The Future of the Profession Formerly Known as Training
By Pat Galagan

There is no topic that inflames more passion at the moment than what to call the profession formerly known as training. Medieval theologians debating the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin could not marshal more arguments than the defenders of competing nomenclatures. Is it performance? Is it intellectual capital development? Is it knowledge management? Is it learning facilitation? Is it human process engineering? Is it workforce development? Is it organizational stewardship and transformation?

What has happened to the term training? Are squabbling subgroups squandering the brand equity of a name that has served the field for more than 60 years? "Google" the word training and you'll get 87.5 million entries, the first of them being ASTD, the professional association formerly known as the American Society for Training and Development. Surely that is brand equity to kill for. Yet, in a recent online discussion about what to call a document describing competencies for the field, I read this amazing statement: "Under no circumstances should the word 'training' appear in the title."

What is going on here?
Is this a sign of a field attempting to commit identicide or just Paul McCartney leaving the Beatles to form Wings? People who believe the field is fragmenting offer the explanation that it is undergoing a natural metamorphosis. But from what to what? And why?

Here is how Pat McLagan-CEO of McLagan International, an authority on competencies in the field, and not the source of the quote about not using the term training-explains it. "If we are to be effective, our views and theories of organization must change. The metamorphosis is from closed rational systems focused on structure to dynamic models inspired by new views of the universe that emphasize process and participation. Closed systems are reaching the limits of their ability to be effective. We can change the boxes on the chart. But if we don't change what happens in the white spaces between them, we will fail.

"Against this context," McLagan says, "our role is to unleash human capabilities into the workplace and society by using all of the tools at our disposal. We need to align the human side of the business so that it fits these new paradigms. Calling it 'training and development' puts too much emphasis on what we do, not on what we're trying to create: knowledge organizations that release and focus people's energies for work performance. Our field is changing in an emergent way, with no strong identity. Learning, performance, and change activities are happening under many banners. The innovation that occurs as these different identities pursue their work is good. Identity fragmentation expands options, but it also creates silos and artificial boundaries."

McLagan warns that "a schism is widening between the humanistic (learning and adult education) and behaviorist (performance improvement) views of the field."

Technology did it
Another theory about the splintered condition of the profession holds that technology is to blame, or to thank, for the schism between e-learning enthusiasts and those rooted in classroom-based traditions. Here's how Sam Adkins, a learning technology product analyst, sees it:

"Technology has pushed training to an inflection point-not just learning technologies that can create, deliver, and manage training but other kinds of technology--that throws a spotlight on the training function itself." Business intelligence tools are exposing training's inefficiencies to managers and C-level officers.

"Technology enables the profession to accomplish extraordinary new things, but when the bubble around some new technology bursts, the hype evaporates revealing what is truly useful and what is not," he says.

Adkins points to the deep scrutiny training gets when a company outsources the entire function. "Outsourcers take over the training function and quickly eliminate everything that can't be billed back to the client. In treating training like the business process its practitioners have wanted it to be, these companies-Accenture, IBM, Deloitte Consulting, and others-are exposing what's productive and what isn't. Instructional design, for example, shows up under this scrutiny as a bottleneck, and trainers' salaries [are viewed] as expenses with little connection to results," says Adkins.

Is it any wonder that some trainers are eager to recast themselves as performance-facilitating enablers of enterprise-wide solutions-or whatever?

The state of the profession
Does the profession need a plain vanilla, ambiguity-free name with which most people can identify-like medicine, law, and accounting do? For the sake of acceptance in the outside world-the press, the legislature, the corporate mainstream-one would argue yes. A profession, to have force in the wider world, should not have to continually explain to lay people the differences between its sects-between a performance consultant and an instructional designer, between a coach and a consultant, between an ophthalmologist and an optometrist.

Are trainers and chief learning officers-not to mention HR anthropologists and learning evangelists, performance consultants and motivational speakers, humanists and performance engineers, group facilitators and executive coaches--ready to come to terms? Do they see themselves as members of the same tribe, working together to make the world learn faster, work smarter, and get better results? Not just yet, it turns out.

