Does training in your organization seem like death by PowerPoint? Is learning viewed as something an expert dumps in the lap of the learner.? However, that’s not what learning is – lectures and one-way delivery end up resulting in very little learning.
For deeper meaning to occur, invest in professionally facilitated experiences that enable staff to form mental models they remember. Get people thinking before and after the training to ensure that the mental model stays fresh in the mind.
Culture of Cutting Time
Avoid the desire for training in shorter and shorter chunks. The demands of the workplace are increasingly complex and stressful, so any time out of the office is a serious cost. The paradox is that by shortening the training, we don’t give the time for structured learning, which sabotages the investment when the training program could be substantially improved by adding the time to allow the learning to be consolidated.
We know that learning takes place when people have fun, stress is low, and the environment encourages discovery. Make training cheerful and open rather than dull and quiet. Encourage lots of informal learning opportunities. Give more control to the learner to shape their experience. Have fun!
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.
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Brown D., & Starkey, K. (2000). Organizational identity and learning: A psychodynamic perspective. The Academy of Management Review,25(1), 102. doi:10.2307/259265
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
Investigations of a Dog 