During a recent conversation with a Learning & Development Head of a large corporation, she posed an interesting question: “Who, do you think, can evolve into a better L&D Manager—a trainer or an instructional designer?” The more I contemplated the SWOT of each role, the harder it was for me to hazard a black-and-white answer.
The former does have formidable practical experience in the field, but the latter has the collective knowledge of ID theories and principles tested by time. This conundrum is akin to the “physicist vs. engineer” argument.
As L&D managers, what do you think of this poser?
My experience of the corporate training world has shown me how much trainers and curriculum designers can clash in personality, opinion and perspective. It’s truly bizarre since the end point (an educated workforce) is all the same. I myself work as a consultant in the training industry and have delivered platform training for ten years and developed curriculum for seven. I say all this as a basis for my opinion since I can related to both sides of the training “coin”. Management is all about leadership and helping employees do what they do best. Since trainers tend to be more extroverted than curriculum designers (this is a generality) in more cases they may be predisposed to working with people. Trainers manage people anyway, it’s just in a classroom setting. Also I feel curriculum designers are very specialize in what they do, so it can be a huge switch to jump from doing the work yourself to managing others. Of course an L&D manager needs to know the theories and principles behind adult learning and performance. Frankly, I think all trainers should know that stuff (I’m talking corporate trainer, not just SMEs). The most important and common concepts are not that difficult to grasp and an industrious trainer would do it on their own anyway. One other qualification to be a good L&D manager is business acumen. They need to know how to operate with the VPs. Curriculum designers are usually educated in education. Trainers can come from anywhere. Anyway, a former-trainer manager with a good curriculum designer by his/her side should have all the learning theory support they need.