Knowledge does not change behavior

Often while designing course strategy, we expect that with right knowledge in their arsenals the learners can change their behavior. However, as a learning profession we know that this doesn't always happen.

Had knowledge really changed behavior, we would all be going through some kind of online course to know how to do our own tasks better and reaped benefits in terms of increments during each appraisal.

Had it been that simple, clients, delivery heads, leads and reviewers would not eat our brains every chance they get.

And expanding this idea beyond e-learning industry, we would not have heard/read stories about the crazy shrinks, obese doctors/physical trainers/dietitians and divorced marriage counselors!

If we really wish to bring about behavioral change through our courses, we need to ask "What, exactly, needs to be done differently?"

For this we need to look beyond the obvious failures. We need to look beyond the knowing-doing gap, beyond the personality mismatch, beyond lack of technical skill-set and all such constraints.

For our course to be really successful in overcoming these problems we need to think out of the box and look at the person who is doing the same task consistently and exceptionally well.

We should then try and understand what exactly it is that this person is doing differently from the rest of the crowd.

Using this knowledge, we should then provide crystal-clear direction -- where to go, how to act, what destination to pursue in our course.

Only when we are able to bring in this level of detail knowledge regarding the course to the table, will we be able to create courses that help organizations see the positive impact of online courses on the bottom line.

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