The Future of Learning Technology from Human Capital Media on Vimeo.

This long-standing concern has well-worn answers. I’ve offered some myself:

• align vigorously with the strategic purposes of the organization
• measure the learning enterprise against the metrics that matter most to the organization and leaders
• communicate with leadership through dashboards and stories riveted to high value metrics
• use data to continuously improve experiences and outcomes
• listen hungrily to the line and to customers

There is nothing to argue with there. But hold the applause. The problem lingers. While the advice is good, it isn’t sufficient.

Perhaps it would help if learning leaders marketed more aggressively? I don’t think that’s it.

Why don’t we instead think about it differently?

What if visibility is the wrong goal?

What if the goal should be more integration into the line, more seamless partnership with the other functions in the organization? What if it is less about us and a whole lot more about them?

Think of it as you would your body. When one part hurts, say your ankle or your tooth, you have a big problem. What you want is feet and choppers that help you ambulate and masticate without drawing attention to themselves. What you want is a purposeful, smooth and unobtrusive system. That’s what the C level wants.

Nobody likes a squeaky learning organization.

I chatted with Rob Lauber, Chief Learning Officer at McDonald’s. Only six months into his job, Rob is tasked, as many new executives are, with reinventing his unit. What he is promising is to delight the line with training and related services that are more authentic and efficient– and far less bureaucratic. For him, it’s all about directing the attention of the learning enterprise towards the realities of the stores, not achieving more visibility for his unit. It comes of devotion to business outcomes.

Is Lauber opposed to instructional design methods? Not at all. In fact, he’s a fan. But he wants instructional design to inspire fresher, speedier decisions and services, not the burdensome requirements and hurdles often associated with ID.

The best learning units are quietly influential.

How might we be more influential?

• Establish relationships and trust. Let them see us sweat to enable their work. The perception of effort increases willingness to trust.
• Embed more learning and performance professionals in the line and bring savvy line people closer to the learning enterprise through temporary assignments, advisory councils, data capture, and online networks and mentoring.
• Question how well the unit is doing in light of emergent opportunities.
• Look to Robert Cialdini’s work on influence. (1) Give something if you want to get something. Don’t just ask or expect.Provide a positive experience or valuable briefing, then ask for participation. (2) Help people make decisions based on a social context. Others are doing it, don’t you also want to ___ ? Join us online to hear how colleagues are ____ (3) People like to be consistent, especially when they themselves have made a commitment. Link requests to ways that their efforts are congruent with prior commitments. (4) Explain how your organization has tapped familiar and well-liked colleagues as data sources. (5) Make sure that your programs have a sturdy foundation that comes from authoritative sources. (6) Make it clear that your programs are special, scarce. Intensity come with concern about missing out and lack of availability.

More visibility? A campaign to assure more attention? Not as a priority.

It is far better to be one of an effective team that is collaborating to get things done.

A few years ago, I worked on a project that investigated evaluation in a global consulting firm. I was surprised that few executives sought data about the effectiveness of their learning organization. Evaluation for program improvement, yes. Evaluation to prove worth, hardly at all. L&D collected data, just in case somebody requested it. But leadership did not actively look for it. How could that be? In this organization, what I heard was along these lines, “They know what we contribute. They see that what their people can do. They know how much our people rely on us.”

Sounds about right to me. No squeaky learning organization there. Less turned out to be quite a bit more. They were quietly influential.

I don’t have that bumper sticker. What I do have is enthusiasm about reflecting on emergent directions in workplace learning. I’ve been reviewing what others (such as Malamed, Deloitte/Bersin, and Taylor) have to say on this matter.

Here is where I think workplace learning will trend in 2015. I’m consciously using the verb, to trend, not the noun, trend. I think we’re trending, we are moving towards, making tracks, inclining in particular directions.

Few learning organizations are executing at the peak of these trends. Not yet. But soon.

• Personalized. Outrageous, isn’t it, that casinos provide more personalized development experiences than corporate learning organizations and universities?  Casinos know who we are and what we do and then they serve us accordingly. That is personalization based on choices made in the past. Unlike curriculum delivered with a fire hose, individualized programs emerge from performance, assessments, self-assessments, and guidance provided by coaches, supervisors and competency maps. 
  
