Quote Originally Posted by Rob Thornton View Post
Resourcing the types of educational investment to build the leaders we want is critical to realizing the goal. While Knowledge Networks, Communities of Practice, and Distance Learning offer opportunities in experience transferal and education on the cheap, the context upon which they draw is limited to the personal ability to internalize it an apply it, therefore it should not be a substitute for small group instruction, but a supplement.
The structure of highly effective educational environments and creating effective learning environments has been solved. The very topics of study in effectively creating the transfer of expertise between individuals and through an organization was originally studying military strategy. Would the grand chess player make a good general? Were the techniques of one type of strategy able to be transferred as expertise to another strategy? Unfortunately the answer has always been maybe.

The keys of knowledge skills and abilities as educational objectives hinge on the key process of context. Context is built through learning objects that the student or learner can internalize and then recall in environments where appropriate. A computer text session can provide some of that context through the stories and sharing between entities in an organization, but often the deeper sense of presence is lacking and context is diluted by the non-transactional or asynchronous communications model.

For rapid transfer of context nothing can beat the smoking room. A bottle of whiskey, a thick cigar, and a few hours for old war horses to reminisce can provide context to a junior (learner) that is missing from most programmed instruction. The key is not necessarily mentorship, but the transfer of expertise in context. The lions of academia in the faculty break room accomplished this task, the aging law officers shared their experiences in the shift room, the O-club served the military in this way.

Unfortunately formalizing concepts like this will rarely succeed. As social constructs organization seem to fall into the trap of creating “executive suites”, “senior officer dining halls”, and the informal transfer (the one most likely to succeed) fail. Similarly providing formal mentorship programs are highly dependent on the specific individuals and organizational context can be lost.