Some of you know I actually have a ‘real job’ where each and every day I get to work with great people and turn ideas into action. That role sees me employed by TELUS; an organization that was recently inducted into Canada’s 10 Most Admired Corporate Cultures Hall of Fame. Yes, I’m a lucky lad. My buddy Sameer Patel called me a ‘practicing futurist‘ over lunch a few weeks ago in Palo Alto. At first I laughed, but since then the term has been rattling around in my brain somewhat incessantly. I suppose it’s true. By way of example, at TELUS, we put together an infographic showcasing four years of change as it relates to our learning and collaboration strategy. We’ve released the infographic on
Culture Archive
Whether you work for a private family-owned business, a publicly traded corporation or in the kindergarten-to-higher-education continuum somewhere, you’re going to have to define learning – whether it’s for your employees, colleagues or students. So let’s examine the “so what” learning definition – meaning why learning is present in organizations. As 2012 creeps along, the so-what of learning remains undefined for many employees and organizations, which is causing a disservice. If learning departments aren’t defining this, learning will remain thought of as training, and training will forever continue to be associated with a classroom- or e-learning-only modality. Worse, splinter groups will form, their own definitions of learning will surface and, tragically, learning fiefdoms will become the norm. As a consequence, definitions will be everywhere and
Interlocu-what? If 2011 was about quid-pro-quo … or reciprocity as I deemed it, it’s my wish for the year 2012 to be about the interlocutor. Let’s first start with the definition. An interlocutor is: An individual that actively takes part in a conversation with other individuals; someone who speaks or facilitates a conversation. Let’s face it, the shift to a virtual operating model is on. Corporations are altering (and allowing) their employees to work from home, a coffee shop, the road as well as the office even with dwindling square footage footprints, per the Wall Street Journal . In my opinion, this is a healthy piece of organizational evolution. Academic institutions are also shifting to a virtual operating model, albeit slower than their corporate cousins.
What is a mistake? Is it a blunder? Misinterpretation? Oversight? A momentary lapse in judgement? It’s perhaps all of those; but one avenue often overlooked is that a mistake has value. A mistake, however you define it, has tuition value. And to be blunt, organizations that sweep mistakes under the proverbial rug, without using them as an opportunity for learning, undermine in entirety their tuition value. However a mistake occurs, whomever is to blame and whatever negative consequence it resulted in is immaterial. What is key for any organization is what we learned from the mistake such that the individual, the team and the organization benefit thereafter. One doesn’t (necessarily) teach mistakes but once they occur, the tuition value can kick in if steps are