ASTD, in connection with its 2003 competency study, "Mapping the Future: Shaping New Workplace Learning and Performance Competencies," surveyed practitioners about their preferences for a name for the profession. More than 1300 people responded. "Training and development" at 31 percent finished almost neck and neck with "workplace learning and performance" at 31.9 percent of the vote. Bringing up the rear were "HRD, workforce development," and "training," which almost no one (1.4 percent) voted for. And 10.7 percent suggested other names that were combinations of such words as human, knowledge, learning, performance, development, education, and organization.

Befitting a profession that cannot agree even on its name, the range of opinion about its future is vast and often contradictory. Here's a sampling of themes that emerged from interviews with practitioners from various corners of the field about their views of current and future trends and about the profession itself. Taken together, they are bellwethers of things to come. Many of the opinions shared here won't comfort the mainstream, but that is not the part of the river that takes you where you need to be.

The power elite
With one or two sentences, Lee Maxey, VP of professional services and alliances for Five Star Development, dismisses the notion that chief learning officers are a growing cadre in the profession. "I'd be surprised if there are more CLOs a year from now. The organizations that made the CLO position work already valued learning. In visionary organizations, it is the CIO who has business information responsibility. In my mind, that's where skill development belongs. To be a player, training should stop focusing on sabbatical learning and start focusing on developing the right skills with the right information at the right time.

"Outsourcing is important now," says Maxey, "so another key role is procuring and managing that service. People with an ISD background, expertise in project management, or an understanding of vendor relationships have an advantage. VPs of HR are valued and so are performance consultants, but that's not a position for the risk averse. As a performance consultant, you're always earning your next contract. You can be successful in this role if you tie your variable costs to performance in parts of the business where you have an impact."

Broader horizons
Exemplifying Lee Maxey's assertion that learning professionals with responsibility for business information are the new power elite, Tamar Elkeles, vice president of learning and development at QUALCOMM, has responsibility for employee communications as well as learning. She says, "There's a convergence of training and information roles and if you're solely focused on training, you're missing the boat.

"You need to be broader and to do more than just help employees learn specific skills. In a learning organization, you need to help people learn about the company, the culture, the industry, the market, and so on."

Another important role for training and development professionals, says Elkeles, "is talent management, the acquisition of talent. You can do that through significant collaboration with your staffing organization or a merger between training and staffing. In the next five years, it should be clear that a development role needs to be closely linked with a talent acquisition role.

An urgent message
Pat Crull, vice president and chief learning officer at Toys "R" Us, has been influenced by the companies she has worked for--Baxter International, Anderson Consulting, McDonald's-to act with a sense of urgency.

"In these companies," says Crull, "every penny counts every day. These company cultures have influenced me to recognize and respond to an increased sense of urgency for training. They've also taught me to focus on the bottom line, as well as the culture each of them was trying to create. I've learned to focus on employee commitment and satisfaction because they affect quality, effectiveness, and the bottom line.

"I've never worked as fast as I have in the past five years or felt so much pressure to produce," says Crull. "I'd be more comfortable if I could test and retest before I put something out, but I don't have that luxury. And I don't see us going back to a condition where that is possible.

"Even if the economy loosens, the lessons of the hard years have reached so many people that there will be no room for anything that isn't focused on making organizations better. Once you're lean and efficient, there's no turning back.

Training, an endangered species
"I think the training profession is [like] an endangered species," claims Sam Adkins. "Outsourcing training functions will happen much faster than most people predict and will have sweeping consequences. It's the number 1 thing threatening the profession.

"Many of the positions that migrate to an external supplier during outsourcing don't last long. The first thing the outsourcing company does is wean its new client from low-margin activities such as instructor-led training to high-margin activities such as mentoring and e-learning." In addition, each time a company outsources another major function, such as IT, fulfillment, mail, administration, and so forth, "there goes another chunk of the training department's business," says Adkins.

"I think the outsourcing companies will be able to streamline instructional design, which, let's face it, is inefficient," Adkins continues. "These and other training inefficiencies are often highlighted by new business intelligence tools that lay out expenses and processes for everyone to see."

A third threat to trainers' jobs, says Adkins, is businesses process outsourcing to an offshore company. "Not only are training jobs leaving your company; they're leaving the country."

What to do? Adkins's advice to training professionals is to adopt the language and the business orientation of business process improvement experts. "We can do this," he says. "We excel in performance improvement."

