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Choosing the title of this blog was a tad challenging since I am in fact a huge supporter of performance centric solutions in business. Whats getting to me is the idea of “performance support” being something we (as in employees, L&D managers, CEO’s) can choose to implement or not. If you think it is, then I disagree with you. I think if you are part of a business whether you run it, or just work in it, the function of every department, every strategic business unit, every person is part of organizational performance support. What every business cares about, is the performance of the business. Every decision made within a business is all about performance support. Marketing is performance support. Sales is performance support. You get it? So when L&D talks about performance support, its this strange arrogance maybe stemming from our unenviable position of impotence that we believe it were some novel strategy that WE can implement.

This all about perspective (reality tunnels via Robert Anton Wilson). The default human perspective on things starts with the ‘me’ as the starting point. This is only natural since our senses were built to move outwards from ourselves as the center. However, we can move beyond this traditional human perspective through thought and emotional intelligence. So when we (L&D people) talk about ‘performance support’ we talk about it from the ‘me’ perspective looking out which is why an otherwise very intelligent man would say “It’s time to make it a central part of our workplace learning strategy. No, better yet, it’s time to make it a central part of our business strategy.”

Sorry but…Make ‘performance support part of our workplace learning strategy’? You do realize that workplace learning is actually part of a ‘performance support strategy’ if your looking at it from the organizational POV. In other words, workplace learning coming at it from the organization inwards fits into a performance support strategy as does everything.

“it’s time to make it a central part of our business strategy.” – To begin with, I laugh at the thought of L&D people making business strategy decisions outside of L&D. Secondly, performance support has long ago been a formal strategic business unit of organizations called ‘operations’.

Now the problem you see, is this isn’t a mere obfuscation of the words ‘performance support’. The rhetoric we hear nowadays about performance support is a great example of why L&D is so innocuous. Its an example of myopia mixed with arrogance. Myopia because we always look at things strictly from the perspective of ‘me’ outwards and arrogance because we are always building our own infrastructures separate from what already exists within organizations.

Part of the solution is to begin supporting the organization using the organization as the central POV and work your way inwards from there. Resolve ‘organizational performance problems’ along with the rest of the organization. Organizations solve performance problems using new policies, buying new equipment, hiring different people, cutting resources, etc. These decisions are in theory (definitely not in practice) made through careful analysis of a variety of factors, most importantly being ‘Is the business making money’. If your going to try ‘implementing’ performance support from a ‘me’ POV then your simply going to be deprioritized. However if you work in concert with existing infrastructures for resolving organizational performance issues, your now working as part of the network.

In summary, we need to stop looking at performance support as a separate strategy that WE can choose to implement or not, since the fabric of every organization is in fact composed of a network of units purposefully built to support organizational performance. If your doing something other than trying to support ‘organizational performance’ then your probably better off in Academia (which has its own issues). Given that the fabric of every organization is in fact fortified through the goal of organizational performance, our purpose is to support that fabric. Creating our own infrastructures and defining ‘performance support’ as a subset of a workplace learning strategy is simply wrong.

The quote, by Robert Anton Wilson, in his book ‘Prometheus Rising’ has been stuck in my head since I read it. It is, from the looks of it a theme Wilson keeps bringing up throughout the book (I’m only 1/3 into the book) to showcase an inherent characteristic about a genetic imprint that none of us can shake. This imprint goes something like ‘Think that everyone in the world is trustworthy and your brain reaches to prove that thought.’ Everyone is made up of these two sides, the thinker and the prover. Robert Anton Wilson is a favourite of mine after reading Shroedinger’s cat. He’s much smarter than I am and a much better writer. So if my explanation of this one line isn’t making sense read it from his own words.

In any case, this blog isn’t about discussing the meaning of the quote. Its about the experiences that follow the quote and the transformative power of 7 little words ‘What the thinker thinks, the prover proves’.