• Customized. Personalization is devoted to the individual. Customization looks to assure an aligned organization wrapping around that individual. Think of it as a move from habits that favor courses to data-driven decisions that tailor solutions. Robert Mager and Peter Pipe, in the last century, and Marc Rosenberg and Steve Foreman, in this one, urge us to look at each request (better performance appraisals, safer equipment operation, introduction of a new software package) in order to customize systems based on data. Customization is characterized by humility regarding the power of any course, in and of itself, to accomplish strategic purposes like technology innovation, leadership and compliance
• Miniaturized. We are not talking about just any customized and personalized solution. We are trending towards those are small, flexible, reconfigurable and above all, intensely useful. Retired VADM Pat Tracey expressed dissatisfaction with the status quo at a Navy Learning Strategies Consortium in 2007: “Sending our people to residence programs is not compatible with our urgent needs in the field and our human capital strategy….”  That was then. Today, with even more pressing requirements for speed and cost reduction, and tastier technology options, many line leaders demand programs that are available 7/24/365. A 16-week residential course for retirement specialists? Naaaaa. A four-day class on ethics? No way. Executives and their people prefer answers, guidance, and support at the moment of need, in bite-sized chunks that are targeted to the task or question at hand. Less is more in 2015, via sliced and diced courses, tools, webinars, conversations, videos, and apps that automate sometimes more than they educate.
  

  Think Legos not the Leviathon.

• Mobilized. Line leaders seek education, information and support delivered smack dab in the middle of work every day, everywhere. For that we are turning to mobile devices. Mike Glass, now the learning leader at ThermoFisher, described his enthusiasm for learning and support delivered via phones and tablets to the peripatetic sales force in his prior position. Mike noticed that the fund managers were devoted to exercising every night, with devices stuck in their ears. He saw this as an opportunity to deliver financial updates and reminders, in small nuggets, because of their gusto for staying up-to-date and working out. Another Mike seconded the enthusiasm for mobile. Mike Yonker is President at Learner Mobile, a division of SVI Inc. He described how they use mobile devices to deliver immediate updates to retail sales people about the latest beauty products witnessed by millions on the Red Carpet at the Oscars.
• Informalized. While there are few learning organizations that I would characterize as informal, there are emerging and dramatic signatures of informality in 2015: more choice for employees in ways of learning and purposes too; more personalized programs born of assessments and self-assessments; and more conversation about proof that makes sense. Is your organization ready to move in these directions? 
• Socialized. ATD’s 2014 State of the Industry Report confirms that instructors still reign supreme in workplace learning, with 70% of formal training hours delivered by an instructor in a classroom. That much? Never the less, I contend that we are trending to less in the classroom and more delivered where the work gets done, through networks, communities and online conversations. Consider the results of UK-based Donald Taylor’s poll regarding what’s happening in adult workplace learning. Collaborative learning came out on top, above personalization and mobile learning. Listen to Jane Bozarth. Look at your own life. Want to sharpen sales skills and maintain motivation in the face of long sales cycles? Want to learn to play the ukelele or better understand retirement options? What about that resolution to eat with health in mind? Where once we looked mostly, even only, to an instructor or subject matter expert, now we cast a much wider and more pervasive net through our opportunities to socialize online. I couldn’t do what I do without Twitter.

Is that all there is? Just six? Of course not. I edited harshly. I could go on. I stifled myself.

I considered pointing to more aggressive efforts to use data, big and otherwise, to enlighten decisions about programs and services. I also thought about highlighting technology, especially video, all to enable on demand learning and support. Data, technology and systems have been trending for years, for decades, in fact.

My focus here has been on what distinguishes 2015 to me. Weigh in, please. I hope you will.

Opera in San Diego

Opera is very much on the minds of San Diegans. Recently and suddenly, our local opera announced it was closing. The situation here is as it is in many places: aging donors and audiences, increasing costs, decreasing revenue, and competing entertainments. The leader of the opera, Ian Campbell, and his gigantic board, chose to die swiftly at their own hand.

All hell broke loose. Was it as dire as Campbell and the Board proclaimed? Why the rush? Were there no affluent angels in the wings? Why were staff unions not involved in the decision? What of the fate of the 300+ San Diegans who staff the opera? What was up with the large salaries paid to Campbell and his ex-wife, with resentment focusing on Campbell’s salary, the highest among San Diego cultural executives? Reactions were plentiful, as well as personal, expected, mysterious, comical and global. The drama continues.

