As a child I was fascinated by railways. I could look at trains coming and going all day without the remotest sense of boredom. I wondered where they had come from, where they were going and who all the people were, but the thing that grabbed my attention most was the last carriage. Why? Well when I watched the train turn the corner, the last carriage continued straight ahead, on it went in the same direction, when virtually the whole train was facing in a different way. Then in what seemed like a flash, the coach flipped round and faced in the same way as the rest of the train. It was transfixing, but quite easy to understand. It was not magic, just the laws of physics. As an older child I would sit in the back of the train so I could see the other end on corners. Into view would swing the engine, and then equally quickly it would disappear. Everything the engine did, my carriage did a few seconds later. The longer the train, the longer the gap between engine and final coach getting back into alignment. I still can not avoid glancing up from my book whenever a train I am on goes into a corner. I still look for the engine and watch it swing in and then out of view.

It is a bit like culture change in organisations. If you alter direction, the cultural coach swings into line, but the gap between the decision to change and the realignment can be painfully slow. The trick is not to give up, but watch out (as I did) for the flip round. Unfortunately the 'flip' effect has nothing to do with conventional physics in this instance, but more to do with quantum theory! Culture operates at a sub-atomic level in organisations. John Kotter's eight-stage process (see Leading Change) is a helpful frame but it is rarely the whole story. It is possible to establish a sense of urgency; then create a guiding coalition; develop a vision and strategy; communicate that vision; empower employees; generate a whole host of short-term wins; consolidate your gains and anchor the new approaches in the culture yet still have a disaster on your hands.

 

This is where learning and development steps in. Too much cultural change ignores the power of L&D to capture issues, build communication and a sense of shared purpose and excite staff about the future opportunities rather than the losses compared to the past. If we want an organisation to change in one way, then it has to embody those values in everything it does and says from that point onwards. Learning is a clear way of walking the walk and talking the talk. Not necessarily directly, but in how it approaches and delivers its task. If you want more risk taking, then create risk-taking opportunities in every piece of development.

Kotter goes on, in the same book, to define the five habits that support lifelong learning, but they are more than that. He talks about 'risk taking', 'humble self-reflection', 'solicitation of opinions', 'careful listening' and 'openness to new ideas' as habits to be developed in leaders. I think they actually describe the process of learning in an organisation that is going to win the cultural change battle. It is easier to learn risk taking by having it modeled for you, than it is being taught about it specifically. Openness to ideas is a more radical way of developing a new learning environment than telling people that the organisation is open-minded. Solicitation of opinions is more than filling in a happy sheet at the end of a two-day course and so on.

A conventional way of looking at what an L&D operation delivers won't cut this mustard at all. There is a mile of difference from being in charge of courses to being in charge of learning or, as someone recently described her role, of being in charge of the brand inside the company. L&D, by this definition, has to embrace informal learning, social learning and a range of social networks, just as its outputs go beyond skills and competence to values and behaviour.

There is an exciting agenda here: being at the heart of change, embracing whatever means possible for engendering that change, and modelling the overall values of the company through the way you do that rather than relying on what you do. As someone said to me yesterday: "Building relationships is a key part of learning." This will only happen, however, if you see that as a key part of your role.