When it comes to deciding about their own learning, do learners always know best?
It pains me to say this, but there's quite a bit of research evidence to suggest that the honest answer would be 'quite a lot of the time, not'.
This gives us L&D folk quite the dilemma.
After all, we want the best for our learners. We don't want to appear like rigid authoritarians. Yet we also know that our suggestions or ideas can appear counter-intuitive to some learners and project sponsors.
How often have you been asked to provide a specific type of learning solution to a group of learners, only to discover that once you start digging, the requested solution is entirely unsuitable. And then meet significant resistance to changing the original request.
Often, the learners (or those requesting learning on their behalf) are trapped by their own limited experience of prior learning. If all they know, for example, is knowledge presentation e-learning and they are okay with this and haven't experienced any other type of e-learning, they will probably just request what's familiar and comfortable. Even though this might get poor outcomes or results.
If, as another example, they have been told that on-demand videos are the new big thing in learning and that they'll get massively better results from using this medium, they will probably come to you asking for a video solution, utterly convinced this is what will work for them.
All of this, I think, relates to problems with respect and perception. In many organisations, the learning and development function is viewed (rightly or wrongly) as not very effective. This means that people in the wider business don't especially value or respect the learning expertise that may be available.
They look elsewhere for advice, work up their own ideas which are then presented to learning and development as a fait accompli.
This can feel very frustrating and demoralising. After all, it's very unlikely that the very same people would pitch up in the marketing department, telling them how they wanted to see marketing campaigns and materials designed and executed.
The key, ultimately, is what should we do as learning and development folk to deal with this dilemma. First, we need to take a long hard look at ourselves. Are we as expert and professional as we could be? Are we sometimes stumbling along and just getting by?
If you feel harassed and put upon, it's tempting to blame someone else: lack of resources, unrealistic timelines, a culture that is hostile to formal learning.
All of these factors could be true. But unless we are prepared to think about how to start shifting perceptions and how to keep constantly evolving our skills and expertise, this particular L&D dilemma will not be resolved.