We've talked about three key components of learning transfer: Learning itself, behavior, and the results. So, let me ask a couple of questions. When we talking about learning transfer, what is it we're actually talking about? And let's use leadership as an example. If we talk about learning transfer, is it just the learning which is transferred? And if we are, is learning about simple knowledge transfer? A lot of programs on leadership look at the concepts of leadership. If we take those concepts, is it the concepts? Is that learning? And is that enough? Or is it something more than that? And if we look at the factors that influence learning and transfer, was it the training program that changed somebody's leadership, or was it other factors that are involved in the environment of learning that influences our capabilities to transfer? And how do we know the one single learning event caused the transfer? These are all questions around simple learning, and whether learning actually is the key impetus for transfer. If we are not concerned with simple knowledge transfer, are we simply talking about the application of the knowledge, and defining how that knowledge related to the application? If it's not just about transferring knowledge, what are the other aspects could it be? Well, we could be talking about behavioral change. Leadership is not only a concept, but it's actually a physical change in behavior. What we want people to do, is to develop a leadership process where they're changing the way things are interacting, and the way that they interact with their environment and the people. So, are we talking about behavioral change in transfer here? If we are, how do we know that learning transfer helps and hinders the behavioral change? What are the key factors if you are looking at the behavioral change, that changes the way people behave. Is it training and learning event critical to behavioral change? Or is it modeling, or osmosis, or simply being with people who demonstrate similar behaviors that make people change? And if we are talking about behavioral change, sometimes people in certain situations where there's a lot of stress, revert back to a previous behavioral change. So, how do we know that we can sustain a behavioral change, because what supports that behavioral change? If we are not talking about behavioral change, are we talking about the measurement of a process of behavioral change? How do we know that that behavioral changes happened? How do we know that we can measure it? What sort of things should we be including to make sure that meaningful change that we talked about has occurred, and meaningful for whom? A lot of money is being put into measurement processes. Point of it is to see that that behavioral change is actually having impact and adding value. The improvement of performance brought about by a behavioral change, are we consumed with the results, and if we are, what are the outcomes results that show that learning event increased performance? Not only to the individual, but to the organization and to the team. In a VUCA world, a world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, chaotic, and ambiguous, where the world is changing rapidly, what we learnt yesterday, may have to be unlearned today. We can no longer afford to spend resources in ways that do not impact and add value. Usually in the past, decision makers in organization has seen learning and development either optimistically. So, they've had faith in learning, and development and to see this essential part of the business. In times of hardship, they keep their faith, and keep investing their money, but they have little evidence to support and justify that it works, and that has impact and adds value. There are pessimists, who in times of hardship let go of learning development. And learning development have to experience the label that we call F.O.G. Which is a mnemonic for first out of the gate when redundancies are handed out. The pessimists though, find it difficult when the economy turns up to upscale their workforce in order to quickly take advantage of the upturn. Our perceptions about learning need to change. And to view it as a continuous process, we should design to have impact and add value. Which justifies faith in people's capability, and provides a way of building wealth, and well-being for everyone in society. Governments measure the educational attainment of people using SATS, which measure the degree to which content is learnt. Their concerns for the well-being of their citizens, they attain the qualifications both quantity and quality. Clinicians, both physiologically and mentally, work out what a patient would be doing when fully recovered. They are concerned with expanding a healthy population. It's not just educating a population to assist healthy choice, is actually influencing people to choose the healthy option. And businesses often define competences which describe the intended behavior, which is supposed to demonstrate when a role or a task is performed. They are concerned with expanding the wealth of an organization, ensuring the highest quality and the highest quantity, and the highest return on their investment for stakeholders. Individuals, groups, societies, and organizations are all learning. Recently, the climate for learning has changed.
