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Where to the field?

Article Excerpt
Traditionally, the field has been defined by job titles. McLagan suggests moving away from title-, membership-, and knowledge-based arguments and focusing instead on equating the field with its purpose: to expand and accelerate learning and performance. To accomplish that, there will be challenges.

For example, measuring the cause and effect of training is complicated based on what equation you use to get results. Recent studies show that the impact of training on performance is unclear. When you focus on learning and performance results, research shows that they are important practice The areas for the field.

McLagan proposes that, because a breadth of practices creates learning and performance results, the intent to facilitate and accelerate learning and performance should define the field. She presents a map to guide decisions and actions that consists of the following: a level that focuses on interventions, a level that focuses on roles, and a level on knowledge bases.

To develop synergy in the field, industry professionals may have to give up older, narrower ways of defining "the field." The place to start is with agreement about the wanted results: enhanced learning and performance. Training, organization development, diversity, and so forth are often means to those ends, but they are not, themselves, the field.

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When many of us think of our field, it is defined by our job title (training specialist, organization development consultant, diversity manager, performance specialist) and our membership in such organization as ASTD, ISPI, the OD Network, the International Coaches Federation, ISA, and the Academy Of HRD. But it is limiting to define our field in those ways, and such definitions may blind us to our ultimate purpose.

There is overlap and confusion because such definitions by title and membership are too dependent on what people do and the knowledge base they come from. For example, people with an education background approach their work differently than those with organizational psychology or economics backgrounds. Those and other knowledge bases have a great deal to contribute, but they too often lead to arguments about whose definition of the field is the right one. Let's move away from title-, membership-, and knowledge-based arguments and focus on equating the field with its purpose. The unifying purpose that seems to have broad support is to expand and accelerate learning and performance.

The research base

Let's start our quest for a new kind of definition by strolling through what research tells us about the practices that expand and accelerate learning and performance. Fortunately in the past decade, research in this area has significantly increased. What does it tell us? Training is a dicey peg to hang the field on. For one thing, studies that investigate the practices that actually improve learning and performance give us a mixed picture of the effectiveness of "training." Some studies do show a relationship between training and financial success. For example, ASTD's International Comparisons Report (2000) found that the top 50 percent companies in development investment showed a 37 percent total shareholder return in 2000, while the bottom 50 percent had only a 20 percent return. It is hard to interpret that conclusion because "development" included such things as performance management as well as training. A New York Times survey (2002) found that the top 20 percent companies in training expenditures returned a 6.5 percent greater increase in five-year annual earnings than the Wilshire 3000 average--with 10 percent less volatility Of returns. However, there is no information on cause and effect. Did the training cause the performance, or do better performing organizations put more money into training? Complicating the picture, at least one study that investigated cause and effect showed a negative relationship between training and performance. For example, Watson Wyatt's multiyear study (released in 2003) of the HR practices related to business performance found that training had a mild negative relationship to performance.

Add conclusions such as these:

* HRD practitioners "developed sophisticated delivery devices at the expense of building the critical connection between the training site and the work environment." (Brinkerhoff and Gill, 1994)

* In a comparative study (2002) of formal and informal learning, Enos and Kehrhahn found that formal learning in classrooms, reading, seminars,...

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