At the mall

Metropolitan Opera Live in HD far exceeded my expectations. As that judgement sunk in, I considered how technology-delivered opera, something that struck me as very good, is itself an assault on something that is also very good– live, local opera.

Opera in a movie theater has much to offer:

• Technology delivers access to superb talent. Vittorio Grigolo and Kristine Opolais dazzled us. There we were, just down from the food court, and enjoying a front row seat to world-class voices.
• Technology delivers access to a superb experience. “La Boheme” offers gorgeous costumes, special effects, and sets. The action moves from icy garret to Parisien street to snow swept country inn and then back to the garret. I could see it all, never craned my neck, never once yearned for a better seat.
• Technology delivers behind-the-scenes insights. I enjoyed interviews with the stars and supernumaries, and time lapse photography revealing how a set happens. The technical director explained where the snow comes from and of what it is comprised. If you don’t know much about opera, and I do not, this is a wonderful way to begin to get it.
• Technology offers surprise and tension. They had a good story to tell. When Anita Hartig suffered the flu, Kristine Opolais agreed to step in, even though she had sung the lead the night prior, in “Madama Butterfly,” and had not rehearsed her “La Boheme” role on stage. Later, interviewed on NPR about her willingness to sing twice in twenty-four hours, she admitted she had turned to You Tube to review prior to going on stage in the “La Boheme” I saw.
• Technology offers great value for few dollars. My first movie opera cost $22.

Technology is doing the same to higher education.

There is the matter of access to great talent. Do you want to take a class with local Professor X or Nobel Prize Winner Y? Wouldn’t you like to study with that professor in North Carolina who is famous for his ability to make poetry matter? What of that professor known for helping undergraduates see contemporary meaning in Greek Mythology? What about the former US Cabinet member who now leads a university? Wouldn’t you like to hear her thoughts on leadership?

There is the matter of the very best of strategies and experiences. Would you like to be able to see insanely great science demonstrations, to watch them over and over again, to see them from the perspective of several experts, and also to engage in authentic simulations?

What happens when the Dow Jones average loses or gains 500 points? What are experts saying in London, Hong Kong, and New York? What are politicians saying? What about reviewing prior course assignments and projects and feedback from professors and peers?

There is the matter of relationships. Students can work on projects and cases with others from across the country or world. Would you like to tackle a case when economic or climate conditions shift? Maybe you would like to try it a third time, joining local and distant others to collaborate and decide? What about tuning into interviews with researchers turned entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs turned non-profit CEOs? How nice it would be to hop online to converse afterwards or tweet throughout. What do alumni have to say? What about becoming part of a social network sponsored by a professional association aligned with your major?

While personal, individual relationships with faculty are unlikely online, especially when there is one professor serving thousands of students in a MOOC, the truth is that those relationships are idiosyncratic on most campuses, and rare at large universities today. Better perhaps is to acknowledge this, and to leverage technology to assure frequent and substantive interactions with peers, teaching assistants, tutors, alumni, and the occasional faculty person.

Let me stipulate to the fact that great things do happen on campus, many great things, simular to those I described above. They happen sometimes. But they are not typical. It isn’t easy to pull off such experiences for several classes over the length of a sixteen week semester. Just one example– linking current generations of students to those from the past. It is a great idea that happens less often than it ought. I did it. I could have done it more.

Flexibility

The customers of higher ed and opera would benefit from more flexibility. Learning on demand, opera in your living room, what’s not to like?

But flex does not currently characterize either realm. The Met has a schedule for the operas it offers in its magnificent New York opera house. And the same is true of the Met Opera Live in HD series. Customers attend on their schedule.

Higher education also has habits. Schedules, requirements, faculty loads, tenure, legacy admissions, and reviews of online offerings that far exceed the scrutiny offered to campus courses, those are just a few roadblocks to choice. While many speak of how technology increases student control and options, the campus experience, for the most part, is not that.

Money matters

As the cost of opera tickets has skyrocketed, so has the cost of a college education. With decreasing support from state governments, the pricetag for higher education has become a life-altering burden for students and families. Financial ramifications extend to family formation, housing ownership, and thus the larger economy.

