Memories of a Traveler

Salaam and Greetings,   Last week I wrote about the need to understand Training and Development (or now it is affectionately called, Learning and Development – L&D).   This week, I will be writing on “What is L&D, and why is there a need for training/learning, and what is the difference?”.   In my over 20 years of being in L&D, and I started in Training, I have seen a lot of changes. Some good ones, and some, well, all I can say is that, there is more hype than substance.   Past few years, I have seen where training (I will use this term loosely to denote any type of learning, courses, programs, seminars, conferences, either face-to-face, or via web, and/or computer assisted learning etc), have been more sophisticated than before. It has employed various researches and studies, including best practices of successful organizations.   I have seen enough (can’t say I have seen it all), to know that, some of the training, which was fun, lots of activiti

Salaam and greetings all,   A couple of days ago, I had a conversation with a colleague of mine. Among the things we talked about is her development needs. I asked her what she needed to help her do her job better.   Coming from a different field and new to Learning and Development (L&D) she wanted to know what it is, and what the big fuss is. With billions of dollars spent in publishing books, CDs, games and courses, all in the name of improving ourselves, why are some organizations doing well, and some fail miserably, despite spending millions of dollars advised by experts, either in-house L&D experts or outside  consultants. Even lots of institutions of learning fail, yet they are the place people go to learn. Hmmm... Sigh...   But, there are companies who are doing very well, for many many years, which shows a strength in L&D culture. Some are big Fortune 500 companies. And some are SMI/SMEs. And because of that, there are countries that no longer