learning - John Cone

You won't find any ivy growing on Coné either. He is in constant motion, talking with his hands flying and his eyebrows bobbing. His least-active hobby is marathon running. And no one would confuse him with Ferris Bueller's science teacher. Before his career as a corporate educator, Coné did stints as an actor, a radio announcer, and a carpenter. He enjoys hamming it up. During an interview, and without a word of warning, he dropped his voice into the creamy lilt of a deejay as he described his days playing "the world's most beeyewtiful music" at an Illinois radio station.

But there's no denying Coné's credentials as a business educator. He spent 11 years at Motorola Inc., where he was a founder and creator of Motorola University -- the gold standard of corporate-learning programs. Companies from around the world visited MU to learn how that education pioneer created and delivered its curriculum. But even during MU's glory days, Coné was learning that there might be other, and better, ways to teach.

"All these companies were benchmarking Motorola, and I'd take them around and say, 'This is the way to do it.' They'd say, 'Sure, if you're a multibillion-dollar company with hundreds of people in your training organization.' That's when I started to think, 'Is there another model? We're the benchmark today -- but who's going to create the next great model?' "

In 1991, Coné left Motorola to join Sequent Computer Systems Inc., a fast-growing company in Beaverton, Oregon. There he established Sequent University -- and began to appreciate some of the concerns that he'd heard from visitors to Motorola. "Nothing that I had done at Motorola was going to work at Sequent," he says. "I had gone from a huge, old company to a small, young one. And that was the allure -- just as it was when I came to Dell. I wasn't going to be successful by repeating what I'd done. I had to try new things."

The "new things" he's doing at Dell University revolve around making simple but powerful distinctions between three kinds of learning inside companies. First there is what Coné calls "learning to know" -- the acquisition of general knowledge about the company and about its processes and systems. Then there is "learning to do" -- the quick acquisition and immediate application of specific skills to do specific jobs. Finally there is "learning to know and do" -- the acquisition of both a big-picture perspective and the pragmatic techniques needed to accomplish something. "The overwhelming majority of traditional corporate education is learning to know -- 'Here's stuff we want you to be familiar with,' " says Coné. "You teach that differently from how you teach learning to do -- hard skills that people need to practice and get fast feedback on. These categories help us to deliver education that is very user-friendly."

Most of Dell University's delivery mechanisms involve technology. One major "learning to do" priority is for every Dell employee to master the Internet. Toward that end, Dell University created a Web-based program called "Know the Net." It's not mandatory; Dell employees access the course if and when they choose. But Michael Dell has been vocal about his support for the course -- which may explain why so many cubicles at Dell headquarters display the company's version of an Internet diploma: A poster of the CEO looking directly at you and pointing one hand in a "you-da-man" salute. The poster reads, "MICHAEL SAYS I KNOW THE NET."

Other classes, such as training for new, in-the-field sales reps, rely on a clever collection of multimedia tools for self-paced learning. The field-sales kit comes in a cardboard box labeled "In-a-box training for out-of-the-box times." Inside, new reps find videotapes with information on how to sell Dell products, a CD-ROM with product descriptions, and a video about benefits. The CD-ROM alone, a snazzy interactive offering filled with games and case studies, has eliminated more than 16 hours of classroom time, says Darcy Kurtz, 27, a sales-training manager. "Making that CD was definitely a 'wow!' experience for us," Kurtz says. "We didn't really believe that we could replace 16 hours of class time with a tool that took one or two hours and was a lot more fun. But the reps loved it, in part because they could refer back to it easily. And it helped us get them up to speed faster -- which meant they started selling sooner."

Dell University has created similar learning tools for topics such as new-hire orientation, customer service, and the giving of performance reviews. Coné is especially keen on this last tool, which is called Employee Appraiser. Some first-time managers may need an in-the-classroom seminar to learn the basic principles of motivating and rewarding their people -- and Dell University provides such seminars. But other managers just might need pragmatic tips about how to improve their writing of appraisals.