when a sales team shares successful strategies and client feedback, other teams can learn from these experiences and adapt their approaches, leading to better outcomes. This kind of open exchange ensures that valuable insights are not lost but rather circulated and built upon throughout the company.

8. Better customer experiences

Providing employees with resources to share accurate, detailed, and current knowledge equips them to offer exceptional customer experiences. They get to address inquiries and provide consistent, reliable solutions — a foundation that fosters greater customer satisfaction and strengthens brand loyalty.

Negative experiences, such as prolonged hold times or inconsistent information, can erode customer trust. Conversely, quick and accurate responses reinforce customer loyalty and trust, showcasing the benefits of knowledge management systems.

9. Competitive advantage

An organization’s ability to effectively manage and leverage its knowledge is a valuable asset. Effective KM can provide a significant competitive advantage, enabling faster innovation, better decision-making, and improved operational efficiency. Harnessing knowledge can be the key to sustained success and market leadership.

For instance, a tech company that efficiently shares insights from customer feedback across its product development and marketing teams can quickly adapt its offerings to market demands, outpacing rivals. This strategic use of information drives continuous improvement and strengthens its market position.

10. Accelerated learning and development

Knowledge management accelerates learning and development within an organization by providing immediate and organized access to a wealth of information. Instead of employees reinventing the wheel or spending excessive time searching for answers, KM systems centralize best practices, lessons learned, training materials, and expert insights. 

The available knowledge enables new hires to onboard more quickly, existing employees to acquire new skills or understand new processes rapidly, and teams to build upon past successes and failures, fostering a continuous learning environment that drives proficiency and innovation.

11. Risk mitigation and compliance

Robust internal knowledge contributes to risk mitigation. Centralized repositories of policies, procedures, and best practices ensure that all employees have access to the most current and accurate information. It reduces the likelihood of errors, inconsistencies, or deviations from established protocols that could lead to financial penalties, reputational damage, or operational failures. 

Furthermore, a well-structured knowledge base allows for the systematic capture and analysis of past incidents, near misses, and lessons learned. Using these historical data, organizations can identify potential vulnerabilities proactively and implement preventative measures before risks materialize.

Case Studies on Key Benefits of Knowledge Management

Bloomfire’s case studies highlight several key benefits of implementing a robust knowledge management system, with a primary focus on improved efficiency and enhanced information accessibility. Organizations utilizing Bloomfire have reported significant reductions in the time employees spend searching for information, directly translating to increased productivity.

For instance, consumer packaged goods leader Conagra has significantly reduced the time its employees spend searching for information by implementing a centralized knowledge management system. This change underscores the importance of knowledge management in an organization. 

Similarly, mortgage lender PennyMac has leveraged a knowledge management platform to ensure its customer service agents can quickly access the necessary information. This capability has substantially improved customer support, showcasing the advantages of knowledge management systems in delivering exceptional customer experiences.

These examples illustrate the key benefits of knowledge management systems to businesses by addressing challenges caused by information inaccessibility, thus optimizing operations and enhancing productivity throughout their organizations.

What Are the Key Advantages of a Knowledge Management System?

Organizations recognize the advantages of knowledge management systems as essential to their success. These systems are no longer just tools for efficiency; they are the central nervous system of an adaptive and intelligent enterprise.

Implementing an effective knowledge management system can lead to numerous positive outcomes, which include:

• Centralized information: A KMS provides a single repository for all organizational knowledge, ensuring consistent access and reducing duplicate efforts.
• Enhanced accessibility: Employees can quickly and easily find the information they need, regardless of their location or department, thanks to user-friendly search functionalities.
• Scalability: As the organization grows, a KMS can scale to accommodate increased data and user needs, ensuring continued effectiveness and efficiency.
• Streamlined content curation: Intuitive interfaces, often with rich text editors and multimedia support, make it simple for employees to contribute and update knowledge articles, FAQs, guides, and other content types.
• Knowledge analytics: A good KMS provides analytics and reporting on content usage, popular articles, search trends, and information gaps. This data helps identify what knowledge is being sought, what’s missing, and how to improve the knowledge base over time.
• Automated reminders: Some KMSs can automate content review cycles or send reminders to content owners to ensure updates, keeping the knowledge base current and relevant.
• Integration with other tools: A KMS integrates with business systems, such as CRM (customer relationship management) and help desk software, to empower customer service. Likewise, connecting with LMS (learning management system) and BI (business intelligence) tools helps facilitate continuous learning and provides insights into the business impact.