Wayne's World
"Whatever the various professions in this community are, they are all means to the same end-human performance improvement-but we've allowed them to become ends in themselves," says Wayne Hodgins, director of strategic executive services for Autodesk Inc. "I believe there is strong commonality among many sectors of the profession, but each one's insistence that it is special has left us in the middle of nowhere."

Hodgins believes that the profession ought to converge around a common set of problems related to the goal of human and organizational performance improvement. He would like to see the multitude of associations, advocacy groups, academic splinter groups, and other silos of opinion more in touch with their common goals regarding people in organizations.

"We shouldn't worry so much about what acronym to put on the t-shirt or what the next big thing will be. The hype bubbles have all burst around a lot of former 'next big things' such as knowledge management, e-learning, and electronic performance support systems," says Hodgins. "What's left after the hype subsides is a residue of useful new knowledge and practice."

It is precisely these new practices that increase many trainers' anxiety about job security. "Every time one of these new things comes along," says Hodgins, "there is a lot of rhetoric about what it will eliminate. Will e-learning eliminate the classroom? I wish we'd stop having that conversation. It reminds me of talk that TV would eliminate radio."

"It's a mistake to think that the goal of e-learning is to automate learning. Its real goal is to increase its effectiveness, which up to this point has been abysmal. For the first time in history, we have sufficient enablers in the form of new technology, methodology, and standards to realize the dream of personalize d learning for all. We have the technology to bring the right information and the right people together at the right time. It's up to the profession-the facilitators, guides, and coaches of learning-to put these capabilities into practice.

"From my perspective, this profession has very underwhelming expectations based on our previous assumptions of what is possible and what is not. What if the impossible isn't?! Our historic dreams of providing personalized learning experiences for all will be transformed into reality if and when we adjust our expectations accordingly and set about making them happen."

Technology is our friend. Really
Allison Rossett, professor of educational technology at San Diego State University, says there is no way to ignore technology. "Whether your concern is customer care, software skills, product knowledge, onboarding, leadership, or basic skills education, technology is playing a growing role. And it's far more interesting than replacing instructor-led classes with online synchronous or asynch offerings. Technology will allow training and development professionals to do the things we have always wanted to do-from teaching to coaching to keeping track to advising, and to nagging.

"In addition to providing a platform for teaching and learning," says Rossett, "technology can serve as coach and consultant, using omnipresence to provide just-in-time guidance at the moment of need. Ecoaching is growing in importance as sales supervisors in Brussels do demonstrations for neophytes in Bangalore and Boise.

"Information thus moves from being perceived as a destination, such as dusty documents stored on a shelf or a required class, to an active partner, a tool that points the salesperson and client to not just any product but the right product, to not just any decision about retirement, benefits, or investments but one grounded in deep expertise. Interestingly, the system holds onto and nurtures the assets. The individual turns to them at the moment of need."

Rossett sees new jobs emerging for educational technology graduates. "Right now, the fastest growing area of employment for SDSU MA educational technology graduates is in higher education. They are helping universities cope with cost pressures, cutbacks, and competition. Ideally, it's not just the technology that they will bring, but enhanced conversations about learning and information strategies, interactivity, communities, and access."

In her book Beyond the Podium, Rossett talks about key shifts in roles. "One of those transitions is from the individual as owner and deliverer of wisdom and content to systems and assets that crystallize and spread those lessons. Professionals become responsible for capturing multiple perspectives on the content, representing and updating them. No doubt, there is movement from deliverer to orchestrator.

"There is also the need to manage blends," she says. "Blending involves a planned combination of approaches such as coaching by a supervisor, participation in an online class, delivery via a synchronous online class, breakfast with colleagues, competency descriptions, reading on the beach, reference to a manual, collegial relationships, and participation in seminars, workshops, and online communities.

Our place in the system
"Organizations, pushed by the information revolution, by globalization, by forces in the market, and by our own learning are undergoing very big shifts in how they have to be governed," says Pat McLagan, "At the same time, the sciences are coming up with new views of the universe that ought to color how we operate our organizations and manage them. Most organizations are closed systems that focus on their structure and parts. Organizations patterned on closed systems are reaching the limits of the ability to be effective. The sciences offer us more probabilistic systems that focus on processes.

"At the same time," she says, "people are changing their expectations about how they should be engaged in organizations. If they aren't engaged, they will take their brainpower elsewhere. So, the knowledge specialist's role is to align business needs with human realities and with the emerging paradigms about organizations."