Even the President of the United States has weighed in, “Families and taxpayers can’t just keep paying more and more and more into an undisciplined system where costs just keep on going up and up and up. We’ll never have enough loan money, we’ll never have enough grant money, to keep up with costs that are going up 5, 6, 7 percent a year. We’ve got to get more out of what we pay for,” Barack Obama said. The President’s plan is broad and aggressive, touching on who gets served, what constitutes quality, and financial sticks and carrots for universities.

The President and his allies would not be taking on higher education reform without widespread public support for cost controls and second, the potential of technology to influence price and access. Columbia University’s Nicholas Lemann wrote this in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “In the nonacademic world, technological advances have made many products and services cheaper. It seems impossible that the same can’t be true in higher education—especially with the advent of online courses.”

Change is coming– to both

Higher education and opera face threats and opportunities in cultures deep with pomp, brilliance, ego, passion, longing, losses, greed, and alliances. For higher education there is an infusion of new blood, with educational technology firms attracting 1.25 billion dollars in funding in 2013, according to CB Insights. The interest  continues into 2014. While the investment numbers for opera are small, some communities are stepping up, as San Diego is now, providing funding while asking for reinvention.

Reinvention? How will higher education and opera respond? The answer is that some will, and some won’t. I’m hoping that our opera and universities will step forward with bold strategic changes, measured results, and commitment to continuous improvement. Either they will do that, or I’m pretty sure that something will do it to them.

Allison Rossett was a professor for more than 30 years and has attended perhaps twenty live operas but only one in a movie theater.

My first ever yoga class happened six miles from my house. I was annoyed about the distance, but because Malinka had strong recommendations, I drove across town. Malinka, not her real name, was known as a laid-back teacher, which appealed to me. The last thing I need is a yoga instructor that encourages my competitive streak.

As I drove to the session, I wondered about who would be in the class and whether I would be able to keep up. I looked around but couldn’t tell anything about my classmates. In Malinka’s dark living room, I could discern seven lumps lying quietly, each in a personal cave comprised of four fluffy blankets and a few small blue blocks. These items, I would learn, are called props. They are intended to support our bodies as we move into poses. I liked learning this new language.

Malinka coached us in hushed tones. I gave myself over. Might as well.

Several times Malinka returned to the matter of effort. She believes we are too occupied with it. In yoga, a goal is to reduce our efforting. EFFORTING. For years, I’ve been tickled by gerundifying in my world, training and technology. (For example, see gamifying, systematizing, and disambiguating.) Here it is in  yoga. I chuckled at how much effort I would have to put into reducing my efforting.

This was the least hurried 2 hours and 15 minutes I have ever spent. We pressed every inch of our bodies into the floor and then we released the same inches, slowly, ever so slowly. I tried to put it out of mind, but remained aware that I was doing nothing except stretching and relaxing in the middle of a Wednesday morning. I liked how this was making my body feel, but was struck by the difference between the real me and this blissed out version.

I guess I was not altogether blissed out. That class was supposed to be 90 minutes and it lasted 135 minutes. I was irked.

Malinka was probably not the best match for me.

Andalusa

A friend suggested that Andalusa, also not her real name, might be just the instructor I have been seeking. She works out of a posh studio about a mile from my house. When Andalusa said she preferred to commence the work with an individualized assessment, I was delighted. Assessment, personalization, I’m so into that.

I showed up ready to be put through my paces to match a progam to my yoga readiness. Andalusa demonstrated nearly 20 poses. I struggled to mimic her form. She helped along the way, placing a block or a chair or a strap where it needed to be to make it possible for me to approximate the desired positions. (There I was, efforting again.)

After each pose, Andalusa made a note and a comment. A sampling: “No, not quite.” “That was hard for you, wasn’t it?” “Was that very hard for you?””Have you always been so tight in your hamstrings?” “You have problems with your shoulders, too.” “Look at where your knees are. They are not close to the floor.” “You’ll have to work on that. And that. And that….”

Andalusa wasn’t wrong in her evaluation, but neither was she motivating

I experienced not one moment of success in 90 minutes. She gave no extra credit for the little arm muscles I have been cultivating in reformer Pilates. She did not even nod at my sort of flat stomach. My conclusion is that they are featured on another test, not this one.

