1. SECTION I ■ The concept catches on
what the
future holds
■ BY MOHINISH SINHA
n IT organization that I consulted for recently was
A surprised by the sudden rise in employee attrition
rates. When they examined the reasons, they came up
with the usual "suspects" e.g. better salary, poor levels
of engagement with work, going for higher education
etc. But then they also came across instances, mind you, very
few instances, of some of the employees leaving to change
tracks in career for e.g. one programmer who was tired of the
routine programming work, now wanted to chase his dreams of
becoming an entrepreneur; another employee was leaving to
take a break and travel the world.
It is easy to ignore these cases and treat them as isolated.
The HR team in this company, however, refused to treat these
outlier examples as minor ones, and took it upon themselves to
investigate this "desire to do something different" in the existing
employees. They were rather surprised by the high prevalence
of this desire in the current workforce. Fast forwarding to the
end of this story, the company came up with an innovative
career rotation policy that saw many takers. This went on to
become one of the most highly valued policies by the workforce.
.....................................................................................●
What's the point of this story? Two points, really. One, that
the clue to the future is hidden possibly in the outlier of the
Is your organization geared present, and one has to be patient enough to look for it and,
two, have the orientation to examine it and courage enough to
to evolve as year 2020's act on it. These two points together form the elements of
learning orientation - though this may not be the most complete
quintessential organization? definition of it. The HR function in this example demonstrated
.....................................................................................● a learning orientation.
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2. The learning organization bicycle or project management or standards. Learners tend to mimic
Now picture this: What if everyone the best way to retain employees. prevalent ways of the organization
in your organization acted this way? The process is cyclical. It moves from when they make such choices.
How would you react? Would you ‘observation’, to building a ‘concept’, Today's managers, business heads,
feel: excited, cynical, afraid? to initiating an ‘action’, followed by OD/learning heads and CXOs are
Theorists and practitioners argue ‘experiencing’ the act by way of sometimes unaware of this practice
that whether you like it or not, if the feelings, leading back to ‘observation’, in the workforce. What about
rate of learning of your organization and so on. The learner goes through tomorrow? Learners dropping off
and its members is faster than its the learning process as long as he early in the learning journey and not
competitors or (more importantly) wants, improving his capabilities sticking through is the equivalent of
than the rate of change in its each time he completes the loop. leaving "money on the table". What
environment, your organization is The learning process varies from can managers / business heads and
more likely to be consistently individual to individual. Some HR do? Essentially, two things:
successful and hence sustainable. An learners stop going through the 1. One, become a role model.
organization that operates like this is learning process earlier, some later Demonstrate their own learning
referred to as the learning and some, almost never. The orientation of being lifelong learners,
organization. learners' decision to stop is critical of willing to make mistakes or fail in
Let us go back to the story above. from the organization's point of view. order to succeed later.
What if the career rotation policy In mediocre organizations, learners 2. Two, demand world class quality
mooted by HR did not work and tend to stop when they feel that the of work (mind you, different from
had no takers? It would be an utter skills they have acquired are "good just delivering organization's goals
failure, creating the perfect setting enough" or worse, enough to get and results) from everyone all
for the blame game, much finger through the current problem around. No issue is small enough to
pointing and cynicism in some situation. Some quit when they demonstrate this world class
organizations, resulting in people perceive the process of gaining orientation.
with closed minds unwilling to try expertise as tough.
out new things. Now, imagine what the The learning ecosystem
Learning organizations, on the organization can gain if every learner Just tinkering with the learning
other hand, are never disheartened stuck through the entire learning process to help everyone practice is
by the failures. In fact they anticipate process to deliver world class not enough. Organizations need to
them and prepare and
plan accordingly. World
class companies, for
example, actually look for
high failure rates in new
product development as
a sign so that the
optimum effort goes into
creating the most future
ready products. In fact
companies thrive on this
opportunity to improve
their product, testing its
failure earlier rather than
later. World class
companies demonstrate
innovation by minimizing
the time from concept, to
prototyping to market.