How should practitioners go about producing knowledge organizations that unleash these human energies? "We can continue to put knowledge and information into people, and technology has made that much more interesting, but there is more we can do," says McLagan. "We can jostle the social system so that it encourages more exchange of information, for example, through learning communities or communities of practice. We can help people become more productive self-learners with the discipline and skill to find information and process it into knowledge, and then into skill and performance.

"In our knowledge specialist role, we would look at organizational systems from a new science perspective and identify the leverage points that would have the most influence in facilitating learning and performance. Managers are leverage points; we can help them support others in their learning process. Other leverage points are people who are experts and people with lots of contacts. "New science also teaches us that organizations grow naturally to the extent that they interact with the environment. So, I would encourage interactions between many parts of an organization and its environment of customers, suppliers, and other parts of its value chain. Many organizations today are trying to implement strategies that far exceed their capacity to implement.

Strategy meets behavior
Stephen Rhinesmith works at the pinnacle of the profession, some might say. His company, CDR, works with the Fortune 100 to establish new directions, new value systems, and new priorities. He and his two partners coach top executives in the behaviors they need to make new strategies successful.

"A trend I see in leadership education at the top of Fortune 100 companies is a move to separate understanding and creation of strategy from the development of the behavior that leaders need to implement it. Companies go to the business schools for the former but are looking elsewhere for help in driving behavior into the leadership. So, now there are boutique firms springing up that do behavior change in the service of strategy. At the same time, some of the business schools are 'backward integrating' into the behavioral work, in some cases in partnership with outside firms. Columbia University and CDR have such a partnership. Relationships are often hostile between the upstart boutiques and the business schools. It's a zero-sum game for the heart and mind of the CEO.

"A second trend I see is that action learning-a way of teaching leadership that combines personal development with organizational change, which has been prevalent in Europe since the 1950s-has been gaining ground in the United States. A group of managers is assigned a set of issues for which it does not have answers but that are critical to the company's future. That might be something such as how the company can be a lead player in its industry after consolidation, or how it can make its prices and products more competitive.

"While the companies using strategic behavior development and action learning are excited about them, they are a huge yawn for those of us in the profession. We are looking for the next blockbuster. One promising area is executive coaching. Research shows that fixating on a strength can turn it into a weakness. Under stress, self-confidence can turn to arrogance and make people believe only they have the answer. Or empathy can become paralyzing under stress.

"Executive coaching is a boutique trade today, but it has become extremely acceptable across the world. Twenty years ago if you had an executive coach, it meant you had a problem and someone was trying to fix you. Now people who are high flyers get executive coaches to make sure they don't derail. It's a badge of honor."

A humanist's next move
Peter Block, respected author and muse to the profession's humanists, spends most of his time in the public and not-for-profit sector, and very little in the private sector.

"We've held up the private sector as the place where action happens. I think our work there is done. Private-sector organizations have absorbed about all they can take, and they've lost interest in their people. Anything that can be automated, eliminated, or offloaded to the customer has been or will be. The private sector is a shrinking market for organizational change services, and it doesn't value this work right now. We should let [the private sector] be.

"Government, social services, and faith communities, on the other hand, can't do without people. They are people- and place-dependent. There's a whole market for our services out there that we've treated as peripheral and that holds enormous possibility."

Block also believes that philosophy is replacing psychology as a tool for the profession. "Psychology is a human science focused on behavior and effectiveness, helping people learn how they can be more effective with one another. Psychology believes in reward and punishment. I think we've reached the limits of what that can give us.

"Philosophy has to do with treating purpose as if it matters. Most institutions are going to have to start caring about how they relate to something larger than themselves. I see possibilities there for change agents and people with educational skills to give focus and methodology to that.

"A lot of executives have lost faith in the training function because we gave them what they asked for. They said we want cost justification. They said give us a short-term result. And so we did. And although we met every objective, nothing changed."

Philosophy presents a different path, maintains Block. "Its job is to confront people with their freedom. When people ask certain questions-such as how long will it take and how much will it cost?-it's the job of the philosopher to deepen the questions.

"Most of our profession doesn't know how to make money from these questions, but we will figure it out. We will learn how to deliver services around questions of purpose and meaning where we used to deliver services around effectiveness and efficiency."

