Let's Not Pretend
Archive Post (24-Dec-2008)
Karl Kapp wrote an excellent piece entitled, “Let’s Not Pretend.” I think he states an excellent point that should be said more often, more prominently, and with more conviction. It is something that all of us that take workplace learning, performance, training, instructional design, or any other closely related field need to live. We need to take ourselves seriously.
If you pretend to be a medical doctor, you can be arrested for a crime. You can likewise be charged with a crime for practicing law without a license, pretending to be a CPA, performing as an engineer without valid certifications, and a host of other things. Heck, you need certifications to be a police officer or a fireman.
But, as Karl notes and I agree, we have organizations taking people all the time and simply appointing them to be trainers or instructional designers. When is the last time you heard of someone arrested for leading a training session without a license? Or, uncertified instructional design?
If you think about it, performing training and/or instructional design wrong can have huge consequences. Think about the Einsteins that have been lost because they simply couldn’t wade their way through an incredibly bad instructor in an incredibly bad course with horrible instructional design. It has happened. Even more so, productivity and value is lost. Reputations are doubted. And, a profession is diminished because of people masquerading as knowledgeable professionals.
But, we in the profession have to do a better job letting people know and learn the core skills. We have all be novices at one point in our journey. We could have done better with more direction. We could nod to reality. Rather than fighting against that reality, we could accept it, and find ways to get these folks the knowledge and skill that they need. At least enough knowledge so that they know what they don’t know, and more importantly they know where to go to fill those gaps.