Of course, the planners wanted a topic soon after inviting me so I made up something broad and general--staying relevant--hoping that clarity would hit me as I actually prepared the presentation.
That was last spring, when I was finishing up my sabbatical and immersed in data from others' and my studies that paint a startlingly different view of the current state of training than is generally acknowledged. That data points to a training system in which employers are increasingly less invested in developing their employees and in which workers assume the balance of the investment--that is, if they want to remain employed.
Although the situation scares me a bit, I also see a lot of opportunity for training professionals, although much of that opportunity will be outside of the employer-provided network of trainers. I also think that this situation can empower workers to take more control of their own careers. That, in turn, can lead to more satisfying careers. But I think that we also need a system that provides that support and, as far as I can tell, no such system really exists.
At least, not yet.
The result was a presentation about whose technical content I feel quite secure. But I had no idea how others would react to the presentation.
The e-Learning Guy posted the first reaction online and it's generally positive.
http://elearningguy.blogspot.com/2010/11/cstd-reflections-saul-carliner-and.htmlI'm anxiously awaiting the official survey responses to get a sense of how the rest of the audience felt.
A copy of the visuals is provided here, though I'm not sure that, on their own, they fully deliver the message.
http://education.concordia.ca/~scarliner/recentmaterials.html
1 comment:
Hi Saul
This sounds like a really interesting perspective and it fits in with the career coaching concepts of managing your career path vs. being a passive employee depending on a corporation that has no loyalty.
The issue of course is anxiety on the part of the training professional... sheltering under the "safety" of a corporation vs. being an autonomous service provider.
I like the metaphor of surfing changes vs. drowning in them. It's something I learned from a book on coping with grief by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. I suppose another metaphor is the concept of driving while looking at the horizon vs. driving looking right in front of you... the steering changes are smaller and smoother.
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