A Blunt Instrument

Twitter is the second best thing that’s ever happened to mankind after croissant (pain au chocolat, to be exact). Those who say they enjoy eating sourdough bread is either a liar or a sociopath. Well, c’est la vie.

I finished a whole season of Emily in Paris in one sitting. It was terrible. I enjoyed every minute of it. If there’s anything I learned from that TV show is that people should stop learning from TV shows and movies. Or trying to extract life lessons from them, at least. Not everything in life has to be educational, says the learning consultant.

I make a living from converting seemingly unlearnable things into learnable things. That’s the whole point, right? I scream learning is working and working is learning all the time. It’s practically tattooed on my forehead. Besides, I’ve already done such a terrific job convincing the Big Dawgs that there are hidden lessons in things like virtual team building. I am… a fraud. But there’s no going back. The Imposter Life chose me.

A fancy way to say F**k You

My goal in life is to move to Nebraska and become a Sam’s Club Plus Member. If you think I’m just taking the piss, God bless your pure soul. I should probably settle for second best, which is a 1BR apartment in Ang Mo Kio. But that’s for another day.

A fancy way to say F**k You is “How can we make this more strategic?”, which is asked to someone like me a lot. Think of “What do people do in marketing *all day*?” but times 100. Great, that’s a fraction of the sh*t I have to put up with explaining the strategic imperative of learning.

The idea that learning is strategic is so abstract that my dear fellows battling the same fight would rather sell LMS for a living. They almost always end up selling themselves short. Boo-hoo.

Sorry, I am once again taking the piss. If you think I’m just a douchebag hiding behind layers and layers of sarcasm, trust your gut.

Will you marry me?

When someone tells me that their LMS is not functioning the way it’s supposed to, and that it has underdelivered the promised value, I usually get down on one knee, and propose to them. Such revelations only come to The Wise. I want my children to have a good role model.

LMS stands for Learning Misery System. Sorry, I meant Management. It’s done everything perfectly OK, except, well, the L in LMS. It’s currently an MS, and nothing else. I call the LMS a blunt instrument. A blunt instrument [figurative] is a thing, person, method, or resource which is not sufficiently precise or not sufficiently effective for its intended role or use.

Supermodel?

I was asked to speak in a workshop this morning. I’m young, energetic, and have no wrinkles — that’s cue for a “digital mindset” workshop. In a world where everything is not what it seems, it would be such a waste not to exploit it.

(I. Am. A. Fraud)

Most of my understanding of learning comes from my teaching days at my old high school. A few minutes after my graduation, I applied for an internship role as a teacher assistant. I was, and still am, fascinated by children. They are smarter and funnier than most of the adults I meet. If I weren’t doing what I’m doing today, I’d probably be a kindergarten teacher.

Jokes. That’s what supermodels say in one of those Vogue 73 Questions.

“If I weren’t a model… I’d probably be a math teacher… like a kindy teacher… I love kids!”

Ugh. I wish I was hot.

I like kids, but LMS needs some fixing

If I weren’t doing what I’m doing today, I’d probably spend my time obsessing over management systems. I don’t care much about LMS. LMS is, well, a software application for the “administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation and delivery of educational courses, training programs, or learning and development programs.” In theory, it’s a pretty straightforward tool.

In practice, the Big Dawgs want more.

LMS to me is a blunt instrument in a sense that it doesn’t really do much, or give much, other than record-keeping. In my opinion (and you shouldn’t trust my opinion, re: the imposter life chose me), a more powerful tool for learning ecosystem would be a knowledge management system (KMS). An article by Julian Lehr perfectly encapsulates my thought on this (yes, I am too lazy to even repackage it into my own take, sorry — trust your gut, please).

We need a better way to capture knowledge, not just deliver them. LMS is great for delivery. But if we really want to capture the flow of knowledge–and turn it into an asset–then we need to rethink our strategy around system deployment. Why does this system exist? Why am I investing billions in this? (SAP I’m looking at you).

Again, someone (not me) needs to build a system with actual learning in mind, not compliance. LMS screams obedience. Learning? Not so much. The KMS of my dreams is a platform that blends the rawness of Twitter, the addictiveness of Instagram, and the usefulness of Stack Overflow.

Cut to the chase

I promised to talk about learning value chain, but until then… this is all you get: My. Raw. Thoughts. I have a bad habit of overpromising my stakeholders, nothing new.

I do believe the future of learning is social and collaborative. Mentors and coaches will be one of the highest paying jobs, and “teachers”–who remain central to education–will have a shift in their R&Rs. It isn’t just about telling someone what you know–it’s about making sure that they can turn what they know into beneficial performance. Learning objectives will soon resemble performance goals.

Learning at the workplace is often scrutinised for its inability to catch up with business needs. Soon enough, the learning embodied in corporate curriculum will follow the style of what I call “cut-to-the-chase learning.”

Why read a recipe on how to make a mug brownie when I can just watch a 3-min video on @buzzfeedtasty? And while I’m at it, I can quickly scroll through the comments to see the common pitfalls of people who have tried doing it. Hyper. Fast. Feedback. Loop.

The Undoing, end of year, early quarter-life crisis

I also just finished watching HBO The Undoing. So. Good. I loved every second of it. And yes, it’s always the f**king husband.

Hugh Grant, however, ages like fine wine.

Late last year I created an end of year deck that listed all of my achievements and failures, and things to improve in 2020. Twenty-twenty, to say the least, has been a sh*t show. It’s been incredibly hard for a lot of small businesses, travel-related industries, and just people in general. If you’re rewatching Sex and the City for the 9th time this year, I don’t blame you. This year I won’t be making any. I am… simply living life, whatever it is at the moment.

I feel like I’m constantly questioning my existence. Why the f**k am I here. Why. Do. I. Exist. While I may not know the answer to that, I can safely say I wasn’t born into this world just to make slides and hopefully get approval by EOD. It feels like I should’ve been the one who invented the air fryer. If only I wasn’t so obsessed with things like KMS.

I asked my dad to take 10,000 steps a day, he probably does 10. He doesn’t care much about his looks. He’s old, although he kind of used to look like Hugh Grant. He, however, had decided early on that he didn’t want… things. So I guess it’s not about wanting more… it’s about wanting less. While work has been one of my greatest sources of joy–life has been… unfulfilling. But this, of course, won’t stop me from serving the Big Dawgs.

Take it easie. Life isn’t really short, but it isn’t very long either. It almost feels like one of those 5-min songs. It’s not Taco Tuesday by Migos (which is very short), but it’s not exactly Swan Lake, Op.20, TH.12 / Act 2: no.13 Danses des cygnes either.

Life is one of those 5-minute songs.

Heidi

PS. If you have any questions or just want to brainstorm learning-related ideas with me, book a 30 min chat with me on calendly.com/heidinadhira :)