The learning process
When a learner engages
in the process of learning,
he demonstrates a
learning orientation. The
learning process typically
proceeds in a similar way
regardless of what you are
trying to learn - riding a
■ www.humancapitalonline.com June 2011 ■ 17

3. SECTION I ■ The concept catches on
create an enabling ecosystem to up the opportunity for newer
sustain the learning orientation in perspectives. For example, in one
every member within the organization I noticed that the
organization. Here is an ecosystem quarterly MIS report does not
that, in my experience, has resulted comprise of performance reports
in high impact learning. While I see alone; it also contains a collection of
most of the elements of this reflective questions polled together
ecosystem consistently in place in by some of the colleagues ("What is
many organizations today, I believe the sales report not telling us for
that all of these will become essential sure?", "what should we be really
for the learning organizations of unhappy about in this result?")
tomorrow. c) The power of repetition. The
a) The power of purpose and opportunity to practice of a skill
intent. This tells the learner why he repeatedly (technical, functional or
is engaging in the learning process. behavioural) helps make the skill
When the learner takes ownership natural to the learner. This is similar
of this intent, he makes the extra to the way one learns to drive a car
effort to continue with the learning through practicing the movements
process no matter what. If there is of the accelerator, brake and clutch,
no ownership, he might quit when until these actions become intuitive.
he is bored or feels afraid of the For example, one organization built
MOHINISH SINHA
learning process. To illustrate: One a certification process to build
Director ■ Hay Group organization focused on making sure expertise in any function that
Mohinish's core expertise is in that everyone was well versed with institutionalized practice. Here, when
organization transformation, leadership the organization's tenets of quality. the learners practiced the skill for a
development and coaching & setting up One particular production manager specified number of hours, they
and assessing learning functions. He felt that it was "unnecessary" for him moved closer to certification for that
works with clients to identify and address to go for this program as there were skill.
their needs for organizational very few quality issues related to his d) The power of the whole mind. I
transformations, change, learning by quota of production deliveries. To am using the coinage of the noted
helping turn their business strategies into convert him, the "trick" that helped writer Daniel Pink. In his book "The
the results they desire. He is also a was demonstrating that the "very few Whole New Mind" he suggests that
leadership coach and has coached and quality issues" was not acceptable the senses of Design, Story,
facilitated hundreds of senior and top and that a production manager has Symphony, Empathy, Play and
management executives within India and to completely eliminate all quality Meaning are necessary for the
outside. Mohinish works with a variety of issues. complex world that emerges.
clients in sectors of Education, Oil & Gas, I have observed that when a Organizations are designed for the
Banking and Financial Services and IT. He learner does take ownership of the "left brain" that values logical,
has also worked extensively with the right intent, he will not engage in the analytical process over sensing,
government, public sector and UN learning process passionately. creativity etc. However, as the world
organizations, multinationals, Indian Unfortunately, I have also seen that becomes more and more complex,
family owned businesses and start ups. organizations tend to pay very little there is never enough precise data
Mohinish holds an MBA from XLRI attention to the intent behind the to make accurate sense of the
Jamshedpur and a graduate degree in learning by way of setting situation or the issues and it is clear
Physics from Delhi University. expectations with the learner. that newer senses need to be
Organizations of tomorrow will raise employed by the workforce and
this intent to go far beyond just fostered by the organization.
improvement, to a fundamental e) The power of personalizing
personal and organization purpose knowledge. The learning of any
level. Mutually exploring the long subject within the organizational
term purpose of the learner and then context begins with an existing pool
aligning the learning opportunities to of knowledge that may be explicit or
it is the way the future will roll out. implicit. It is vital for the learner to
The good news is that it is already gather the available knowledge
happening in pockets. through various sources such as
b) The power of reflection. classroom training, books/
Teaching learners to ask reflective periodicals or through interviewing
questions is a critical skill. It provokes colleagues and then apply this newly
fresh and original thinking, opening acquired knowledge with what he
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5. SECTION I ■ The concept catches on
needs to accomplish at the that it dissuades employees from
Changing trends workplace. This helps the person
critique his current know-how about
learning. One organization actually
hoped to encourage employees to
in e-Learning the subject and increases his desire be creative and innovative, without
to acquire new knowledge. doing away with the "penalty for
E-learning has been around for many f) The power of communities of failure" incentive scheme.
