Learners are often told that they must participate in a learning program. I've borrowed a concept from people skills coach Kate Nasser to highlight 19 burdens which may create learner tension pre-engagement, and which can shut down effective formal learning before it even begins.
I recently stumbled across some very compelling work by Kate Nasser, a savvy consultant with a long history as a people skills coach. Kate writes and thinks about skills development and leadership, seemingly with an emphasis on customer/vendor relationships and the amplification of business success.
I’ve already delved somewhat into notions that learning professionals can learn from marketers in this blog and in various presentations and guest post. Now I’ll extend that to opportunities to learn from customer success and service experts.
Ms Nasser, who appears to fit into the latter category (although I am confident she is an excellent marketer!), documented something she called the 21 Customer Burdens. These burdens reflect the uncertainties held by the customer when engaging in a buying process. Many of the burdens documented pertain to trust, relationship qualities, and being understood.
I stood up and took notice. Many of Nasser’s customer burdens are a pretty reasonable fit for learners new to subject matter to which they are exposed. Largely, I’m not talking about informal learning, although some matters of trust and being understood (as in, does Google get me?) come into play – but I see a derivative application of Kate’s “customer burdens”. After my massaging and editing and extrapolating, I’m pleased to document the “19 Learner Burdens”. With, of course, many thanks to Kate Nasser!
I'm compelled to believe that most learners bring at least a subset of these burdens to their learning encounters, and that the angst about these can negatively impact learner engagement. Perhaps, in our efforts to market the programs or to adjudicate program intake, and to pay at least some lip service to learning personalization, all of us involved in instructional design and learning execution should be addressing these burdens. After all, you can force horses to water, but whether they drink is another matter entirely.
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