We Need To Decolonize Organizational Learning & Evaluation
Over the last six years I’ve created a lot of content on decolonizing learning and evaluation. In this article I will highlight my decolonization ideas (articles, videos, infographics, etc.) and add links so you can read/listen at your leisure.
What sparked this idea of decolonizing learning & evaluation?
In May of 2015, I was in my 13th year as a very happy and content federal employee. I worked in “Big” OPM as a policy writer and talent development manager in the Senior Executive Service office. My job was to write, interpret, and help implement training and development law, policy and talent development guidance for all executives, managers and employees in the 24 Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) Council agencies in government.
In May of 2015, I experienced a spiritual awakening. At the time, I had no idea what was happening to me. I just knew that I suddenly remembered what I thought I’d forgotten; and the “remembering” revealed that I was completely wrong about everything I thought I knew. Everything!
I talk about my spiritual awakening and its effects in my book Firing God.
This awakening “event” began as a very gentle, loving, and quiet ripple that, with complete silence and a non-authoritative authority, began to reverberate throughout my personal and professional life.
Then, with no force at all, the personal and professional houses of truth, rightness, and certainty that I’d been building and reinforcing for 34 years began to crack, crumble, and split apart just as the earth does during a tremendously devastating earthquake.
It was from one of the seemingly vicious “cracks” in my career that a question emerged —
“Is evaluation necessary?”
I talk about my career “awakening” in my book Longing to Learn
Decolonizing Evaluation
After months of research that involved Skype calls with professionals in South Africa, delving into the field of Biomimicry, and watching countless hours of Forensic Files, I discovered the answer.
Yes…and no.
Evaluation is not necessary. But because we choose to do it, we can evaluate in a more evolved and person-centered way.
In 2019 I made the video below, where I quickly share three (3) ideas to begin decolonizing our current thinking about evaluation‘s use and purpose.
- Evaluation is not judgment
- It does not require a human mind to learn or evaluate
- Knowledge is not power. Accountability is power.
Here are other places where I share a more detailed explanation of the what, why, and how of decolonizing evaluation:
- The Parasitic Nature of Evaluation [6/27/2017 LinkedIn article]
- Evaluators are Not Necessary, The Earth is Flat…and other Useful Ideas [7/2018 LinkedIn article]
- Unlearning Evaluation [my 8/01/2019 article published by T&D magazine]
- Deep Dive: Evaluation for Use, Not for Proof [my 5/9/2019 event with Washington Evaluators]
- The Myth of Value Creation [6/26/2917 LinkedIn Article]
Decolonizing Learning
My inquiry began with evaluation because I loved the evaluation aspect of learning and that’s where I spent most of my work hours. But, as I was questioning what I thought I knew about evaluation, the way we were training in the federal government began to quickly look, sound, and feel unnatural.
In my 7/2017 LinkedIn article Re-Valuing Learning, I write —
An organization made up of human beings has no need or use for training. Why? Because human beings are peers in the most fundamental way. A peer is someone who has just as much to lose and gain as I do so it’s to both our benefits that we live, learn, and evolve together. From this perspective, we must rethink the way we view organizational learning and development.
Terms like gap analysis, training needs assessment, evaluation, and employee are all re-visioned and re-defined. For example, there is never a training or skills gap — which implies some knowledge or skill is missing. In an organization of whole human beings there are “tensions” that alert the tribe to areas where growth is happening — not where something is missing. Those areas of tension can then be noticed, nurtured, and cultivated in various ways to stimulate growth of the individual and the whole. The organizational tribe engages in a habit of “growth analysis” not gap analysis.
My attention to decolonizing learning also compelled me to do more investigation around the relationship between risk and knowledge.
Before I resigned from the federal government, I had another opportunity to partner with Washington Evaluators, so I presented my thoughts on knowledge risk in a Deep Dive Session called Knowledge Risk Management: The William Wallace of Organizational Learning, Development & Evaluation.
In this session, I shared the primary reason why our minds were colonized regarding learning (in the workplace) —
The federal government is a bureaucratic system where control of people, processes, and technology is the primary model used to realize results. Training, leadership development, and evaluation as they are practiced today are in full support of an environment designed to direct and control people and their behavior.
As parents, pastors, executives, Presidents and other authority figures, we feel good when people do what we tell them to do and work toward a goal that we’ve created of our own experience and competence. “Father knows best” is more than an old TV show. It’s a frame or mental model that guides and directs our thinking, actions, and relationships with others.
In this video, I speak more about the problem we create for ourselves when we perpetuate and promote control over genuine learning:
I also partnered with the Association for Federal Enterprise Risk Management (AFERM)to publish a thought leader article in the Septemter 2019 issue titled, “Knowledge Risk Assessment: The Key to Organizational Resilience”. In the article I write —
As a learning and evaluation professional, I see the very clear and natural relationship between knowledge risk assessment, learning and development (L&D) and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of learning programs. Learning is more than an organizational requirement, employee engagement strategy, retention tool, and competitive edge. It’s a key factor in ensuring organizational survival and resilience. From the C suite to operations, organizations should explore the place knowledge risk has in the overall ERM strategy. Organizational resilience — in an increasingly complex world — depends on it.
Here is more material I’ve written over the years regarding decolonizing learning:
- Evaluators are Not Necessary, The Earth is Flat…and other Useful Ideas [7/2018]
- No One is On a Learning Journey [1/2019]
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