Taruna Goel

Workplace Learning | RPL/PLAR Strategy & Systems | Competencies & Credentialing | 25+ yrs in L&D

On bsky as tarunagoel

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

Writing is meaningful for me because I am okay sitting with the unfinished and appreciative of the wrestle to get to the finish line. But based on how a lot of writing is being produced today, I do wonder about what kind of writing still matters. https://t.co/OXUAB3eEbA

[Heidi N. Moore @moorehn]

An MIT writing professor on his students using AI:

"I realized that for the first time as a writing professor, I had to deal with students producing words without work, which wasn’t quite plagiarism and wasn’t quite paying for someone else to do the job, but it felt like a kind of naive chicanery; a perversion of the contract between writer and reader."

https://t.co/518RAEgrgq

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

From human 'in the loop' to human 'in the lead'
As #AI is reshaping our work and our world, instead of thinking about whether or not we keep humans in the loop, the more important question is to think intentionally about how to keep humans in the lead! https://t.co/21YyZwWXEn

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

Definition of learning by Shuell interpreted by Schunk, 1991: “Learning is an enduring change in behavior, or in the capacity to behave in a given fashion, which results from practice or other forms of experience” p.2, Schunk, D. H., Learning theories: An educational perspective.

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

How to Maintain Ownership When Writing with AI https://t.co/XQ2HvlaoBr via @elearningcoach

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

Check out my latest article: CredX2026: Making Recognition a Verb https://t.co/aVo0GUPqVf via @LinkedIn

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

Check out my latest article: CredX2026: Making Recognition a Verb https://t.co/aVo0GUPqVf

#CredX2026 #CredX #Recognition #RPL #Credentials #Microcredentials

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

Designed for Learning!: CredX2026: Making Recognition a Verb https://t.co/RIXD4xyoP4
My take from #CredX2026

#CredX #Recogniton #Credentials #Microcredentials #Skills

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

We don't have a #skills or #credentialing problem, we have a #recognition problem. https://t.co/yb4oH4al0K #RPL #PLAR

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

I do wonder about how a lot of writing is being produced today...and what kind of writing still requires a human. https://t.co/FLHKf0JptM

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

We’ll soon find out what is truly special about human writing – https://t.co/XT5fFarSQj via @psyche_the_mag

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

A Commonwealth Approach to Micro-credential Framework Implementation https://t.co/zmsuU4aDCR #Microcredentials #LifelongLearning #HigherEducation #TechnicalVocationalEducationandTraining #TVET #SkillsDevelopment #DigitalBadges #RecognitionofPriorLearning #RPL

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

Such a great conversation! Worth your time.
Naomi Klein & Karen Hao: The Empire of AI and the Fight for Our Future at Chan Centre, UBC
https://t.co/Rhs43XEXOV

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

Lessons from the Far Side of the Moon https://t.co/UPByYhS3DI #Intelligence #HumanInTheLead #HumanInTheLoop

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

What a powerful read!
"In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing." https://t.co/5r8y6WV7Bk

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

"A dollar is fungible. A barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude is fungible. A mass of people bound together by years of shared context, inside jokes and collective memory is not." https://t.co/cD2HpmZvyp

[Helen Bevan @HelenBevan]

Organisations are not "fungible".

“Fungibility” is an assumption that if you redesign an organisation & replace one set of people with a different set, you will still get equivalent outputs. This mistaken belief underlies many organisational restructures: that you can redistribute roles, reporting lines & teams without meaningful loss.

I've been reading "Communities Are Not Fungible", a recent essay by @JoanWesten7568. She examines 1960s urban renewal, when planners believed demolishing old neighbourhoods & rehousing residents would allow communities to reform. They didn't. The residents moved. The community did not. A community is not a set of people: it is a historically produced web of relationships between them. Destroy the web, & you have strangers in a building. The parallel to organisational life is uncomfortable.

When we restructure, we may preserve many of the people but destroy the relational infrastructure that made them effective. The informal trust that lets someone ask for help. The shared knowledge of who to call when a process stalls. The accumulated understanding of each other's judgment. These live in relationships, not individuals. Redrawing an org chart doesn't transfer them.

Research backs this up. Tacit knowledge - the "knowing how" driving real-world performance - depends on trust to flow. Break those relationships & you block the transfer. Studies show informal networks persist along old lines long after formal structures change, creating tension between old loyalties & new mandates. Social capital is the value created by connectedness. It can be destroyed in restructuring & take years to rebuild — a cost that almost never appears in a business case.

What leaders can do to protect collective value:

1. Audit informal networks before redesigning formal structures. Use, eg., System Network Analysis or Relational Coordination. Breaking key network nodes causes capability losses no productivity model captures.

2. Treat relational capital as a real cost. Business cases for restructuring rarely account for social capital destruction. Making it visible leads to better decisions & stronger cases for change.

3. Design around high-value relationships. Identify relationships carrying the most trust & history & actively design the new structure to protect them while enabling necessary change.

4. Invest deliberately in building new relationships. Create conditions for them to form through shared work, peer learning & social connection.

5. Give explicit attention to belonging & psychological safety for everyone (not just those who lose or change roles): This creates conditions for the discretionary effort that makes new structures succeed.

6. Slow down at the point of irreversibility. Ask not only "what do we gain?" but "what do we lose - & can we recover it?"

The value of an organisation is not the sum of its people's individual capabilities. It is the web of relationships between them. That web is not fungible.

Link to Joan Westenberg's essay: https://t.co/GFZo1McA7V. Thanks to @charlie_psych who sent me the essay.

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

We are always talking about more courses, more skills, more knowledge. But in practice, growth also comes from subtracting. https://t.co/wY8BxbWD82

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice. - Brian Herbert

[Taruna Goel @write2tg]

Heading to #CredX2026 at @myVCC on 15-16 April in Vancouver. Looking forward to talking shop on all things #Microcredentials #Badges #Recognition and #IndustryInsights
https://t.co/4qE2XAamXl