Epic Think Tank

Leading Change and e-learning

Part 3: What is the role of e-learning in a change programme?

'Content is king but communities are sovereign.' Stephen Hepple, Director of Ultralab, Anglia Polytechnic University's learning technology research centre in Chelmsford.

Nothing motivates people more than belonging to a team, and where motivation is a key success factor, team-building becomes an essential activity. 'We need to create motivated communities of learners,' said one of our delegates. This was seen as an important way of leading change.

Change programmes are about getting people to behave differently. These people will undoubtedly need new skills as a result of the change, but also they also need the triggers for those skills, reminders of when and how to use them - that come from having the support of peer networks through a process of change. So is e-learning, with its ability to harness the connective power of the internet, the answer?

Well, not alone, it seems. 'Yes e-learning is the answer if it's a case of fact, fact, fact - push button "b". But in terms of engineering change, e-learning alone is not the answer.' Others around the table thought that this comment rather caricatured e-learning in the mould of 'page-turning' content, ignoring its ability to connect learners not only to information but also to other learners. However it was generally felt that while e-learning could provide key components in a change programme, it would work best supported within a blended programme.

The risks of change

There is also the issue that e-learning itself is a change, so would it just be piling risk on risk to use e-learning in a change programme? A pessimistic view of this question given by one delegate was that we are still not past the 'disruption' stage with e-learning, indicating that it might have limited utility.

However, a contradictory argument runs that the increasing adoption of internet and digital technologies as part of everyday working lives is perhaps the most crucial change facing all organisations today: in helping make the transition to a wired world, what more natural channel could there be than the medium itself? Certainly. in the public sector, moving processes to the Internet is a central plank of the government's modernisation agenda. As for the medium's still being in its disruptive phase, the 'Playstation' generation is inexorably growing more prevalent in the labour force. While this risks raising the bar for expectations of e-learning production values, it means that, as a delivery method, the internet is fast becoming not only tolerated but actively expected.

Further upstream, some 90% of children studying for 'highers' in Scotland are now using the Internet to get there. So this is one change at least where progress looks, in many ways inexorable - as the mantle of leadership passes to a younger generation.

John Helmer for Epic, December 2002

Introduction
Background
Part 1 When do managers become leaders?
Part 2 How can e-learning develop these skills?