5 Rules for Modern Business Learning

The new realities of business during the COVID-19 pandemic mean new ways of thinking about work and professional development. Fresh models are emerging that executives need to consider if they are to survive during these challenging times.

According to L&D experts Crystal Kadakia and Lisa M.D. Owens, authors of the new publication In Designing for Modern Learning: Beyond ADDIE and SAM, the expectations and realities of today’s learning environment are far more complex than traditional instructional design models were intended for: “We believe that the OK-LCD (Owens-Kadakia Learning Cluster Design) model is more compatible with our current context of learning and working within a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. The model has greater potential to help learning professionals make a bigger impact with modern learning design.”

What is OK-LCD? The pair say it is more than just a philosophy. It is composed of five Actions that L&D professionals can use to design learning clusters.

C: Change On-the-Job Behavior
L: Learn Learner-to-Learner-Differences
U: Upgrade Existing Assets
S: Surround Learners With Meaningful Assets
T-ER: Track Transformation of Everyone’s Results.

“If you approach a learning project as designing training and enabling knowledge acquisition, then you are living by time-honored, traditional instructional development principles and assumptions,” says Kadakia. “However, if instead you approach a learning project as designing and facilitating access to a wide variety of learning assets, and as empowering and measuring behavior change in the workplace, then you are living by the principles embedded in the Owens-Kadakia Learning Cluster Design model—and you are seamlessly connecting learners with the resources trainers need to change behavior on the job to deliver the desired business results.”

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