A 30-year collaboration of Victoria marsick and karen watkins: Learning in the workplace

Abstract

A field in the social and organizational science grows in richness of perspective, methods, and tools, the same way a field in the hard sciences does: New ideas emerge from the rich conversation of the members. Sometimes, a rich flow of ideas emerges from a special subgroup, such as collaborative partnerships. This chapter focuses on such a partnership: The 30-year collaboration of doctors Victoria Marsick and Karen Watkins. It is a story of discovering new ways to view learning in the workplace, but it did not start with that focus. The content of our chapter is based on interviews with Marsick and Watkins and with seven of their colleagues, who read much of their work and related material and interacted with them for several decades. Interviews included former students, colleagues, coauthors, and fellow board members for the Association for Talent Development (ATD, formerly ASTD) and the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). Those individuals had known the two scholars 15-25 years.