The Learning Alliance: Systems Thinking in Human Resource Development

In The Learning Alliance, authors Robert O. Brinkerhoff and Stephen J. Gill show how managers, supervisors, trainees, and training professionals can collaborate to systematically manage the process of learning and behavior change and consistently deliver the cost-effective results needed to build and sustain an organization's competitive advantage. They provide the guidance and tools necessary to forge and facilitate critical alliances between the employee being trained and the other key players in the learning process. Through numerous examples, illustrates how trainers and managers can work together to combine and implement systems technology with just-in-time and just-enough learning strategies that produce and sustain measurable, consistently effective results. Provides step-by-step guidance and hands-on tools for implementing each stage of the processfrom goal setting to follow-up and maintanenceand includes a comprehensive checklist for conducting an organizational training audit and getting started.The authors' practical four-phase method shows how to design and implement training as an integrated system--strategically linked to business goals, customer needs, the total organization system, and continuous improvement. To help training leaders navigate this complex process, the authors detail how to use the impact map: an adaptable, easy-to-use graphic tool that identifies all stakeholders who will be involved in the learning process--employees, supervisors, managers, trainers--and clarifies roles to ensure that the right people receive the training and support they need to achieve specified key goals.…