So my office is in the midst of packing up again. No, we're not moving this time, just packing. Don't ask. Anyway, in the midst of this I got an email that sparked this post and I wanted to tie it together with an article from Harvard Business Review that I had been pimping for a few days on Twitter.
The article is titled "No, Management is NOT a Profession" and yes, it is locked behind a paywall but I read it in the print issue and I do think it hold some worthwhile ideas and HBR isn't trying to hide the fact that its a money-making publication behind some bullsh*t "academic journal facade while just using the "publish or perish" pressure that academics who are seeking tenure face to generate free content for their OUTRAGEOUSLY priced walled gardens of content...the creation of which had already been paid for by a school...but I digress. The point is, pick up the magazine in print or buy a copy of the article. I think that the way the article lays out the defining characteristics of a "profession"...eg LAW and MEDICINE...can really inform the discussions that we regularly seem to have about "what makes one an ISD" and so on. I'm also sitting here thinking that one of the main problems might be the messy humans in the equation.
I mean let's be honest...law and medicine INVOLVE humans but they are not ABOUT humans. Law is about, well, the law. That is a definable body of content, the mastery of said content can reasonably be judged across populations. Medicine LOOKS like its about humans but its not...its about their bodies and their bodily processes...by definition, a discrete set of knowledge. Management though, and full disclosure-I have a degree in this topic, LOOKS like its about things like accounting and finance and marketing and HR but really its about leading humans and human efforts. So maybe learning/training falls into the same space...it looks like its about ADDIE (drink) or models and theories but what's its really about is learning...something so indescribably human and messy and individually constructed..that it could be the poster child for uniquely human endeavors. Maybe that's why our field will never be viewed as a "profession"...the body of knowledge required to operate in this domain is simply to varied to ever be judged as "complete" and so by definition, is really hard to define when it is "incomplete."
If a doctor fails chemistry, they can not practice medicine. If a lawyer fails contract law, he or she can not practice law. What piece or pieces of knowledge MUST an ISD master...without which they would not be able to function in this field? So maybe we quit worrying about being a "profession" since to qualify for that appellation, it seems that one must work in a fairly limited intellectual landscape. I prefer my messy, human, learning world where we can act professionally but celebrate all the while, that our particular domain of knowledge is far too broad and deep to be considered something as prescribed and constrained as a "profession."
Henry Mintzberg says of management, "It’s not a science or a profession. It’s a practice.”
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/302
I would say the same of the learning-related fields of practice, though one can act professionally.
"A professional is anyone who does work that cannot be standardized easily and who continuously welcomes challenges at the cutting edge of his or her expertise" ~ David Williamson Shaffer
Posted by: Harold Jarche | August 05, 2010 at 08:55 AM