30 Nov 2007

Are we good at change?

Well, no of course. We resent it. I resent it. I'm not saying we don't see the advantages of it. We're even eager to change, but we don't like transitions. This is what makes change hard.

When we see e-learning take off in our institutions, we often have success in a first phase. The trouble starts in the second phase, when people are used to good content with good support and active coaching. Then they suddenly discover that the distance to teachers is almost gone. And guess what happens next? The learner realizes he or she is in control of the experience. So then the learning institutions find themselves in the position of being transparent in the learning experience and entirely oblique in the management and curriculum processes.

To conclude for now, can we change our structures to accommodate the new expectations of learners? I really can't say, but it will probably be inevitable and the best adapted organizations will be the ones that are most open to change to follow this movement. Change management will have to evolve into an ongoing process, as it already is in commercial organizations.

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