Harnessing the key knowledge management system advantages significantly depends on your choice of knowledge management solution. A system that aligns with your organization’s specific needs, integrates seamlessly with existing workflows, and offers intuitive features like robust search functionality and AI capabilities will maximize these benefits.

How to Get The Most Out of Your Knowledge Management Program

Implementing a knowledge management strategy is paramount to harness these KM benefits. This strategy involves a detailed plan that helps your company collect, store, and distribute information to leverage the benefits of knowledge management systems. 

Implementing such a strategy can centralize and democratize your company’s knowledge, simplify information searches for employees, and enhance the absorption and application of organizational knowledge, underscoring the importance of knowledge management within an organization. Secure an effective KM strategy by doing the following:

• Develop a comprehensive plan: This plan should outline the procedures for collecting, storing, and disseminating knowledge within your organization on an ongoing basis.
• Encourage a culture of knowledge sharing: Foster an environment where employees are encouraged to share, update, and use knowledge regularly. This enhances the advantages of knowledge management systems by improving collaboration and innovation.
• Leverage technology effectively: Utilize the right tools and platforms, such as a knowledge management platform, that support the management and accessibility of knowledge. This is crucial for maximizing the advantages of the knowledge management system.
• Monitor and adapt: Regularly review and adjust your knowledge management practices to align with organizational changes and goals. Conduct a knowledge audit that involves taking inventory of your organization’s knowledge and evaluating how this knowledge is captured, organized, and preserved.

Integrating these practices means your organization can fully experience the advantages of a knowledge management system, thereby optimizing its intellectual capital. This holistic approach ensures that valuable insights and information are readily accessible and leveraged across all departments, thereby elevating the already promising benefits of knowledge management strategy implementation.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a knowledge management system help organizations?

Knowledge management systems help organizations thrive by enabling effective knowledge sharing, supporting informed decision-making, and promoting innovation by connecting diverse expertise. These systems further enhance their value through seamless integration with other business tools, ensuring consistent application of knowledge across the organization.

What are the qualitative benefits of knowledge management?

The qualitative knowledge management system benefits to the organization include fostering a culture of continuous learning, collaboration, and innovation, alongside improving employee satisfaction and engagement. This enhances an organization’s adaptability, decision-making, and internal and external relationships.

How does a knowledge management system benefit employees?

A knowledge management system benefits employees by providing easy access to information, facilitating collaboration, and supporting informed decision-making, leading to increased productivity and job satisfaction. This central hub of organizational knowledge empowers them to learn continuously, innovate, and contribute more effectively to the company’s success.

What is the value of a knowledge base in knowledge management?

A knowledge base serves as the central repository for an organization’s collective intelligence, making information readily accessible and searchable. A well-maintained knowledge base enhances productivity, improves decision-making, and preserves valuable institutional knowledge.

Embracing Knowledge Management for Organizational Success

As you consider the benefits of knowledge management for your organization, it becomes clear that a robust KM strategy is essential for unlocking success. Keep in mind that implementing knowledge management is not just about implementing a system; it’s about fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement. To learn more about how a tailored knowledge management system can benefit your organization, talk to our KM Expert today.

The post 11 Benefits of Knowledge Management (+ KMS Advantages You Shouldn’t Miss) appeared first on Bloomfire.

Gary F Fisher and Dean Fido explain what the experience of medical imaging professionals can teach academics about the future impacts and opportunities of generative AI

The post Learning lessons from medical imaging about what AI transformation really means appeared first on Wonkhe.

