It’s time to focus on corporate learning instead of corporate training. (part 1 of many parts)
My work focuses on helping employees learn and thrive at work so we can deliver exceptional impact to our clients and colleagues every day. But I have rarely participated in training that has moved the needle for me. How can we create a culture of continuous learning and have employees feel and recognize their firms’ investment in their professional development?
Most companies do it wrong. The brilliant CEO of e-180, Christine Renaud said it best in her blog post on Learning: “There is a big difference between education as something that’s being done to you in comparison to learning, as something you can only do to yourself, no matter how hard anyone else tries to teach you.” The secret ingredient to learning is motivation, while delivering the right content, at the right time, in the right context. In my world, I liken Christine’s reference to education as the barrage of videos, online courses and in person (if you’re one of the lucky few) training programs we swamp our employees with which are little used and which drive little impact or change. This is especially depressing as we need to continuously learn in our jobs, but what companies spend all their time and money building delivers marginal results at best.
Graduates entering the workforce are unprepared for what’s ahead. Fast Company had an article which spoke to the issue of graduates who lack the key skills companies need in the workforce. Article after article share how key skills —so-called soft skills—hiring managers find lacking or absent include: "Critical thinking, problem solving, attention to detail, and writing proficiency top the list of skills managers find missing from job seekers’ personal tool kits. On the flip side, managers didn’t find graduates wanting for know-how in search engine optimization, marketing, foreign languages, and coding." Given the rate of change with technology, though technical skills are desirable, it’s not a long runway before we require a worker to “upskill” —with 2 new technologies learned each year in some companies and industries—and the rate of change will only get more accelerated. This makes those soft skills critical since they each lead to a continuous learning regimen anchored by curiosity, collaboration and resilience.
70:20:10. The Center for Creative Leadership published a seminal study in the 80s. In it, it tracked how employees learn best in a corporate setting. The idea is that 70 percent of an employee’s learning comes from on the job experiences, 20 percent from coaching, mentoring and interactions with others, and 10 percent from more traditional corporate training. So how does something from the 80s hold up in 2018 (I know my claw bangs and acid washed jeans sure didn’t)? Given the amazing amount of information out there and advances in technology, surely there's a new formula? That formula holds true now more than ever. Case in point, I am jumping into a design thinking exercise to build out (props to IDEO for the inspiration) learner personas and learning journey maps. In this project, I get to interview people about their careers, and dig into their learning journey. The results have been clear. A new assignment, change in leadership, or revamped strategy or change in team composition all incite an employee to either want to learn and adapt and ultimately thrive, or struggle and learn a lesson we didn’t want them to learn (e.g. how to leave our company). Sadly, in each moment, colleagues rarely cited a course or program which was key in helping them get to the next level. Sharing experience with colleagues, feedback and coaching from a teammate or manager also provided a lift, but to a lesser degree than the "learn by doing" model. We can and should focus on flash points or key moments in an employee’s career to help them quickly learn and thrive, such as becoming a people manager for the first time. The question is how best to do it?
Build a Learning Not Training Organization. The role of a talent and learning experience team needs to create something squishier and less formal than the traditional "brick and mortar" or "send everyone online and they will magically learn" model. The decisions on who gets that next project, or who is ready for a challenge and what is the right context become central to the learning strategy. It means you have to create a culture of learning, where peer-led sharing takes hold. It also means you need to have an engine with AI that looks not just at the past in an employee’s experience, but opens doors based on their potential (in an unbiased way which is a whole other can of worms).
How do we do this you might ask? Well, I’m still learning how. The answer is I’m at the beginning of my own learning journey. I’ve set my intention on the what. Not to leave you high and dry, but the solutions will be something I dig into later as I get more down the road. For now, I encourage you to keep reading, soaking up podcasts, and pushing yourself and others to try new things (and then share your big questions and lessons). And I’d love to hear from you about what your thoughts are and if you’d like to “think tank it” with me!