After each test item pose, Andalusa coached me on how I could improve what I was doing, and then urged me to practice often. I experienced immediate benefits from the tweaks she proferred. I rehearsed her suggestions in my mind, promising myself I would return to these stretches daily. But as the poses and suggestions for performance piled up, they scrambled in my mind. No surprise, now, two weeks later, I can remember almost nothing. What I do remember is the yawning gap between what I could do and how it ought to be done.

How should it be done?

I talked about my interest in yoga with a friend. Like me, Antonia, her real name, wants to get into yoga. Like me, she wants to do the best she can do. And like me, she is an instructional technologist who, by disposition and profession, wants to know the standards. How are we going to do this if excellence is unclear to us?

Antonia described a conversation with a friend who has long enjoyed a yoga practice. Antonia was concerned that she wasn’t doing it right, that, for example, she wasn’t sending energy into her toes in the proper fashion. Her friend said, “Don’t worry about being perfect.” Antonia persisted, “How do I get it right?” Her friend responded, “Do it the way you think it should be done.”

This wasn’t at all satisfactory to Antonia. “How will I improve then? How do I know what to change?” she fretted. Her friend suggested that she not worry at all, that she is “exactly where she needs to be.”

Antonia is exactly where she needs to be with no clue about where that might be. Antonia and I looked at each other with disbelief.

The search continues

When a former student heard through the grapevine of my yoga aspirations, he contacted me, “You’re the last person I would expect to be taking yoga– and that is why you need it so much.” I think he has that right.

Thus I continued my search. I sent out two emails. I asked for a very introductory experience that is heavy on education and stretching while light on philosophy. Yoga instructors are not sitting on top of their email. No responses two days later.

I’m continuing to put effort into this because a yoga practice isn’t going to fall from the sky into my lap. But I am trying to get myself situated with an instructor and class using an approach that is more effortless than is typical for me. I’ve made no list. I’ve sent no follow-up emails. I’m respecting their pacing. I’m saying things like, “It will happen when it happens.” Really, I said that. So not me.

On day three, I received a welcoming note from a yoga instructor who, like Malinka and Andalusa when I first encountered them on email, fills me with hope. This might be the one. We have much in common, including that she likes to blog. After a bit of emailing, I sent her to a posting in my blog. Here’s how she responded to my concern that I might not be ready for yoga, ” You’ll do great, with that kind of focus, with Iyengar Yoga!”

Focus. Somehow focusing is OK, but not efforting. Hmmmm. There is much here for me to understand.

We are here to talk about how Sue dealt with the ticket she got. In California, those of us who get tickets may reduce the penalty via traffic school. Some turn to Clown Traffic School or my personal favorite, Shop ’til You Drop  Traffic School. There are even gay and lesbian training options. Sue decided that e-learning made the most sense for her. She did it for the usual reasons associated with online education: access on demand, novelty, and location, location, location.

She paid up. Then she procrastinated. Finally, she signed on. Sue’s online lessons offer up lessons for those involved with e-learning.

How did it go for you, Sue? Please describe what happened when you went online. There were seven modules, each with sub-modules 5-8 pages in length. Sue said, “I was startled to see pages of text, lengthy pages, all longer than my screen and requiring scrolling. That was annoying. After every page, every page, they seek feedback. That too was annoying. And I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to learn from each module. That’s most annoying.”

She continued, “There were some videos, but I don’t think they use video capabilities as well as they might. Well, I might be being too negative here. There were videos that attempted to communicate the sorrow associated with death caused by vehicular accidents. That was a good idea. They were emotional, but for some technical reason, bandwidth perhaps, they were broken into four short segments. That dulled their power for me.”

You described some of the content of the modules. Can you share? Sue described it as an onslaught of driving-related factoids. While complaining, she acknowledged that some morsels grabbed her attention.

• Most bad driving things happen between 5 and 6 PM.
• Bad things happen in the 18th hour after you have awakened.
• 12% of drivers are doing personal grooming while driving.
• There were many facts about men and women and how they drive differently.  Sue couldn’t remember any details.
• Cold medicine does bad things to driving ability. So do alcohol, fatigue and drugs.
• Accidents happen in bad weather.

