It is usually used as a compliment: being such an organization is a good thing. Yet even as we use the term, we might not be sure what it means.

It’s been a little over 3 months since I decided to recommit to focusing my investing efforts on education and economic mobility. When I made the switch over to Reach, I knew that a lot was changing in the education space and that the opportunity for innovation was huge. That said, I underestimated the tectonic shifts that were happening below the surface to make the industry more interesting than ever before. Education, as many of us know it, where learning happens in the confines of 4 walls and led by a sage-on-the-stage teacher, seems like it’s close to becoming a distant memory.

Virtually all leaders believe that to stay competitive, their enterprises must learn and improve every day. But even companies revered for their dedication to continuous learning find it difficult to always practice what they preach. Consider Toyota: Continuous improvement is one of the pillars of its famed business philosophy. After serious problems in late 2009 led Toyota to recall more than 9 million vehicles worldwide, its leaders confessed that their quest to become the world’s largest automobile producer had compromised their devotion to learning.

Most of the breakthrough discoveries and remarkable inventions throughout history, from flints for starting a fire to self-driving cars, have something in common: They are the result of curiosity. The impulse to seek new information and experiences and explore novel possibilities is a basic human attribute. New research points to three important insights about curiosity as it relates to business. First, curiosity is much more important to an enterprise’s performance than was previously thought. That’s because cultivating it at all levels helps leaders and their employees adapt to uncertain market conditions and external pressures: When our curiosity is triggered, we think more deeply and rationally about decisions and come up with more-creative solutions. In addition, curiosity allows leaders to gain more respect from their followers and inspires employees to develop more-trusting and more-collaborative relationships with colleagues.

As leaders looks for new ways to improve workplace well-being while reducing stress and burnout, a relatively new concept has emerged: job crafting, a strategy that gives employees the chance to design their roles for a more meaningful experience of work. Scientists have found that monotonous work can negatively impact mental health, cause us major stress, and lead to burnout. The chronically bored are at higher risk for drug addiction, alcoholism, and compulsive gambling. In her paper, “Neuroscience Reveals That Boredom Hurts,” Dr. Judy Willis, a neurologist and former classroom teacher, claims that when we’re bored, our judgment, goal-directed planning, risk assessment, focus, and control over our emotions all suffer. And a Korn Ferry poll of nearly 5,000 professionals claims that the top reason people look for a new job is boredom. 

It seems that everyone in business today is talking about the need for all workers to engage in lifelong learning as a response to the rapid pace of technological and strategic change all around us. But I’ve found that most executives and talent management professionals who are charged with getting their people to learn aren’t thinking about what drives real learning — the creation of new knowledge, not just the handoff of existing knowledge. As a result, many companies are missing opportunities to motivate their employees to engage in the kind of learning that will actually help them innovate and keep pace with their customers’ changing needs.

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here. Every four years, something inside me shifts. I get restless and want to learn something new or apply my skills in a new way. It’s as though I shed a professional skin and start over, fresh. In my 20s, I got all kinds of flak for this. When I decided to guide hiking trips rather than join a consulting firm, my peers said that my resume made no sense. When I opted to defer graduate school to travel in India, my mentors questioned my seriousness and said my professional future could crash.

Leaders everywhere are desperate for new insights, new products, new sources of energy and creativity. One way to find those things is to embrace new ideas about who gets to contribute and how, whether they are inside or outside the organization. The author points to two examples: the art exhibition “Guarding the Art” and John Fluevog’s “Open Source Footwear” program. As he writes, “One of the most energizing ways to make your organization more productive and successful is to invite more people to contribute more of themselves to its success.”

Since the term Learning Experience Platform (LXP) burst into the L&D zeitgeist 3 years ago, businesses have been left with some agonizing questions. Should an LXP replace my Learning Management System (LMS)? Are LXPs worth the hype? Can my LMS and LXP coexist? Should I be looking for something else? Many businesses decided on their learning platform direction in 2018/19 when LXPs first came to prominence. But the context is different now. COVID-19 has accelerated and spotlighted issues that have been building over the past few years. Businesses are now more aware of the enormous reskilling and upskilling tasks ahead of them. Learners are more keen than ever to continuously build their skills. This has shifted the relative values LXPs and LMSs can provide. The platforms themselves have changed too. All of them have added new features and the markets have shifted as different products specialise for different pain points. This conclusive guide is built to help businesses decide what they need from their LMS or LXP in the volatile context of 2021.

Introduction by Will Thalheimer We are learning and performance (L&P) professionals—and we can’t keep up! At least that’s the way I often feel. First, we’ve got solutions to design, build, and deliver. And tons of them! New technologies are exploding across the landscape. We’re still figuring out the best ways to reach our online participants. And the science of learning has blossomed with new information and practical insights.

How to select the right technology for enabling a learning culture The key to the success of an agile workforce is the continual development of its staff brought on by a strong learning culture - and that is where technology comes in. Here are seven golden rules for effectively integrating tech and reaping the rewards. For the past 18 months learning culture has understandably been given a focus in L&D, organisations have gone through massive upheavals, restructures, and many have embraced remote working. It has become apparent that for an organisation to successfully adapt to our ever-changing environment that it must have an agile workforce.

Jan 17, 2023 // You will probably spend around seven hours online today—that’s the global average. Over the course of your life, you will spend as much time consuming content as you would studying for about four college degrees, and we need to change how we show that, writes Readocracy CEO Mario Vasilescu.

Global learning industry both shaken and stirred by the pandemic.John's guest this time is Donald H. Taylor, Chair of the Learning Technologies Conference, o...