After reading this article, I couldn't help but to think hey- they left one out!

You don't develop your people. Harvey S. Firestone said "the growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership." There are many competencies leaders should master, and developing those they lead is one rarely taught in business schools yet critical to your ability to retain top talent. More than giving your people a sense of where they can go in their careers which is mentioned in the article (see point #5), great leaders plan and assign learning opportunities that stretch the capabilities of their people. Leaders will ask their people where they would like to take their careers, and then actively seek training, e-learning programs, webinars, industry conferences, and other developmental opportunities for their people to grow. Show me a manager who doesn't allow time for their people to train and hone their skills, and I'll show you a demoralized team whose people will exit stage left at the first opportunity that comes along.

- Alex Santos

Alex is a co-founder and Managing Member of Collabor8 Learning, LLC, an instructional design and performance management consultancy. His firm collaborates with organizations to enhance the way they develop and train their people. To learn more about Collabor8 Learning, click here.

Alex can be reached at 786-512-1069, alex@collabor8learning.com or via Twitter@collabor8alex.

As learning and development professionals, we look to utilize any every medium that delivers learning and improvement. Over the years we have utilized formal classroom training, on-the-job training, self-directed training and of course e-learning and electronic performance support systems (EPSS). Now technological advances are bringing us the newest trend in learning is M-Learning.

M-Learning or Mobile learning means delivering your learning initiatives on any device, anywhere, anytime.

As an organization you have many things that you need to communicate. Some require formal classroom training (i.e. compliance, OSHA, Federal Regulations…) but there are also a lot of topics that can be delivered less formally, through other means. But it does include formal learning. M-Learning does not always mean formal learning. Some examples are:

E-learning - E-learning can and should be accessible by all mobile devices in your IT environment.
Classroom training - When you deliver formal classroom training, you may elect to record the session and re-purpose it to the organization as a podcast.
OJT – On-the-job training, or "Learning- by-doing" and receiving feedback and performance coaching as you learn. Note that this option is limited to jobs and situations where making mistakes is not costly or dangerous.
Podcasts – Your training department can create periodic podcasts to cover various topics that pertain to your organization.
Blogs, Wikis, Tweets – There are endless ways to communicate what your employees need to know. Organized appropriately and integrated into natural workflows, they can be powerful tools.

We are all different and want to learn on our own terms, in ways that best appeal to us, and using whichever medium we are most comfortable with learning. While it is important for your learning and development people to create some core content it is equally important to foster learning at all levels from all levels. Unleash the power of your organization and get them teaching each other and making all of that learning possible on a mobile learning platform, where all the participants can interact.