Learning 101

That model was a pretty radical shift for Levi's. But if you're going to teach people to be consumer-focused, you have to do it in a consumer-focused way. The learning environment has to reflect your company's message and its culture. Levi's, for example, has a very touch-and-feel product, so the company wouldn't be well served by an entirely self-paced strategy.

Which raises another important point: Despite the buzz about e-learning, we shouldn't lose sight of the enduring value of getting people together. Corporate learning is one of the few occasions when people can make connections across organizational boundaries -- and that benefit remains as true today as ever before.

Sindri Anderson (sanderson@context.com) managed worldwide training-and-development programs at Levi Strauss & Co. from 1998 until this past summer, when she took on her current role at Context Integration, an Internet professional-services company based in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Bill Ellet

Partner and editor
Training Media Review
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Corporate e-learning has emphasized the "e" part more than the "learning" part. That's because the first wave of e-learning was driven by a focus on cost savings. The result? E-learning's dropout rate has been high, close to 80% -- a rate that would put any brick-and-mortar university out of business. The next wave of online learning must focus on effectiveness.

One problem has been that most e-learning has followed a classroom model. But why bury information in a long, drawn-out, lockstep format? The next wave of e-learning (the one that companies like NETg are creating) puts an emphasis on the learner -- by making information accessible in the smallest possible meaningful units and by allowing learners to put together their own courses.

But even that model works well only for objective content, such as IT or finance. Learning skills such as conflict management and customer service will require the next big innovation in e-learning: simulations.

Simulations force you to make decisions -- and then show you the consequences of those decisions. They're powerful because they're suspenseful; they show rather than tell. You view scenes online, you make decisions, and then you watch how those decisions work (or how they don't). The effects of your decisions are cumulative, just as they are in real life.

But simulations are expensive to build. The big question is, When it comes to training, will companies shift their focus from cost savings to investment?

Bill Ellet (wellet@tmreview.com) has taught a workshop on argument writing at Harvard Business School for the past 10 years. Training Media Review is an online service that evaluates media-based business training.

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

Professor of education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Respect plays a crucial role in learning. People who feel respected feel freer to be curious and freer to ask questions. Unfortunately, curiosity and questioning are qualities that aren't always rewarded in the classroom, or even in the workplace. But without trust and connection -- between teachers and students, between doctors and patients, between bosses and employees -- it's impossible to develop the kind of relationship that enables learning.

In my travels to hundreds of schools nationwide, I always ask kids, "Who are your good teachers?" The kids always say good teachers are the ones who hold them to high standards, who believe that they can do good work, and who believe that they have important lives to lead beyond school. Good teachers are those who see their students as worthy and who know their students by name. All of those qualities highlight a teacher who respects her students.

What undermines respect and, therefore, learning? Hierarchy. Rigid power relationships can block communication and can keep people from behaving authentically toward one another. But hierarchy isn't the same thing as structure. Structure creates clarity; it opens a space where people can be free to relate to one another. Watch a good classroom teacher at work, and you'll see how he makes rules visible and clear. Structure makes learning productive. Hierarchy almost always stifles learning.

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, a sociologist and professor of education, joined the Harvard faculty in 1972.