In this week’s interview, Michael's guest is Dr CONRAD HUGHES, Director-General of the International School of Geneva, or Ecolint.

In the centenary year of its foundation, Dr. Hughes talks about many things including the school’s history, what its pupils and students are taught today and why; and what Ecolint has learned in one hundred years about contributing to being part of “international” Geneva.

 

 

IVY EXEC Research Studies

I was asked by IVY Research Studies what I thought was the future of collaboration. What do you think of my predictions below?

The future of collaboration

The future of collaboration will evolve through the convergence of a range of hand-held and wearable mobile devices informed by UX accessibility principles and social media theory. Multi-modal and immersive blended collaborative spaces will be inclusive. Some trends to look out for in the next 3 to 5 years are:

– single login for cross platform utilisation

– enhancements in multi-media input and output

– personal drones to promote walking collaboration meetings

– the integration of AI generators in personalisation of collaborative spaces

– advancements in the use of templates for collaboration events e.g. brainstorming

– 3D webinar circles blended with face-to-face events

Dead fish market

I have been saying for some time that the VLE and LMS market is in for a dramatic shift. These are two very different markets with two separate sets of products, both global and lucrative. Both are also crammed with legacy technologies and both encourage old and 'not fit for purpose' standards, like SCORM (not even supported), that cripple their ability to adapt to AI-driven approaches to learning. The sector is a bit of a dead fish.

The LMS and VLE market is set for a change, as new AI platforms emerge. The investors are ready, the need is there, we are now moving into the phase when they will be built. It will take time, as incumbents are locked in, often on 3 year licence deals, and they are integrated but things will change. They always do.

Investor hiatus

Investors have been in a hiatus, waiting to see how things shake out. Guess what - they’re starting to shake out. AI is not just the new kid on the block, it is the only new kid on the block. It is THE technology of the age. The top 7 tech stocks, all AI companies, now have a combined market capitalisation of $12.5 trillion, more than the collective gross domestic product of New York, Tokyo, LA, Paris, London, Seoul, Chicago, San Francisco, Osaka, Dallas and Shanghai. This is no fad, neither is it the future – it is now.

The analysts are also all at sea with their grids and lack of foresight. In truth investors that bought into the LMS market are struggling to realise the revenues and profits. Some very large companies are struggling with their shareprice and meeting revenue and profit expectations. Even at the medium and lower levels, there is suspicion that value is falling. The learning content creation companies should be using AI (and are) and so prices will plummet. It is difficult to see why investors would put big valuations on dated content or bespoke production. Would you invest in a video production learning company having seen Sora? A major Hollywood investor has just pulled $850 million from a studio build. Investors in online learning will be thinking along the same lines.

Accenture buys Udacity

That brings us to Accenture buying Udacity (for peanuts) and saying they plan to invest $1 billion (yes $1 BILLION) in LearnVantage – an AI-first learning platform. Interesting move. They say it will be an AI platform... then make the mistake of saying it will primarily teach AI. That makes no sense. It is the old thinking of - let’s build a pile of courses. Consultancies don’t build good tech – neither did Udacity - and if Accenture lose their objectivity as solutions consultants then they do themselves damage. You can’t be a consultant then turn and say – by the way the 'optimal' solution is our platform. 

However, this doesn’t really matter, as this is just the first line in the sand in a major market shift. If they don’t succeed, someone else will. The huge tech companies could do this and may well enter the market but their eyes are on bigger fish - productivity tools. They are never good in the learning market. They're not looking for gold, as they make a ton from selling the shovels.

The LMS is dead, long live the LMS!

Some love them, some hate them. Some love to hate them.

1. Zombie LMS

Some organisations have a Zombie LMS. At the very mention of its name, managers and learners roll their eyes. Organisations can get locked into LMS contracts that limit their ability and agility to adopt innovations. Many an LMS lies like an old fossil, buried in the enterprise software stack, churning away like an old heating system – slow, inefficient and in constant need of repair. Long term licences, inertia and the cost of change, see the organisation locked into a barely functional world of half-dead software and courses.

