Spring is now upon us and that means blooming flowers, warmer days filled with sunshine, and of course, baseball—all wonderful inspiration for metaphors.
And since we’re always thinking about lifelong learning, we couldn’t help but liken the idea of creating a successful, high-impact learning business to the idea of hitting a grand slam in baseball.
In this episode of the Leading Learning podcast, Celisa and Jeff discuss the tremendous opportunity and responsibility that currently exist for learning businesses as well as what it takes to hit the “learning business grand slam”.
To tune in, just click below. To make sure you catch all of the future episodes, be sure to subscribe by RSS or on iTunes. And, if you like the podcast, be sure to give it a tweet!
Listen to the Show
Read the Show Notes
[00:18] – A preview of what will be covered in this podcast where we discuss what it takes to be a successful, high impact learning business.
[00:38] – Our sponsor this quarter is ReviewMyLMS, a collaboration between our company, Tagoras, and 100Reviews, the company that is behind the very successful ReviewMyAMS site.
As the name suggests, ReviewMyLMS is a site where users can share and access reviews of learning management systems, but in this case, the focus is specifically on systems that are a good fit for learning businesses, meaning organizations that market and sell lifelong learning.
Contribute a review and you will get access to all existing and future reviews—there are already more than 100 on the site. And, if you don’t have review to contribute, there is also a subscription option. Just go to reviewmylms.com to get all the details.
The Third Sector of Education
[01:56] – As loyal podcast listeners know, we focus a lot on the important third sector of education that operates outside the spotlight. This third sector serves millions of adult learners globally as they move beyond K-12 and higher education and into what we call “the other fifty years.”
This sector has become more critical as technology has transformed how information is managed, how knowledge is created, and—more recently—the role human beings play in those processes.
Even as we strive to improve K-12 and higher education, millions of adults exit these systems each year with another 50 years or more of life and work in front of them. Some have inadequate knowledge and skills; most have knowledge and skills that will become less valuable or even obsolete within a short period of time; few are prepared to be the effective lifelong learners they need to be.
Barring the unlikely emergence of the massive government involvement that characterizes (and sometimes plagues) K-12 and higher education, this third sector will continue to be the province of internal training departments and of businesses—both commercial and nonprofit—that serve the market for adult lifelong learning customers—i.e., the learning businesses this podcast focuses on.
To be a learning business in this day and age represents a tremendous opportunity. The demand and need for lifelong learning has never been higher.
Already we’ve seen companies reap huge financial returns from serving this market. (Exhibit A: Lynda.com, purchased for $1.5 billion by LinkedIn.)
At the same time, given the nature of the work involved, to be a learning business is also a tremendous responsibility.
Learning businesses are an increasingly important part of our global social fabric. To the extent that they are successful, not simply in generating financial returns, but also in achieving real learning impact in the markets they serve, we all benefit tremendously.
What Does it Take to Be A Successful, High-Impact Learning Business?
[06:01] – The formula, while certainly not easy to execute, is relatively straightforward. It involves a focus on three fundamental areas:
- Business: Having a clear vision for creating positive change through learning in a well-defined target market. Having a coherent strategy for pursuing the vision along with the quantity and quality of resources necessary to implement and sustain it.
- Instructional: Finding, developing, and retaining high-caliber design and teaching talent capable of facilitating high-impact, measurable learning experiences. (In some cases this means traditional teachers and instructional designers, but in many—perhaps most—cases, it will mean volunteer subject matter experts and entrepreneurial individuals who possess subject matter expertise, often acting without any professional instructional design help.)
- Individual: Actively supporting customers and prospects to help them become more capable, effective lifelong learners, empowering them to exercise much more control over identifying, pursuing, and achieving the learning outcomes needed to support their life and work.
To focus on and excel in each of these areas—the business area, the instructional area, and the individual—is to load the bases.
To push the metaphor a bit further, the “grand slam”—batting all those bases in with a home run—comes when a particular field or industry reaches the point of being served by multiple learning businesses, learning businesses that operate with a “bases loaded” focus (so thinking about business, instructional, and individual learner areas), and learning businesses hopefully operating in collaborative and complementary ways.
When that happens, the future for any such field or industry is bound to be bright.
Based on decades of experience advising learning businesses, we’d say very few think—much less act—in this way.
Many are intensely focused on the business component, many on the instructional component. Too few combine these components well, and almost none gives serious attention to the third component—active support for the individual lifelong learner. This situation needs to change if learning businesses are going to play the role they can play.
Grand slams don’t happen all the time, of course, but we should always be playing with the knowledge that they are possible—and needed.
[13:05] – Wrap Up
If you are getting value from the Leading Learning podcast, be sure to subscribe by RSS or on iTunes. We’d also appreciate if you give us a rating on iTunes by going to https://www.leadinglearning.com/itunes.
And we’d be grateful if you would take a minute to visit our sponsor for this quarter, ReviewMyLMS and, if you can, contribute a review to help others find the right platform for their needs.
Also, consider telling others about the podcast. Go to https://www.leadinglearning.com/share to share information about the podcast via Twitter, or send out a message on another channel of your choosing with a link to https://www.leadinglearning.com/podcast.
[15:18] – Sign off
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The original version of this post was published at https://www.jeffthomascobb.com/learning-business-grand-slam/.
See Also:
Leading a Winning Team with Jamy Bechler
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