The Lean Future of Learning - Part 2 of 3

From Just-in-Case Knowledge to Just-in-Time Capability

"The illiterate of the future will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." — Alvin Toffler(1928–2016)

For generations, education has followed a familiar pattern... We learned first with the hope that the knowledge would prove useful later.

Schools taught us mathematics before we ever needed to balance a budget - some of us still struggle with that today. Universities taught theory, (often throwing in some Greek letters and Latin just for "sport"), before we entered the workplace. And let's not get started on organizations sending employees to week-long (or year-long) training programs in anticipation of future needs.

Perhaps it made perfect sense. Information was scarce, text books were expensive, experts were difficult to access, and learning had to be batched because there were few alternatives. "This is the way its always been done!" Sound familiar?... In many ways, education evolved much like manufacturing.

Factories produced inventory "just in case" customers needed it. Likewise, education produced knowledge "just in case" learners would need it someday. Then... technology changed everything! Granted, not overnight, but gradually... almost quietly.

In Part 1 of this series, "Learning in the Age of Artificial Intelligence", I spoke of my early 1980's "wiring a small cottage" job and relying on the Time-Life "Basic Wiring" book to complete the project - install service pole and everything down from that (thank goodness the book had pictures).

Today, if my lawn tractor refuses to start, I don't enroll in a ten-hour course on small-engine repair (nor relying on a small engine repair in high school decades ago - that I didn't take). I search... I watch... I ask questions. I learn exactly what I need to solve the problem in front of me.

The same was true when I recently replaced a toilet, transferred data to a new phone, or configured software I had never used before. Yesterday, I took a deep dive into Google Task Manager (GTM)... what I needed to know exactly when I needed to know. Learning happened precisely when capability was required... just in time!

As I reflected on these experiences, I realized something surprising. The future of learning may have far less to do with artificial intelligence and more to do with "Lean thinking".

And that notion has been troubling me for months, to the point that when I began a one-day workshop with a cohort of Lean Six Sigma Black Belts (LSSBB) in training earlier this week, I admitted I was finding it harder and harder to justify working them through exercises on binary logistic regression, general linear model, and design of experiment (DOE)... For the "trivial many", we teach the application of tools that only the "vital few" may ever use. Why?... Because it's part of the LSSBB "body of knowledge" (BoK). And who knows when a good binary logistic regression may be needed... I wonder what the likelihood of that might be?... The probability of that event occurring?, lol.

Education's Hidden Inventory

Lean teaches us to recognize waste. We analyze flow and identify excess inventory, unnecessary transportation, waiting, overproduction, and countless other activities that consume resources without creating value. But what if we looked at education through the same lens?

For centuries, we've accumulated knowledge the way warehouses accumulate inventory. More...

• Courses

• Textbooks

• Binders

• Notes

• Information

Success was measured by how much knowledge we stored. Yet every Lean practitioner knows that inventory is not inherently valuable. Inventory represents potential value, but its real value isn't realized until it is needed. Shouldn't knowledge work much the same way? What about knowledge that is never applied... obsolete before its needed... forgotten over time... or, if we are honest, was never necessary in the first place?

This isn't a criticism of education. It was the best possible system for a world where information was scarce. But information is no longer scarce. What is scarce or at the least, at risk, is attention, time, and good judgement... critical thinking.

From Courses to Capability

Perhaps the biggest shift isn't technological at all... Perhaps it's philosophical. For generations, we've organized learning around courses. Courses became the destination. We enrolled, completed the material, passed the assessment, earned the certificate, and celebrated the accomplishment. Yet if we're honest, very few of us ever wanted the course itself. We wanted what the course made possible.

• To solve a problem

• To lead more effectively

• To analyze data with confidence

• To repair an engine

• To earn a promotion

• To make a difference

Capability, not the course, was the true destination...

The future of learning doesn't eliminate courses. It simply restores them to their proper place. A course becomes one possible pathway to building capability... alongside coaching, experience, observation, experimentation, mentoring, books, videos, and increasingly, intelligent machines (AI).

In other words, we stop asking, "What course should I take?" and begin asking, "What capability do I need?"

That single shift changes everything. Learning becomes smaller... faster... more relevant... more immediately valuable. And, much like Lean manufacturing, reduced production batch sizes where technology offers the us ability to reduce learning batch sizes and align with "just in time" principles. We no longer need to accumulate months of knowledge before creating value. Increasingly, we can acquire knowledge at the moment we need to apply it.

But Here's the Catch...

It would be easy to conclude that everything should now be learned "just in time." I don't believe that's true as not all learning is created equal. There are, perhaps, two distinct streams of learning. The first consists of foundational capabilities.

• Critical thinking

• Problem-solving & Decision-making

• Ethics, Morality, Integrity

• Communication

• Statistical thinking

• Systems thinking

• Leadership

• Judgment

• Emotional intelligence

• Empathy & Kindness

These cannot always be developed at the moment they are needed, No one learns integrity five minutes before facing an ethical dilemma. No one develops sound judgment during a crisis. These capabilities are cultivated over years through awareness, deliberate practice, reflection, and experience.

The second stream is applied learning:

• A new software package

• A repair procedure

• An unfamiliar regulation

• A statistical technique

• A digital tool

These increasingly lend themselves to just-in-time learning because they solve immediate problems. The future of learning isn't choosing one approach over the other... It's recognizing which kind of learning we're dealing with.

Foundations are built ahead of time whereas applications are learned when needed.

Respect for the Learner

Lean has always been about more than efficiency. At its heart is respect for people.

Perhaps the future of learning should begin from the same principle:

• Respect people's time

• Respect their curiosity

• Respect the context in which they learn

• Respect the problems they are trying to solve

Technology, especially rapidly evolving artificial intelligence, makes this possible in ways previous generations could scarcely imagine. But like courses, technology isn't the destination... capability is. Perhaps that's the most important shift of all.

For centuries, education and educators asked: "What should people know?" Tomorrow's question may be very different... "What do people need to be capable of doing today, and what foundations must they build for tomorrow?" That single question may reshape learning more profoundly than any technology ever could.

In Part 3 of this series, we'll explore why, in a world of instant answers and intelligent machines, craftsmanship, judgment, and deep thinking may become more valuable than ever.