Are training courses dead?

Has the death knell been sounded for the formal training course? I've recently enjoyed two new books, offering edgy ideas about organisational learning, which would have us believe that it has.

The timing coincides neatly with a significant milestone by one of the authors: Internet guru Jay Cross. Last week, Jay closed his Informal Learning blog (launched with his seminal book of the same name in 2006), claiming that his message about informal learning has gone mainstream now. "That crusade is behind me," he said. Wow, sounds like the rest of the world needs to catch up. As far as I can see, there are plenty of crusaders out there who are still looking for L&D's holy grail!

Enter the two books that I've found really thought provoking in my own quest: Jane Hart's Social Learning Handbookand the Working Smarter Fieldbook by Jay Cross and his Internet Time Alliance colleagues. The authors claim that the relationship between learning and work has shifted and they argue that social media and informal learning are more natural and effective ways to enhance employee performance and productivity.

Jane makes the strong case for harnessing social learning in the workplace. She offers '30 ways to use social media to work and learn smarter', with tools and tips for success. Jay gives us more of a scrapbook approach to aid 'working smarter', directing us towards what works and what we should pay attention to. Like intrepid Victorian explorers or butterfly collectors, they have captured magnificent examples of good practice and helpfully labelled them within insightful taxonomies for the rest of us to appreciate the wonderful natural world of learning all around us. I'm now participating in Jane's month-long online 'un-course' - formal scheduled learning doesn't work remember! - to share insights and challenges with others on a similar learning journey. 

Both books are intriguing and inspiring. Both also take a very hard line against the wastage and pointlessness associated with much traditional formal training. I have to agree that a good amount of formal training events out there are often costly and hit-and-miss solutions to business problems that could have been solved in a cheaper or more effective way. The trick for me is to know which ones and why so as to make the best use of all available modes for people to optimise their performance at work, whether formally or informally.

Jane, Jay & co are clearly pointing us in the right direction. However, rather than being a threat to the L&D profession, social media and informal learning are surely an opportunity to be grasped with both hands (we ignore them at our peril). Yes, designers and trainers should recognise that the world of work has changed. Yes, they should immerse themselves in social media tools that can help others to work and learn smarter (augmenting those formal learning activities which still rightly belong in the classroom). I do think it's wrong to say that classroom training point blank doesn't work. There will still be a time and a place when it is efficient and effective to corral people into the same place, at the same time, to share a formal learning experience together with an expert. 

All in all, these are healthy debates to which these books offer great facts to stretch and challenge us. To me, this is all about improving the credibility of our profession. Focusing formal training where it works best (and weeding it out where it doesn't) will necessarily improve the perceived value of L&D as a discipline. It's where costly formal events are happening unnecessarily that training gets a bad name.

One theme I particularly like is Jane and Jay's common anchor of 'performance consulting' to analyse people productivity challenges (as opposed to the term 'Training Needs Analysis', which rather short-cuts to the answer). They, rightly in my view, argue that we should probe a bit deeper and look at what creates the 'problem' for an individual/team/organisation and what can be done to improve performance in a hard business sense. The answer will not necessarily be 'training' (it may involve for example clearer role definition, opportunities for collaboration, better performance management or regular coaching). As with some of my clients, better to knock off the word 'training' and simply call it a 'needs analysis'. That way, you're not prejudging what the outcome should be and can recommend whatever works. On with the quest…

Al Bird is learning consultancy director at KnowledgePool He can be contacted at al.bird@knowledgepool.com