Editorial

Citation

Gimson, A. (2016), "Editorial", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 30 No. 4, pp. 1-2. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLO-04-2016-0036

A common mantra in L&D teams around the globe is “70:20:10”, but many still focus the majority of their time and resource on the formal 10 per cent. In our Viewpoint (pp. 3-5), Robin Hoyle shares his pragmatic approach on how to shift that balance to effectively integrate “learning through work” with targeted formal interventions – and the latter is not just about training! The mini case study from LV in the UK brings his ideas alive.

Some would say that “immersive serious games” (ISG) offer an opportunity to get formal training pretty close to the real world, but they can require significant investment. Research from Kung Wong Lau and Pui Yuen Lee (pp. 6-8) fires a further warning shot – beware the high expectations of “digital natives” (18-24 year olds, in this case from Hong Kong). On four of the five dimensions measured, the ISG in question failed to satisfy their expectations. In a similar vein, the review article “When training works: strategies for effective learning”, (pp. 21-23) revisits how to effectively engage learners in formal training events, based on research with experienced trainers from the USA.

Alongside the knowledge and skills, people in organizations need to continually develop, and many would say that “self knowledge” is equally, if not more important. In “Reaping rewards of self-awareness” (pp. 24-26), we hear about a comparative study (in the UK) of two types of workshops designed to assist people to increase their level of self-awareness. Participants report gains via both methods and beneficial impacts on the wider organization.

Moving on to focus directly on performance, the results of a useful US study on the link between levels of proactivity in sales people and their actual sales performance is shared by Michael Mallin (pp. 9-12). The four key traits that emerged from the results are set out, and the article concludes with a summary of the strategies and tactics that can be used for hiring, developing and coaching proactive salespeople.

From an individual performance, we shift to team performance and, more specifically, “transactive memory systems” in teams (pp. 13-16). Srabasti Chatterjee firstly defines the term and goes on to identify how it improves team performance and how you might go about increasing the level of transactive memory in your organization.

Widening the scope still further to the organizational level, Juan Manuel Menendez Blanco and Jose Luis Montes Botella direct our attention to the need for corporate “resilience” (pp. 17-20). Their theoretical model identifies three groups of variables and proposes detailed indicators that could be used to build a resilience balance scorecard.

Staying with an organizational perspective, in “Ideas, experiments and open minds” (pp. 27-29), we hear about research across 287 listed companies in China. The study takes a fresh look at, firstly, the definition of organizational learning (OL) and, secondly, the impact (or not) of OL on organizational performance.

Finally, we loop back around to how best to integrate learning into the fabric of people’s work. Bringing together a focus on authentic leadership and mindfulness, the impact of an action-learning-based three-year leadership program in Canada is described in “Becoming a better leader” (pp. 30-32).