There was a tendency to state the obvious, all with breathless encouragement to WATCH OUT. Vigilance during bad weather is one good example. It is very important to be careful when the weather is inclement. Be sure to inspect the automobile every time you get into it. This was revealed in a full page of text.

You misbehaved in a particular way. Did the lessons target your behavior or personalize? “No, there was little attention to texting. It was one item in a long list of concerns for drivers. Unlike other topics, they did not numb me with details on my pecadillo, texting.”

I know you took tests. Please tell us about them and their value. There were ten multiple choice items for each test at the end of the modules. Sue reports that she thinks she could have passed the tests without reading the modules. For one module, Sue jumped to the test when she got bored. She reports that she got 100% on that one. She also noted that the test questions only partially reflected what she decided was most important in each module. The system gave her feedback on how she did, but did not serve up correct answers on the items she flubbed.

Unmotivated to learn online

Every so often, there was a pop-up question to verify that Sue was taking this test, not her cat. They threaten penalties for not-being-Sue and attempt to make certain it is Sue by asking questions based on data collected at the beginning of the course, for example, information about visits to foreign countries and cities in which she has resided. These are things the cat does not know.

Are there any strategies there that might encourage better driving behavior? Sue paused and then expressed appreciation for one aspect of the program. What she dubbed “the deluge of facts” successfully nudged her to reflect on her driving and other people’s driving as well. This item garnered her attention:  Drivers make 20 decisions per mile and 2 of those are mistakes. Sue thought with humility about her own driving, and of course, she looked with concern at the drivers surrounding her on the road. She said she is more cautious, “I notice that now, as I am completing the online program, my awareness is up. I’m thinking more about risks, f0llowing distance, and about fatigue on the road.”

This is good. Will it last? “No, it won’t,” she responded. No hesitation.

Sue at the wheel, no texting device in hand

Net, net, what do you think? I asked Sue to give me a word to describe her online experience. “Excruciating,” she said. I asked what made it excruciating. “Boring. Obvious. Endless text on matters that will not alter how I will drive in the future. I know. You want an example. Well, I think they have lots of text on the 8 levels of penalties for alcohol. Is that going to make it less likely that I will drink and drive? I don’t think it will.”

Sue did not pick the cheapest online class. She reports that she made her selection because it earned some strong ratings. That’s right. There are others, and they might look worse than this program.

Recently I was reading a document about principles associated with great online learning. The authors presented their view of the state of e-learning with words like sadness and profound frustration. Was that too strong? Sue’s experience reminds me that it is not. We have a long, steep hill to climb to leverage technology for lasting performance improvement.

Perhaps my recommendations aren’t what you would expect:

• Think less about the learning organization and more about the company or agency. Get really smart about the context. What is keeping the executives up at night? They want  you to strengthen learning in order to do what? Change what? Add what? Fix what?
• Fight the inclination to tend to your edifice and head count. Instead focus on building learning, community and reference capacity in line with organizational priorities.
• Deliver less training and more value, more integrated programs. That will mean doing a few things well and in concerted fashion, not everything. That is likely to mean shifting to smaller targeted bites of learning, information and support.
• Measure  on metrics that match organizational  goals. Yes, that means questioning the habit and history of measuring the learning organization based on butts in seats and hits on elearning modules. Looks to error rates, sales, retention, and customer satisfaction.
• Great learning organizations aren’t all about marketing and delivering events. Instead, they are quietly influential, producing assets and experiences that are helpful. Employees say, “Thanks, that’s just what I needed.” They don’t know quite what you did. What they know is that it answered a key question or pointed them to a useful resource. No fuss, no fluff. Just good stuff.
• The great learning organization works its magic through field supervisors, social networks, and on demand programs.
• Some might not know that the learning organization was involved with a program, experience or asset. That’s how integrated and seamless the contributions are. And that’s a good thing.

In my gym clothes, I chat about these matters with Jeff Cattel from the Corporate Learning Network. 

The big day arrived. The time had come for Larry to work on my hair.

It had been eight days since our brief diagnostic meeting. I was concerned that he wouldn’t remember me. But he did. Larry remembered my hair, my problem, and my goals. He urged us to review them together to make certain. He proposed to do something he called low lights. He asked me if that was OK. I started to nod and then stopped myself. I admitted that I had no idea what low lights were. His explanation was sufficient. I wanted whatever he said.