2. Functional creep

Our LMS does everything. “Social?” “Yes, that as well”. Once the LMS folk get their hooks into you, they extend their reach into all sorts of areas where they don’t belong. Suddenly they have a ‘chat’ offer, that is truly awful – but part of the ‘complete LMS solution’. For a few extra bucks they solve all of your performance support, corporate comms, HR and talent management problems, locking you bit by bit into the deep dungeon they’ve built for your learners, never to see the light again.

3. Courses, of course

The LMS also encourages an obsession with courses. I’m no fan of Maslow’s clichéd pyramid of needs but he did come up with a great line, ”If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” That is precisely the problem with the LMS - give an organisation an LMS and every problem is solved by a ‘course’. This has led to a culture of over-engineered, expensive and long-winded course production that aligned with the use of the LMS and not with organisational or business needs. What we end up with are a ton of crap leadership, DEI and complaince courses.

4. Cripples content

Throw stuff into some VLEs and LMSs and it spits out some really awful looking stuff. Encouraged to load up half-baked course notes, teachers and trainers knock out stuff that conforms solidly to that great law of content production – GIGO – garbage in garbage out.  Graphic, text, graphic, text, multiple-choice question….. repeat. The Disneyfication of learning has happened with tons of hokey, cartoon and speech bubble stuff. Out goes simulations and anything that doesn’t conform to the simple, flat, linear content that your LMS can deliver or even worse.... gamification - some infantile game that feels as though it os designed fro 10 year olds!

5. One size fits all

With the rise of AI, adaptive and personalised learning, the LMS becomes an irritation. They don’t cope well with systems that deliver smart, personalised learning pathways. The sophisticated higher-level learning experiences are locked out by the limited ability of the LMS to cope with such innovation. The LMS becomes a sort of cardboard SCORM template through which all content must fit. But it’s the ‘learn by doing’, performance support and experiential learning that most LMSs really squeeze out of the mix.

6. Compliance hell

We all know what happened in compliance training. L&D used the fallacious argument that the law and regulators demand oodles of long courses. In fact, no law and very few regulators demand long, bad, largely useless online courses. This doesn’t work. In fact, it is counterproductive, often creating a dismissive reaction among learners. Yet the LMS encourages this glib solutionism.

7. Completion cul-de-sacs

With the LMS, along came SCORM, a ‘standard’ that in one move pushed everyone towards ‘course completion’. Learning via an LMS was no longer a joyous thing. It became an endless chore, slogging through course after course until complete. Gone is the idea that learning journeys can be interesting, personal affairs. SCORM is a completion whip that is used to march learners in lock-step towards completion.

8. Limits data

Given the constraints of most LMSs, there is the illusion that valuable data is being gathered, when in fact, it’s merely who does what course, when, and did they complete. As the world gets more data hungry, the LMS may be the very thing that stops valuable data from being gathered, managed and used.

To be fair...

To be fair a VLE or LMS was often the prime mover for shifting people away from pure classroom delivery. This is still an issue in many organisations but at least they effected a move, at the enterprise level, away from often lacklustre and expensive classroom courses. In fact, with blended learning, you can manage your pantheon of delivery channels, including classroom delivery, through your LMS (classroom planning is often included). As enterprise software they also scale, control what can be chaos and duplication, provide consistency and strategic intent. You do need to identify and manage your people, store stuff, deliver stuff and manage data and nn LMS is simply a single integrated piece of software. You may want to do without one but you’ll end up integrating the other things you use – and that will be, a sort of LMS. There are also security issues which they handle 

There will always be a need for single solutions. We can seem however that this has descended into the mess that is the all-embracing, death-clutch that is ‘Talent management’.

