Incentives Matter

I was just reading Talented Learning which is a great resource for those responsible for learning in the extended enterprise. Lead analyst, John Leh, has some great articles like this one on the 5 Types of Non-Employee (Extended Enterprise) Learning.

It reminds me that one of the biggest challenges of the extended enterprise is the incentives (or lack thereof) compared to traditional internal enterprise education. Ask any employee of a large organization what they think of their internal L&D and you typically get an eye-roll. For the most part, the platforms and the instructional content are very basic and very boring, if not confusing. But the magic of high completion rates and low costs is because of the strong incentive (escalating email warnings that culminates in threats of official censure or worse).

But then take this to the extended enterprise where you are responsible for training for channel partners, industry influencers, potential customers, actual customers, etc. and you no longer have the built-in incentives to engage. It is exactly this lack of incentives that demands a new approach to learning in the extended enterprise. Traditional LMSs and instructional content no longer work. The solution? Most often, it is a custom learning experience.