Building a learning culture

Our organizations are either growing or they’re dying. The key thing that drives growth in organizations is when their employees are learning. To strengthen our organizations, our teams, ourselves we need to ensure our culture allows people to be exposed to new and challenging opportunities to learn.

We learn constantly. Most of that learning, however, is incremental, improvements that build on what we already know and do. We expand our knowledge and refine our skills in ways that strengthen our identities and commitments. This process sharpens competence and broadens expertise, and is key in building subject matter experts.

Incremental learning can allow people to grow in a workplace until they reach the limit on their resources for new learning – think of it as an S-curve. Eventually, there isn’t enough opportunities to learn. Furthermore, learning that broadens our expertise is valuable, but it is not enough. Incremental learning does not alter the way we see others, the world, and ourselves.

The second type of learning is called transformative, it changes our perspectives laying the foundations for growth and innovative leaps.

Both kinds of learning are necessary. Incremental learning helps us deliver, while transformative learning helps us develop. Both are necessary, but too often we allow incremental learning to be haphazard and make no space for transformative learning.

In both cases we need to build spaces to drive learning.

We often see incremental in our training programs, while transformative is critical for culture building.

	Incremental Learning	Transformative Learning
Good for	Knowledge and Skills	Purpose and Presence
Source of Learning	Experts (models)	Experience (moments)
Work required	Deliberate Practice	Reflective engagement
Aim of process	New action (a better way)	New meaning (a better why)
Role of others	Focusing practice	Inviting Interpretation

Bibliography

References

• Bersin. (2018, July 08). A new paradigm for corporate training: Learning in the flow of work. Retrieved December 31, 2019, from https://joshbersin.com/2018/06/a-new-paradigm-for-corporate-training-learning-in-the-flow-of-work/
• Boyatzis E., & Akrivou, K. (2006). The ideal self as the driver of intentional change. Journal of Management Development, 25(7), 624-642. doi:10.1108/02621710610678454
• Brown D., & Starkey, K. (2000). Organizational identity and learning: A psychodynamic perspective. The Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 102. doi:10.2307/259265
• Hoffman, R., Yeh, C., & Casnocha, B. (2019). Learn from people, not classes. Harvard Business Review, 97(3). Retrieved December 31, 2019, from https://hbr.org/2019/03/educating-the-next-generation-of-leaders
• Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
• Petriglieri, G., Petriglieri, J. L., & Wood, J. D. (2017). Fast tracks and Inner Journeys: Crafting Portable selves for contemporary careers. Administrative Science Quarterly, 63(3), 479-525. doi:10.1177/0001839217720930