A sage perspective
Warren Bennis says that the profession (of leadership development) doesn't exist yet, and he certainly should know. A Distinguished Professor of business administration at the University of Southern California, and the author of more than 20 lyrical and literate books on leadership, he has this part of the field down cold.

"A profession needs an integrated body of knowledge and a theory. Areas that deal with developmental processes, such as economics, politics, or psychology, are usually the least developed in any discipline. In our work, we develop people to lead and succeed to their full potential. The word develop is the one I want to highlight. It's why leadership development isn't a profession and won't be until we can turn to research that follows leaders over time."

Bennis asserts that there are virtually no longitudinal studies of how leaders develop. "We don't have a research basis for our theories that is comparable to long-term studies in health care, for instance. We have to turn to literature, to theatre, to movies to follow people over time. That's why we need more study of humanities.

"We also need more research in the social cognitive neurosciences, which will help us understand the relationship between nature and nurture and how people grow and develop and become leaders we think are exemplary. We talk so much about the qualities and competencies of leaders but not enough about how they develop. Until we do that, we won't have the legitimate right to call ourselves a profession.

"I also think there is an analogy to be made between organic learning processes and what has become known as natural childbirth," Bennis says. "For millennia, women gave birth naturally, but it was only during the baby boom after World War II that the term 'natural childbirth' came into use. It was essentially a method for teaching women how to maximize a natural process. Every day in organizations, there are things going on that are natural avenues of learning, but we don't exploit them.

"As the wife of Willy Loman (the anti-hero in Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman) says, 'Attention must be paid.' People in training and development need to be able to surface that natural learning and make it part of the dialogue of the organization.

Action learning is a step in this direction, but we need to go further. We need organizations that create opportunities for discussion of issues, and opportunities to learn through the resolution of real problems.

"A third area that needs focus is 'polymorphous' developmental learning. We lack crisp focused methods for teaching men and women. The only way organizations will exist in the long run is when men and women realize the complementary and similarity of their competencies. Our organizations must be creative in enabling systems that will lead to 'natural leadership development.' In the long run, that's about the only way we can assure the human harvest all organizations seek."

A young profession grows up
Part of the job description of every CEO is to make sense of the conflicting signals that cloud market trends, so you can position your company in opportunity's path while avoiding peril. "The process never ends; figure out one thing and another uncertainty pops up," says Thomas F. Dungan III, the 38-year-old president of Management Concepts, a 30-year-old consulting, training, and publishing organization.

"And uncertainty is what we live with-trying not to try to force closure but to leave questions half-answered. We stand at the balance point between betting the farm and what feels like endless waffling. Tip the scale too far one way or the other-rushing to judgment or not providing enough focus for yourself and your people-and you fall off. Living in ambiguity is not for everyone."

Here's what Dungan is keeping his eye on: "Our industry is in the midst of substantial change. The founder-owners of some of our best-known training organizations, who launched their industry-shaping ideas in the early 1970s, are retiring. Our recent history has been characterized by sellouts, failed rollups, and, for the first time, real capital coming into the training market. The tough economy fueled even more consolidation as companies scrambled to survive.

"The void left by consolidation will be filled either by the remaining players, by new entrants like them (thought leaders with a transformative idea, capital, and business savvy), or by a new class of competitors such as universities, Big Five consulting organizations, and technology firms. Firms hoping to fill the void have unique and different talents. Only the Darwinism of the marketplace will select the organizations with the best solutions.

"The role of the HR professional is changing as well; it is becoming more strategic," says Dungan . "Successful companies want HR to lead their human capital initiatives. And just as in the early days of the computer industry, there are not enough HR leaders who can generate the strategic business impact many CEOs I know are looking for. But at the crest, the new wave HR leaders know as much or more than the services providers they partner with. They honor a culture that celebrates people in the midst of inevitable and constant change-a culture that the t&d community has fought for years to legitimize. They expect results, not more products. They've moved away from the ROI math exercise and toward building a workforce that works.

"Countries struggling for global market share look at the knowledge and effectiveness of the U.S. services sector and say, 'I'll have what they've having.' On the world stage, the contribution of t&d to the rapidly evolving services-based economy has won it the kind of respect previously granted only to higher education. We are a growth industry.

"In this environment," says Dungan, "there will always be room for someone with a great idea, but don't count on making your fortune on it. With thick competition in all market niches, it will be increasingly difficult for emerging thought leaders to get beyond publishing a book and hitting the speaking circuit.

