This package is the follow‐on to The Learning Needs Interview, produced in 1996. Although it does stand alone, Learning Plans continues the story of Paul, a somewhat dopey manager, struggling to exercise his responsibility for helping his staff to learn and develop; until, that is, he hears the words of wisdom from human resource supremo Marguerite. While Learning Needs addressed how a line manager can help his or her staff to think through their own training and development needs, Learning Plans explores how the dialogue can be continued to develop an effective plan of action.
The package has been developed in conjunction with Peter Honey, who in his “sales letter” identifies a paradox. “Most line managers readily accept that one of their priorities is helping people to learn and develop and yet few actually do enough about it.” I’m not sure I agree that most line managers “readily accept” this responsibility. Nevertheless, I agree that the issue is a key one ‐ albeit difficult to tackle ‐ and is certainly worthy of attention by trainers and managers generally. The pity is I’m not sure that the video itself contributes much to the debate.
We hear that learning plans are best constructed on the basis of LEARN (i.e. Limited, Exact, Appropriate, Realistic and focus on Now). They should follow a pattern of SOS (Style, Options, Selection). Style refers to learning style but here the complexity of learning styles is reduced to “thinkers” and “doers”. Our dopey manager is a “doer” (surprise, surprise!) and his youngsubordinate thinks he’s a “thinker”! But the power of learning is clear ‐ “Thinker” soon begins to lose his nervous stammer as he begins to take control of his meeting with “Dopey”.
Not impressed? Well, perhaps I’ve been a bit harsh. The video is accompanied by suggestions and materials to develop a much more rigorous training intervention. Here, things look more promising. If the video were used within a half‐day session this would enable exploration of the difficulties and complexities and permit issue to be taken with some of the questionable assumptions in the video (such as the apparent limitless resources which exist in the featured organization) and a genuinely useful programme could result.
My fear is that the video will be viewed on its own and as such I remain sceptical about its real value.
