Travels to India: Learning Transfer Programs Emerging in Developing Countries
By: Roy Pollock
July 27, 2010: I am in Hyderabad, the new Silicon Valley of India, to present a 6Ds Workshop for one of our multi-national clients. It’s an amazing, overwhelming, bustling, happening place!
Buildings going up in Hyderabad as more international companies open offices in India.
Towering cranes punctuate the skyline as firms from around the world race to build new offices here. An 8-lane superhighway to the spanking new airport is almost finished. Auto-rickshaws contend with bullock carts and BMWs for the right of way.
I am experiencing firsthand what Thomas Friedman meant when he wrote The World is Flat.
In Mumbai, I visited a Call Center where 5,000 representatives handle credit card inquiries from the USA and Canada. Call routing software seamlessly distributes calls between Mumbai and a center in the USA based on the next available representative. Technology has completely erased national boundaries and the traditional barriers of time and space.
Street scene, Mumbai.
Firms are hiring hundreds of new workers at a time. Needless to say, training is critical to prepare these workers for their new jobs in the global economy. Not surprisingly, companies here are investing heavily in employee development.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover at the Learning and Organizational Development Roundtable in Mumbai that many companies in India are already familiar with The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning and have begun actively implementing the 6Ds.
And that makes me wonder: Why have firms in more developed countries been slow to address the learning transfer issue? Why do we continue to tolerate high levels of learning scrap and inefficiency? Perhaps rapidly growing firms recognize that education and continuous learning are important sources of competitive advantage. Perhaps it is because already established companies find it harder to innovate.
Whatever the case, it seems to me that companies—wherever they are in the world—that embrace new approaches to driving learning transfer will enjoy a competitive edge.
In an ever flatter and more knowledge-driven world, isn’t it time we all looked more critically at the training process?
Join the conversation: Share some of your experiences in India and your thoughts on what companies can do to give learning an even greater competitive advantage.
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