What’s in a Question? Our Future

This post was written by Jacob McNulty

This month’s Big Question on Learning Circuits Blog is

What questions should we be asking? 

In a former life I worked for a company whose business model was structured around a two-day workshop.  Although in the time since I’ve been there I have learned that a two-day workshop can usually be just a cog in a larger wheel (if it’s to be effective) that two-day workshop was excellent.

One of the most popular modules was one called ‘Effective Questions.’  In it, the facilitator had participants experience the difference between two different questions that could be asked in the same scenario (i.e. Why are we so behind schedule? vs. What can we do to get back to our projected timeline?)

An effective question can leave a person to stew on it for hours or days only to have an answer pop-in unexpectedly.  I feel this is what the learning and development field should strive for in their communication to business executives.

Some examples would be:

•  What knowledge, skills and attitudes are necessary to execute on your strategy? 
• How can we more effectively diversify your learning ‘portfoilio’ so that the maximum return is realized?
•  What are the various futures that may be in store for this organization?  What are the common denominators between those potential futures that we can align learning and development with now?
• How can your incentive programs be better aligned with the behaviors required for success?  What can learning and development then do to make it easier for people to receive those incentives?
• How can your current training expenditures be adjusted in order to maximize the net present value of these allocations?

I feel that learning and development needs to continue to show that we think like business executives in order to get the ear of business executives.  Through well targeted questions, executives will convince themselves of the value of their workforce having the skills, attitude and knowledge needed to succeed.  At that point, we in the learning and development field can banter as to the specific methodology to use - won’t that be a good problem to have?

Tags: business training, corporate training, development, Incentive Alignment, learning, learning portfolio, learning strategies, net present value, NPV, organizational learning, professional development, scenario planning, workforce development