I was able to attend the Access Group Executive Roundtable session "The Bilingual CIO in 2010," focused on how CIOs make the transition from "speaking 'IT' to speaking the language of the business." Over the course of the morning, the group -- about 30 senior IT and industry executives, arranged in groups of 4-6 around a series of tables -- was able to cover quite a lot of ground, aided by a cool polling system furnished by Tom Vassos of IBM.

The most interesting part of the event was the section dedicated to becoming a "learning organization." Attendees were asked about both the current maturity of their organizations in terms of committing to ongoing learning, and about the factors that are most important in ensuring that employees continue to learn over time. This was followed by roundtable conversations, and then another general session at which group members reported on the highpoints of each table's discussion. A sample of some of the observations from my table includes:

"It needs to be okay to be wrong." "If you're going to fail, fail fast." "Focus on solving the problem, not on whose fault it is."

At least a couple of the other tables seemed to share in our general approach, which agreed that the onus is on management to create an environment in which mentoring and learning is incorporated into the corporate culture -- that it is a formal part of management measurement (and compensation), and that it is a regular, important item on the management agenda. One attendee from another table remarked that "learning should be part of the work plan -- not something that's ad hoc," while another noted that "employees expect to work in six or seven environments ... if you don't rotate them (so that they continue to learn), they leave."

At other tables, the conversation clearly was more slanted towards assuming that learning is the responsibility of the employee. One attendee was willing to allow that a company has to "have the right culture ... (and) a process -- a fairly well-structured approach" to learning, but that there needs to be "accountability -- both ways." A second expanded on this theme, asking, "how do you manage the portion that is coming from the employee?", and adding that "getting to that 50 percent from the employee (even when the employer contributes 50 percent to the opportunity for ongoing learning) is "a challenge." A third table added to this thrust by emphasizing that there is "responsibility on the employee side to be committed to learning."

So -- clearly, there is a divergence of opinion as to whether employers need to take the lead in driving ongoing learning, or whether they are more narrowly responsible for creating the opportunity for motivated employees to learn. Personally, I think this may vary with the type of culture/environment that a firm is in -- if employee understanding is essential to competitiveness, the employer needs to be more active in driving learning through the organization; if the only motive for learning is retention, a more passive approach may serve. My question would be -- what industries are still in the latter category? And how will they prosper in an increasingly knowledge-centric world?

Initially posted by Michael O'Neil on IT in Canada. Reposted via agreement with IT in Canada.