As some of you may know, our mission at Proteus is: We help clients clarify and move toward their hoped-for future. However, we also apply our mission to ourselves — we consistently work to clarify and move toward our hoped-for future as a company. The last couple of years have been especially wild and fun: we’ve been growing quickly, and looking for ever-better and more effective ways to support leader readiness at every level.
One of the things we’re really trying to sort out lately is how to best use distant learning to support our in-person training, coaching and facilitation. Even though our foundation is in-person learning, and we believe deeply in the power and efficacy of face-to-face development, we want to figure out how to augment that with other learning approaches.
Our point of view is that no matter how technologically advanced we become, human beings are still physical creatures, and much of our most profound and permanent growth happens as a result of interactions with others. But that learning can be reinforced through lots of other means. In the leadership and management training we do, for instance, we’ve found that having the opportunity to hear about, see, discuss, practice and debrief new skills in real time with an excellent instructor and other learners is key to real behavior change. However, we also know that learning online can be a great lead-in to those face-to-face learning situations, and — even more important — can be powerful in supporting participants’ ongoing learning after the session.
So ‑What Works?
At this point, we’re talking to smart, experienced people to get their insights about how best to take advantage of the options now available, through technology, to prepare for, support, and sustain face-to-face learning.
And you, my friends, are smart, experienced people. I’d love to hear from you about any ‘distant’ learning options you’ve found valuable — online, mobile, video, whatever.
Just drop me an email, and let us know: What did you like about it? What did you learn? What could have been better? And if you have the chance to send along links, or app names — that would be wonderful, too.
As an added incentive, just for turning us on to something you’ve found valuable, we’ll give you free access to our first online support system, once we’ve developed it.
I can’t wait to hear from you.…
Warmly,
Erika