years now; however its importance in practice. On-going sharing and i) The power of a mentor. One of
India has increased tremendously in last contributing via feedback and my favorite questions I ask a client
two years given the huge demand for suggestions with a view to helping is (I refer to cricket - but please feel
world-class talent across sectors. As colleagues - individually or as a group free to substitute "Batsman" with
India takes the centre stage in global - helps create the right climate for what works for you): If you were
business, there is a need for employees learning. Organizations take trying to become a top notch
to continually acquire new skills and advantage of technology to help batsman and you had one
raise the work standards to match up to colleagues connect and collaborate, opportunity to be trained by the
the dynamic business environment. E- sometimes including suppliers and master batsman, Sachin Tendulkar,
learning and training is touted to be the customers in the process, virtually would you prefer to have him as a
only solution that will pave the way for using conferences, blogs, wikis. For trainer in a classroom lecturing you
building India as the ‘Talent Destination example, one technology-savvy on the finer aspects of batting or
of the World’. Besides, it is the most organization run its promos by its have him stand with you at the nets,
efficient and cost effective mode to community of practice and obtain watching you bat and giving you
impart training in a diverse country like vital feedback before sending it to feedback on improving your game?
India with multiple office locations and customers, thus strengthening the Every time, people chose Sachin at
dispersed workforce that would offering significantly. the nets. In some sense, that is the
otherwise lack effectiveness of face to g) The power of developing power of the mentor or a coach to
face and personal contact. scalable programs. Organizations a learner. One great example is
Drawing a parallel, e-learning can do devise institutionalized learning Mindtree, which leveraged its leader,
programs to address critical issues Subroto Bagchi's talents and time,
wonders to the training sector in India
or opportunities (e.g. foundational full time, to coach and mentor
the same way as BPO industry helped
technical program for new recruits). colleagues in the organization.
shape the IT industry. The major
This signals the importance of the Subroto Bagchi aptly saw himself as
advantage of e-learning is that it is self-
issue to the wider workforce. a "gardener" of talent.
paced and learning is done at the
Further, organizations also realize The year 2020 is already here in
learner’s pace. As low cost PCs and
that such programs are more 2011 - in dribs and drabs though.
broadband penetration become a reality,
effective when they are on-going and But that's immaterial. What matters
more and more professionals would be
spread over a period of time rather is that the workforce of tomorrow
interested in learning the e-way because
than as a one-time effort. Smart will be very different from what exists
of flexibility it offers. Not only this, e-
organizations tend to customize such today. For a start, a large part of the
learning also offers customized solutions
programs for their unique audience workforce will have been born after
like serious game based learning, story
e.g. One pharma organization the internet revolution in 1995. While
based learning, simulations, etc.
completely customized their sales we have no experience with this
depending on the requirements.
development program to suit staff group as yet, the little we know tells
With increased adoption of technology whose familiarity with scientific and us that their orientation will be very
with gadgets like tablets, smart phones, medical language was low. This different from what we are currently
etc., more and more youth entering the company eventually developed this used to. It is already clear that they
job market will be able to take advantage program to such an extent that it are more comfortable expressing
of elearning and align their skills to suit effectively groomed "non-Pharma" themselves online rather than face
their job roles making on boarding easier sales people into making top-notch to face. Consequently, they may be
and faster for employers. .This is what pharma sales persons predictably. more comfortable expressing
we need to create a ready lineup of h) The power of rewards, themselves in terms of "left brain"
young leaders that will define our recognition and incentives. A as well as "right brain" etc.
country’s growth and progress in the critical question facing the The challenge in the learning
longer term. organization which, in my orientation where such a young
experience, rarely gets the attention workforce co-exists with employees
By Rajesh Jumani, Executive Vice President &
it should, is this: Does the reward, who joined the job market in the
Chief Marketing Officer, Tata Interactive Systems
(www.tatainteractive.com)
recognition and incentive support the late 1980's is obvious. With the right
learning behavior or obstruct it? learning orientation, organizations
Strangely I have seen organizations will be able to harmonize these
unwilling to change existing reward diverse talents and build a very
programs even though they know potent workforce. HC
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