I was working out the other day and was about to engage in a very intense exercise. I began to get anxious about what my performance would be like. My mind said ‘You’ll never make it through’ and then ‘What the thinker thinks the prover proves’. I immediately changed my thought and guess what…I did alright.

I was responding to an email asking about what was good and what was bad about an LMS (short form of the question). My answer ‘What the thinker thinks the prover proves’. My point, choose a model which you can use to prove whether the LMS is good or bad, because you can find a model that will showcase the LMS as good or as bad. ‘What the thinker thinks, the prover proves’.

Over and over again…I can’t shake this line. 7 words. Simple. Black font on backlit screen of an iPad. Transforming how I think, how I behave. Today as the line rang through my head a couple of other lines rang through my head. ‘Telling ain’t training’, ‘You need clearly defined learning objectives, assessments, exercises for real learning’ (heard that in an online discussion). And then, the glorious…’Fuck that’!

To everyone of us who is interested in creating experiences that transform thinking and behaviours…7 words, black font, backlit screen, my transformative experience. Lets stop the bullshit. Learning can happen anywhere, anytime, anyhow with or without us. We are NOT in control, lets stop behaving like we are.

This post will surely raise some spines. I ran into a post yesterday that stated the following “Learning starts with clear learning goals and learning objectives and well structured content, activities, assessments and discussions etc as appropriate.

I recommend everybody in the thread runs off to learn about Blooms taxonomy… I take exception to some of the definitions of learning here. They are very shallow. There are many levels till one attains mastery.”

My first reaction was “What a bunch of BS”. Sounds like good old fashioned instructional design rhetoric. So I did what I do and challenged the notion that this was the way ‘Learning’ had to happen. I cited research by Dr Sugata Mitra coming out of the Hole in the Wall experiments. I cited personal experiences of learning where no such structure existed. I got back a reply saying that they respectfully disagreed with Dr. Mitra and what did Mitra’s work have to do with adult learning anyways. The experiments were with kids and it was all about computer literacy. WRONG! I told the person to dig a little deeper or to find me research that refutes Dr. Mitra’s claims. Surprise surprise no such research was cited.

In any case, here’s what really pisses me off about this whole line of thinking. It would seem that Instructional Designers have stolen ‘learning’ and have made themselves the master of when learning can occur. Surprisingly ‘Learning’ or ‘Real Learning’ can only occur if its gone through the hands of the instructional designer and structured so that there are clearly stated learning objectives and then very structured lessons and exercises around those objectives ending with an assessment based on those objectives. Well you know what, the people want ‘learning’ back because if this is the only way we can learn, we hate it! I know we hate it because most of us are finding alternate ways of learning and technology is helping us alot. For one, lets get something straight. Instructional Designers have never, will never, and can not possible ever design ‘learning’ itself. Got it? Cause I’m sick of saying it. We can create the stimulus and we can create ways of helping people acquire knowledge and skills (thats our job) but WE DO NOT CREATE LEARNING!

We can also drop this, “Well your just talking about informal learning” followed by this doesn’t create ‘real’ or ‘deep learning’ because you know what? Bullshit! Formal vs informal vs blended is all a bunch of rhetoric instructional designers have created to take ownership of learning. Learning is a messy process and to talk about it like it can be parceled out into formal vs informal objectifies it and strips it of being a continuous process that our minds are engaged in at almost all times.

I’m here to negotiate a settlement. You give us ‘learning’ back and we’ll let you have ‘instruction’. Talk about formal vs informal instruction, talk about designing instruction, talk about whether a PDF on a mobile device is good instruction and you know what, you can live in that world and be very smart with each other. We the people on the other hand will let learning be what we do organically whether through instruction you’ve designed for us or despite instruction you’ve designed for us. If you really want to help me learn, stop trying to wrap it in a bubble. Let me connect with people, content, games, web pages and help me understand what you want me to do, not what you want me to learn. I’m gonna learn despite you!