I met a lifelong friend last week. We’ve each spent careers in people development. There’s ‘no hiding’ from such a friend. Meeting up is a genuine treat, catching up, reflecting on life, our respective experience and how we are each developing.

The conversation with my friend turned around our respective work in people development. We shared some mutual dissatisfaction the increasingly separation of people in place and time, through remote working and through not being with groups of people in training environments.

If you are reading this as a people development professional, my guess is you’ll have a sense of what I mean. Maybe you’ll share the loss there is in people not getting together with others quite so often and the inevitable separation between people in place and time.

Maybe also you’ll be familiar with that rule of thumb ratio in Learning and Development, the 70:20:10 Model in which 70% of learning is understood to be derived from experience and reflection, 20% from working with others and just 10% from formal learning interventions, courses and the like.

My friend and I were very much in the 70% zone as we reflected on our respective experience of people development. Personally, I find such shared reflection with a trusted friend and colleague incredibly valuable. In fact, time out for the 70% reminds me of wise advice given to me years ago.

Charlie, the person giving advice commended that I should take a day out of the office each month to go for a long walk in order to reflect on work and to plan for the future. Not many of us get the chance to take a whole day out each month, but the principle is a good one. Maybe if a whole day isn’t possible, then a little ring-fenced time is?

Charlie, along with the friend I met with last week would also share a commitment to what I describe as non-managerial supervision, to finding (or being assigned) an experienced person with whom to reflect in a structured way about our professional practise. I find such non-managerial supervision invaluable.

In the examples I’ve shared we have what might be described as three forms of ‘time out’ to support professional practise:
1. Time out with someone you trust and whose opinion counts for us.
2. Time out to reflect, re-charge and re-envision.
3. Time out for professional, non-managerial supervision.

For me, these three forms of ‘time out’ feel to be simply normal good practise for any professional.

Of course, any people development professional worth their salt, knows about the three ‘time outs’. I’m sure for the majority reading this, I’m reminding you of what you already know and that this is an important expression not just of the 70% (which is to do with our experience and reflection) but more especially of the 20% (which is to do with our shared work with others).

So, we’re only left with the 10% of formal course content when thinking about the 70:20:10 Model. It’s not much is it. It’s just information. Just content. It’s the context of delivery that matters just as much. More than that, it’s the way people are connected, in and between operational contexts that matters most.

It is my own view that as hybrid and remote working continues to develop as normal and conventional practise, it will become increasingly important to:
1. Build and maintain connections between people.
2. Contextualise the skills and knowledge people need to acquire.
3. Enabling and empowering the three forms of ‘time out’ I have described.

This is why we have developed the SPICE Ecosystem™ as a user experience that is about:
• Connecting people to one another
• Contextualising formal skill and knowledge in development plans that relate training to performance.

You can find out more about how the SPICE Ecosystem™ does this by visiting, www.spiceframework.com

Written by System Administrator

August 30, 2023