"As an industry, we face the same challenges as our clients: global competition, a market changing more rapidly than ever, and talented people becoming more difficult to find. The need to price in the sweet spot, execute flawlessly, and keep on making the right technology decisions increases the pressure. Getting your message heard through the noise is tough. Capital counts.

A Gen Xer's view
Scott Brooks, managing director of Accelera Corporation, a firm that serves e-learning needs in the health care industry, may have nailed the future of the profession better than any of its seasoned veterans. Still months shy of his 29th birthday, he thinks and acts like the Gen Xer he is. Emerging leaders such as Brooks may turn out to provide the renewing energy that a 60-year-old profession needs.

"Given that I have been in the learning industry for just under five years, it is probably a bit premature to lay out predictions for the future. However, I do feel comfortable talking about how one Gen Xer (me) gets the most out of a learning experience, and I think that perspective is definitely worth some consideration.

"I am admittedly one of those kids that couldn't sit still in school because I was too busy thinking about going home to play Atari and watch MTV. I assure you this daydreaming was not out of a lack of interest in learning. I have, after all, chosen learning as my career path. I simply wanted to be entertained or, at least, more involved in the learning process. Someone please tell my former teachers that retention deteriorates rapidly after 20 minutes of lecture with no interactivity!

"Call us demanding, but we Gen Xers want to be treated differently. Hey, we're a product of the society that raised us. Our attention spans are short and getting shorter. Be thankful we're not Generation Y. But wait, aren't they entering the workforce now, too?

"What does all this mean for the training field? It's probably obvious: No matter where or how we are trained, it had better be interesting or we aren't going to do it. Oh, and we also need to see an obvious connection between the training and how it will improve our daily routines. We're busy like everyone else. Even though the training may be fun, it has to help us be more successful or we'll toss it out the window.

"Personally, I am thrilled with where the learning field is heading with learning being viewed as a continual process instead of a one-time event. I see engaging and instructionally sound learning initiatives springing up everywhere, with the learner truly at the center of the program's design. I see instructors figuring out that hours of lecture are a great way to train their audiences to never come back. I see developers and purchasers of e-learning discovering that programs that don't improve performance completely waste valuable time and money.

"Training in the new millennium is all about interactivity-simulations, game-based training, experiential learning...did I mention simulations? Effective use of interactivity can direct the learner to hone in on knowledge and skills that improve performance.

Training organizations that understand how to identify core competencies, create learning objects around those competencies, and build programs that keep the attention of learners will have the most positive and direct impact on organizational performance.

"In the end, the best learning will blend the right mix of entertainment and interactivity with solid content so learners walk away with knowledge that they can leverage right away back on the job. At least, that's this Gen Xer's take on it."

A last word or two
Jack Zenger, a senior statesman of the profession, wrote in 1980 in this magazine, "Our historical pattern of progress has been one of reactive response to outside forces and events. It is time to...deliberately and thoughtfully apply all we know." If that doesn't sound like a call to be a true profession, what does? And that was 23 years ago.

So, what is a profession and are we there yet? There are many statements from organizations and governments around the world that describe the characteristics of a profession. Here is one from the U.S. Department of Labor: "A profession has a national organization that speaks on its behalf, a code of ethics, a body of knowledge, research that develops the field, and a credentialing organization that sets professional standards."

With the planned launch of a pilot ASTD certification program in 2005, the final element in that list will be in place on a U.S.-wide scale. Tony Bingham, chief operating officer at ASTD, notes, "Certification provides the credentials to back up the practices that have driven results in organizations for decades, and it confers valuable credibility to our members' work. We hope that members of the field will see this as an opportunity to document their adeptness and that it will instill pride in the people who earn these credentials."

Leading up to and supporting the establishment of the ASTD certification program was a wide-ranging competency study led by ASTD in partnership with DDI and Rothwell & Associates. "This study," says Bingham, "by identifying the profession's current and future competencies, is an important step toward mobilizing all parts of this dynamic profession behind a common goal of maximizing the talent in organizations."

Maybe the answer to the question "Are we there yet?" is yes!

Reprinted from Learning Circuits, as published by T+D magazine, December 2003 by ASTD. Pat Galagan is managing director of content for ASTD.