Then I removed my earrings, sipped my water, and leaned back. I turned myself over to Larry. He told me he would be right back.

It certainly wasn’t what I mean when I say right back. Maybe ten minutes later, might have been fifteen, he appeared with a concoction created during the time we were apart. He also had a pile of aluminum foil rectangles. I’d seen those adorning women in other salons, but never had them in my hair.

My prior hair guy dipped a brush in his concoction, produced in two minutes, and slathered it on my hair, two more minutes. To be fair, he was responding to my impatience with the process. Would I have sat still for more? I think I would have, if the benefits were clear.

With Larry, I had the feeling we were executing a grand design linked to my goals. He would bring consistency to my hair color, to rid me of the orange hue, and to permit the grey at my temples to emerge.

Now Larry had to go to work on that plan.

His first step was to partition my hair, apply the color concoction and fold it up in small foil packages. It took 30 minutes, at least, to get me squared away. This was not random activity. And as you can see, everything had its place.

The coloring process

Larry told me that this next phase, where I sat around and waited for the chemicals to work, would take 35 minutes. Then he disappeared into a room with a clear label: For Employees Only.

My dilemma was how to wear my reading glasses when festooned with rows of foil. I  didn’t want to poke or loosen the foil squares. I wanted to exercise care to not in any way mess with what appeared to be a structured architecture.

As you can see, I worked the glasses on to my head. Happily, I caught up on the news on my iPad.

Forty minutes later, Mariah approached to tell me she would be washing and blow drying my hair. Who is Mariah? Where is Larry? I looked around and saw that Larry was on to another woman. It appears he doesn’t remove foil or wash or dry hair.

Mariah took out the foil, washed and conditioned my hair with quenching products (that’s what she called them, alluding, I think, to the thirst my hair is harboring for nutrients), and then blow-dried my hair. She asked how I wanted it to look and I waved my hands to indicate that I like my hair popped out, not lying flat. I told her that my hair was easy, except for its color challenges. At the end of our ten minutes together, she agreed. It was the easiest one she had done all day. She told me Larry would stop back to discuss my color with me.

He was by my side in less than a minute. We talked about my color, not my hair. Larry kept his focus.

Colorful Allison

He liked how it turned out and spoke in specifics, pointing out some of his favorite things, such as how strong, warm and even the color is throughout, how the orange is pretty much gone, and also how the grey is at my temples, but with color streaking there too.

I like it as well. I am happy with the color. His promises came true.

But it is what it is and I am what I am. The adjustments that I have to make won’t come out of a bottle.

Oh, I spent 45 dollars on that quenching shampoo and conditioner. Wouldn’t want to invest in the color and then use 3 dollar shampoo that starves my hair. I’m considering the UV protective styling balm and polish.

It began at lunch yesterday, when my usually positive pal Ellie remarked that my hair wasn’t looking so great. I think the word she used was listless. The cut was fine. But she wondered about the color. What was up with the color?

In order to tell this story I have to admit that I’ve been throwing color at my hair for years. Recently, I’ve encouraged my stylist to use a bit less color, to help me transition to a more real me, a salt and pepper me.

But it has been a few steps forward and then about the same number of steps backwards. Just when I think I am ready to let the gray emerge, I pass a mirror and recognize my grandmother out of the corner of my eye. Then I ask my stylist to hit me with color.

I’ve tried for solutions to my multi-colored head of hair. Last month I complained to my stylist about the blondish-reddish hue that was framing my forehead. What was that? It looked nasty. What magic could he produce to reduce that off-color halo? I sat there for an extra fifteen minutes of treatment. He said it was no problem.

A few weeks later Ellie questioned my hair. It remains a problem.

This consultant needs a consultant.

I reached out to a friend who is fussy about her hair. She schooled me on something I had missed. Salons are now full of specialists. This one cuts. Another one colors. Yet another does brows or nails. Still another rejuvenates skin. You wouldn’t hire an evaluation expert to build your performance support tools, would you?

I decided to seek out a hair color consultant. I stopped by the recommended studio to see Larry. He is but one of several color experts attached to the studio. There is an even larger cohort of cutters. The receptionist looked stunned that I thought I could just drop by to consult with Larry. She offered to inquire if he had a moment for me.

