This blog post doesn’t exist.
It wasn’t written and timed to be published.
It wasn’t made public, categorised or tagged.
The picture above exists but isn’t stored and published as any form of media.
It isn’t on a blog with a registered domain.
It hasn’t been promoted via Twitter.
It’s not on LinkedIn either.
It hasn’t been formatted using HTML.
It hasn’t been read by anyone and won’t be commented because there’s no way it could be.
None of the things above could have happened because I’ve not had any formal training in how to blog. Sukh Pabial said this week:
Front line managers will always need a formal training process which guides them through a journey of self development and improving their general management skills and behaviours.
Goodness knows what this blog will be like when I’ve been trained on how to use it.
What do you think? Is Sukh right? Will there always be a need for formal training? I’ll be asking participants at Learning Pool Live in London this week their thoughts and will reflect them here later.
Lost and Desperate 
Reblogged this on Thinking About Learning and commented:
I love this response from Andrew about my comment that all front line managers need basic training in management skills. Touché!
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I think it’s a point well made – but we do need to be cogniscent of the fact that many “would be bloggers” are concerned about how to write a blog and what “persona” to create. Especially if they’re representing their organisation rather than just themselves. Room for both views!
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Andrew reading your blog post, all I could think about was Rod Serling:
“You’re travelling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.”
There is a reality and a utopian view on this question:
1. Reality is that due to the baby boomers still kicking around in organisations, formal training will always be demanded and seen as the only suitable training (learning solution) that needs to be deployed.
2. Utopian view is that learning can and does occur outside the formal environment and thus we as L&D professionals hope and desire that the resource intensive and costly formal training approach be done with – let us get on with this informal stuff!
Let me ask you this – how would you react if the doctor who was about to perform life saving surgery admitted to you that he learnt how to do the operation via informal / peer learning channels and that he never opened a book nor passed an exam?
“That’s the signpost up ahead – your next stop, the Twilight Zone!
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Hi Andrew,
First, this is an excellent reposte to my statement about front line managers.
I was very aware when putting my thoughts about self-directed learning that actually we could apply this methodology to all learning we need to deliver or facilitate.
In relation to the piece about front line managers in particular, I actually agree with you. We should just trust managers to be able to be good at doing this. The worrying truth, though, is that many are up for the challenge of management but often wonder cluelessly through a maze of theory and content.
Informal and social learning theories would suggest this is fine, and that we can and should be allowed to make mistakes – after all this is how we learned how to walk(!)
Learning at the point of need certainly is a better thing to aim for, and this itself becomes interesting. How do learners know what they need unless guided through?
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I think we overlook the influence of other people when it comes to adult learning and development. Children tend to remember teachers that fired them up. What about peers that have done the same? And shouldn’t they tend to be managers? I really enjoy managing others and was inspired by a management trainer (Paul Streeter) who inspired me on a, you guessed it, three-day first line management course. We are still in touch. I’m not saying you need a classroom-based course to inspire people but I do think organisations need to think about people who can inspire managers and how they can help support would-be managers and how these connections can be supported. After all, aren’t poor managers a major problem for individuals, teams and organisations? So, how to identify and share what ‘good management’ looks like. This debate makes me think we should create that new management learning narrative – get Sam Burrough involved and give it the design thinking treatment. Great posts Sukh and Andrew.
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Reblogged this on Reflections of an OD Team and commented:
Is this why people aren’t blogging on here?
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There is something about the accessibility of tools and the motivation to learn tucked away in this. It is amazing what you can learn through the internet and experimentation – but we come to blogging as a ‘value add’ activity. If I had woken up one day and people relied on the quality of my blogging for income or their sanity I would have had a more significant requirement for help and been less comfortable with experimenting.
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