Conclusion

Organisations need enterprise software. We’ve been through the course repository model, that got stuck in the rut of rather flat e-learning. The new model is more dialogue than monologue. The incumbent VLE and LMS models need to adapt quickly or be replaced by those who do AI well. The VLE and LMS market looks like something out of the early 2000s, that’s because it is something out of that era. Many of these companies started then and having moved from client-server structure to the cloud, still have legacy code and lack the flexibility to work in this new world. My guess is that some stand a chance, many do not. If all you have done is add some prompted creation tools to your offer – forget it.

We have a chance to break out of this repository of courses model, crippled by box-ticking compliance, impoverished on data by SCORM to create more dynamic platforms that cope with formal and informal learning, also performance support, Tutorbots and data that informs learning and personal development. AI is the technology that appears to promise some sort of escape velocity from these repositories. You can already feel the blood drain from the old model as the new tools become available and improve so quickly.

A formula for calculating learning efficacy, (E), considering the importance of each criterion and the specific ratings for peer learning, is:

This abstract formula provides a way to quantify learning efficacy, considering various educational criteria and their relative importance (weights) for effective learning.

Variable	Definition	Description
S	Scalability	Ability to accommodate a large number of learners
I	Information fidelity	Quality and reliability of information
C	Cost effectiveness	Financial efficiency of the learning method
F	Feedback quality	Quality of feedback received
U	Uniformity	Consistency of learning experience

Weights for each variables are derived from empirical data and expert consensus.

All values are on a scale of 0-4, with a “4” representing the highest level.

Scalability	Information fidelity	Cost-benefit	Feedback quality	Uniformity
4.00	3.00	4.00	3.00	1.00

Here is a summary table including all values for each criterion, learning efficacy calculated with weights, and Efficacy-Scale Score (ESS) for peer learning, cascade training, and expert coaching.

The Efficacy-Scale Score (ESS) can be calculated by multiplying the efficacy (E) of a learning method by the number of learners (N).

This table provides a detailed comparison of the values for each criterion across the different learning methods, the calculated learning efficacy values considering the specified weights, and the Efficacy-Scale Score (ESS) for each method.

Type of learning	Scalability	Information fidelity	Cost effectiveness	Feedback quality	Uniformity	Learning efficacy	# of learners	Efficacy-Scale Score
Peer learning	4.00	2.50	4.00	2.50	1.00	3.20	1000	3200
Cascade training	2.00	1.00	2.00	0.50	0.50	1.40	500	700
Expert coaching	0.50	4.00	1.00	4.00	3.00	2.20	60	132

Of course, there are many nuances in individual programmes that could affect the real-world effectiveness of this simple model. The model, grounded in empirical data and simplified to highlight core determinants of learning efficacy, leverages statistical weighting to prioritize key educational factors, acknowledging its abstraction from the multifaceted nature of educational effectiveness and assumptions may not capture all nuances of individual learning scenarios.

Peer learning

The calculated learning efficacy for peer learning, , is 3.20. This value reflects the weighted assessment of peer learning’s strengths and characteristics according to the provided criteria and their importance.

By virtue of scalability, ESS for peer learning is 24 times higher than expert coaching.

Cascade training

For Cascade Training, the calculated learning efficacy, , is approximately 1.40. This reflects the weighted assessment based on the provided criteria and their importance, indicating lower efficacy compared to peer learning.

Cascade training has a higher ESS than expert coaching, due to its ability to achieve scale.

Learn more: Why does cascade training fail?

Expert coaching

For Expert Coaching, the calculated learning efficacy, , is approximately 2.20. This value indicates higher efficacy than cascade training but lower than peer learning.

However, the ESS is the lowest of the three methods, primarily due to its inability to scale. Read this article for a scalability comparison between expert coaching and peer learning.

Image: The Geneva Learning Foundation Collection © 2024

Confusion about the path to success obscures the obvious. There are four factors of success. Not three. Not five. Four and only four. The path is the same for everyone.

Performance management systems: South Korean study shows authentic leadership positively impacts job satisfaction and performance management participation
Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp.13-14

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

This study from South Korea first confirmed that authentic leadership positively affects job satisfaction. The results also showed that employees’ participation in developing performance measures partially mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and job satisfaction.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.