He did. A young man walked swiftly towards me.

He spent no more than four minutes. He looked me up and down. He ran his hands through my hair. Many people compliment my thick, wavy hair. No such luck with Larry.

He asked questions that I could answer (about what I wanted my hair to look like, what was wrong with the status quo) and a few I couldn’t (about the current hair products and treatments.)

He offered two possible paths, one that interested me and one that did not. Attentive to my reaction, he framed the outline of a plan. Did I think that might work for me? Yes, I said, and walked to the reception desk, eager for an appointment to begin my transformation.

She delivered the bad news. Eight days until my appointment. It will be eight days before I see Larry again.

While I wait, I think about the essence of consulting.

This movement to a more consistently colorful me served up reminders about consulting. What was it that Larry did?

• He focused on me
• He asked questions that made sense, questions that pointed to where I am and where I want to be
• He asked questions I couldn’t answer, leaving the door open for me to do some research on my own
• He oozed expertise through silent review, questions, comments and reputation
• When I didn’t cotton to his first idea, which was to do nothing, he offered an alternative plan that held out hope for improvements
• He earned my trust by being willing to do no treatment at all and thus to earn nothing at all
• He presented the outline, but not the details, of what felt to me like a promising plan
• He asked for my commitment to do something about my dilemma and gave me a way to move forward on the path

Larry returned to his client, and I timidly asked the receptionist what this is going to cost. Color costs a minimum of $93. That’s the least it can cost, she added. Might be more.

It reminded me of my second consulting gig, at least thirty years ago. I had met for an hour with the director of a large training organization. She had to rush off to a meeting, and asked me to leave a note indicating what our services would cost. Eager to please, I low-balled the number of days and the daily rate. That night she called. She wondered if my rates were a joke. Her leadership wouldn’t think we were high quality consultants if our rates were puny.

No such problem with Larry and the salon. His consulting skills set the table for willingness to pay a hundred dollars each month for color. Just color. The cut is something else. I will happily pay because today I am full of hope about my hair.

There is, however, much more for this consultant to accomplish. He has to improve my hair color. And he has to help me sustain it. Larry is lucky because he has a motivated, persistent client.

You can see why this experience echoes the world of consulting. There’s diagnostics, execution and continuous improvement. There is the external consultant and then there is the client. The consultant gathers data, points to solutions, urges new habits, raises awareness, recommends approaches, systems and technology, and nudges, nudges, nudges. But we know who is responsible for turning the stuff of external consulting into meaningful results, don’t we?

[The eight days flew by and it is now the day after Larry’s intervention. Read all about it here, including his reaction and mine.}

As impetus for more and better mobile learning and performance support, they’ve launched WorkLearnMobile– The Mobile Learning Innovation Network. On the resource rich site, Geoff Stead, who leads the mobile learning/support effort for the company, blogs about technology implications for learning and performance. His first entry presents 8 trends in a way that helps readers look beyond the hype. The trends range from analytics to games, to the flipped classroom, MOOCs, and of course, moble devices.

I eagerly dug into the case studies on the site. Augmented reality springs to life through examples. Check out video-based product knowledge training for the new Blackberry. And more to the point, as the NFL season approaches, teams are using iPads to deliver video examples and playbooks to their players. Cut from the team? The system wipes the iPad clean.

People who are working on mobile learning and support are also featured. Chad Udell, Clark Quinn, Robert Gadd and I are the first four at WorkLearnMobile. Unfamiliar with his work, I checked out Chad’s remarks and was glad I did.

In my presentation, I attempted to do some basic blocking and tackling about the wonderfulness of mobile for learning and support. My point was that mobile devices have grown so present that we fail to leverage them. In my 25 minute session, I use examples to encourage mobile for many important purposes, including sales, leadership, wine selection, and the detection of bad breath. While recognizing the power of mobile performance support on its own, think GPS, I remain keen on mobile devices to rivet attention, encourage collegiality, provide reminders and extend classroom lessons.

Today, the site is chock full of content. Ideally, soon, it will become a place for conversation and community. Go there. Comment. Disagree. Cheer. Point to something or someone. That’s the next step for WorkLearnMobile.