CorpU Weekly Digest: Learning Excellence (2012-Feb-06)

Topics: Learning Excellence

CorpU publishes three weekly digests for its members and for emerging and established learning leaders who see the value of an aligned learning function to deliver business impact and results. Here are this week's headlines in learning excellence: 

• Leading change in by mastering cycles, or how the technology innovation cycle can be used by learning organizations
• Badges, skill certification, and the social enterprise: how are you socializing the concept?
• Steve Jobs and customer loyalty: the lessons can be applied for internal customers as well
• The Business of Learning: Kenexa Acquires Outstart
• Books
• Webinars
• Conferences

 Leading change in by mastering cycles, or how the technology innovation cycle can be used by learning organizations
Over the last half century, managers have faced one wave of information technology innovation after another, each promising to change the way companies do business. Many of those innovations have, by the way. The sheer ubiquity of computing and communications devices and people's devotion to their electronic devices bear witness to the transformation. Still, at any one point in time, an executive is likely to feel more or less inundated by the current wave, unsure of what all the commotion is about, unable to avoid the topic in everyday business conversation and suspicious that the latest gizmo is not the Next Big Thing but the Next Big Sell. Think of the IT innovation wave machine as a kind of institutional apparatus that serves to produce waves of innovations as just described. Many largely "invisible hands" are busily at work inside the IT innovation wave machine, and their work has a lot to do with the eventual success or failure of the innovation. From the outside, the wave machine produces waves that carry the innovation through five stages: 1) breaking the surface, 2) sending out ripples, 3) causing a squawk, 4) building the swell and 5) riding the crest. These same lessons, in a matter of speaking, can be applied to leading your learning organization effectively. Read the Sloan/MIT Review article "The Manager's Guide to IT Innovation Waves"

 Badges, skill certification, and the social enterprise: how are you socializing the concept?
Early adopters have been using social network tools inside the enterprise to make expert identification visible on the employee profile, by issuing badges, for example, once an employee masters a particular piece of equipment or successfully completing training on leadership skills. Besides improving employee development by improved visibility, organizations have been leverage the concept of badges to provide a self-directed "pathway to improve, learn and grow." In addition to offering badges to employees for the completion of certain types of learning activities — Six Sigma training or learning specific computer skills — badges could also be used to encourage busy employees to step up to participate in teams and other collaborative projects. The challenge? Making sure that you recognize where it can help and then helping others see that by socializing the concept in your organization. Read the article, "Measuring Competency One Badge at a Time?"

 Steve Jobs and customer loyalty: the lessons can be applied for internal customers as well
The amount of connections associated with Steve Jobs's influence and practices at Apple has filled hundreds of articles in the past months. Some of these articles have been extremely insightful about the importance of consistency of experience, particularly in the case of the productized service, such as offered at the Apple store. In this article, the keynote speaker at the the Institute of Service Excellence at SMU Global Conference on Service Excellence 2011, noted that Apple is "an extremely profitable outfit" and its success is underlined by its innovative service delivery that centers on the customer experience. Many of the other speakers and panelists at the conference stressed the significance of service as a competitive business tool, and with that, the criticality of getting the right people to deliver that service. Throughout the conference notes, many of the speakers explained how Apple has had the success in service by looking beyond the products to provide a satisfying customer experience. Apple delivers "insanely great experiences" at their stores not by lip service, but by spirited service where there is passion and emotional engagement. If loyalty translates to business impact, how have you transformed your learning organization to deliver insanely great experiences? Read "For a competitive edge in services, invest in the right people and processes"

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 The Business of Learning: New Major Products, Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnerships

The mergers and acquisitions continue at a high pace in 2012 an continues to suggest better solutions for integrated approaches to talent management (e.g., recruitment, development, retention). Kenexa, known for its integrated talent acquisition and talent management solutions that have impacted 110 million employees, has agreed to acquire Outstart, a company with deep roots producting systems and applications for learning content management and recently moving into learning management systems, mobile learning distribution/delivery, and content development. What remains to be seen is what exactly Kenexa will integrate, and why. Read the press release.

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 Books To Read

In the revised edition of Managing Organizational Behavior, Henry Tosi and Massimo Pilati cover the field of organizational behavior in a theoretical and applied way that both students and instructors will find engaging and informative. For use in introductory and advanced undergraduate courses, the book covers a broad range of topics in the field, including: personality, motivation, groups, power, and leadership. It integrates the most current research in a clear and accessible manner and incorporates new thinking in the field with tried and true practices. At its heart, this book is a comprehensive introduction to the present state of knowledge in the field of organizational behavior. The authors treat a relevant and critical theme in organizational studies: the systematic and scientific analysis of individual behavior in different organized contexts. This book identifies and analyzes three distinct and interdependent perspectives on organizational behavior. Buy Now 

Strategy and leadership have become separated in the business world. Legendary Harvard Business School Professor Cynthia Montgomery reveals why and how they need to be re-integrated for ultimate business success. Cynthia Montgomery teaches the globally-renowned OPM (Owner, President, and Manager) course at Harvard Business School. Montgomery's course teaches them a totally new way to understand leadership, a way that fuses leadership with strategy. Her approach calls for a reset of current thinking about both. She shows that strategy is not just a tool for outwitting the competition—it is the most powerful means a leader has for shaping a firm itself. In book The Strategist: Putting Leadership Back Into Strategy, Montgomery takes the readers through the paces of her world-renowned course, teaching them how to develop the skills and sensibilities that living strategy and real leadership demand. No other book marries strategy and leadership in the same way—a way readers will find challenging, intriguing, and ultimately, inspiring. Buy Now

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 Webinars 

Social Media and Trainers
Date: Wednesday, February 22, 2012, 18.30-19.30 GMT / 12:30pm ET
Presenters: Jane Hart will be hosting the following webinar In conversation with Jane Bozarth Register now 

Leveraging Differences for Business Success
Date: February 23, 2012, 1pm ET
Presenters: Martin Davidson, PhD, teaches Leadership and Organizational Behavior at Darden Register now

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 Conferences

Sixth Annual National HR in Hospitality Conference & Expo
Date: February 27 - 29, 2012
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA Register now 

HR 2012
Date: March 13-16, 2012
Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA Register now

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