This week I’m attending the 5 Moments of Need Benchmarking Summit in Sundance, UT. It’s an exciting opportunity to learn from 75 fellow practitioners of the 5 Moments of Need, people who are working to transform their organizations from a traditional focus on teaching and training. They are evangelists and experts. “Evangelists” because have you heard of the 5 Moments of Need? Probably not – and the attendees here are truly living CEEK’s distinction of “Believe it before you see it.” They believe in the power of the 5 Moments of Need framework, even when their peers and colleagues look at them a little askance.
A quick tutorial
The five Moments of Need are Apply, Change, Solve, New, and More. Traditionally, we focus on New and More. The moment of Change is when we have to unlearn what we know because of new information. Think about the new tax code and the changes you should have made in your withholding last year, for instance. Painful, yes, and a moment of learning need. The moment of Solve is when something isn’t working like it should. How do you figure out what you need to know to fix the issue? But the moment of Apply is actually the most important. It’s when you use the knowledge you learned when learning about a new topic or deepening your knowledge with more learning. This is when the rubber hits the road – as anyone who has even looked up a tutorial on YouTube knows. If you are like nearly everyone else today, finding exactly what you need to know, when you need to know it, without having to completely stop your work…well, that’s a good day, right?
By the numbers
In today’s world, the most successful organizations create the ability for workers and staff to learn at the moment of Apply. This conference is focused on helping organizations transform traditional Learning & Development events into these Five Moments, creating new ways of Learning in the Workflow. Reinforcing this is the 2019 Global Human Capital Trends report from Berson by Deloitte, which notes that HR and business leaders should “Seek out opportunities to integrate real-time learning and knowledge management into the workflow.” Near and dear to my heart, the report also notes that “Learning is the top-rated challenge among 2019’s Global Human Capital Trends.” With eighty-six percent of survey respondents rating this issue important or very important, it’s clearly at the top of mind for many business leaders; however, only 10 percent of Deloitte respondents felt very ready to address it.
Why the disconnect?
It’s the realization that the traditional ways of learning (New and More) are not keeping pace with today’s world. The challenge of integrating learning and work is something we all deal with. If you have to choose between work and personal development, which wins? If you have to choose between spending time with your family or an online class for work? Mis-prioritizing these issues creates downstream impact to you, your work, and your family. Does this sound at all familiar?
Are you experiencing this kind of disconnect? Do you recognize a change is needed, but don’t know where to start? As the saying goes (and I’m paraphrasing): The journey of 1,000 miles starts with the first step. If you are stuck in a rut, it’s time to try something new. So here I am, with 75 believers in an approach that we truly know will make a difference. We’ll see if we can change the world for the better!
