We live in an age where change is the only permanent thing with technology led disruptions sweeping literally every industry. In such fiercely dynamic environment, Organizations need to be at their innovative best to even maintain their position in the industry. Till not very long ago companies like Nokia, Blackberry, eBay, Kodak, Yahoo, Groupon were among the poster boys of their respective industries with invincible reputation and market share. Today they are no longer a serious player. So what happened? The answer is simple: They lost out because they failed to build a learning organization.
For today’s companies, the rule is simple. If you want to survive & grow, you have to consistently innovate and stay a step ahead of your market’s emerging trends. To consistently stay ahead of the curve, you need to create and nurture a “culture of learning” in your company. The digital revolution is demanding major shifts in human expertise necessitating the need for continuous up-gradation at every level. Imagine half of today’s most demanded skills weren’t even on the list of LinkedIn’s most in-demand skills of 2019.
Learning and business success
Needless to say, organizations today need a team that can adapt quickly to changing technologies & market dynamics. They should be able to continuously look ahead of the trend and bring product innovations that can keep the company ahead of the audiences changing desires and preferences. AS Josh Bersin, principal and founder of Bersin by Deloitte puts it “The single biggest driver of business impact is the strength of an organization’s learning culture,”
A true learning culture has been defined by CEB as “a culture that supports an open mindset, an independent quest for knowledge, and shared learning directed toward the mission and goals of the organization,”. Standout companies such as Google, SAP, Apple, American Express and Bridgewater Associates understand this and have embraced top-to-bottom learning cultures.
However adoption of a true learning culture is still an exception than a norm in most organizations. Organizations are creating processes and silos and strictly defining goals and expected behaviors, thus robotizing employees. A recent research has found that low 10% organizations globally have proactively created a learning culture. This is the case despite there being compelling evidence linking learning to business success. Research by Bersin found that companies who effectively nurture their workforce’s desire to learn are at least 30% more likely to be market leaders in their industries over an extended period of time.
Learning vs Training
Many organizations have implemented extensive training programs as a proxy to creating a learning culture. However, training is a small subset of what constitutes Learning. Training is increasing a person’s skill or knowledge in a specific field, while learning is a broader process aimed at increasing a person’s intelligence and creativity. Learning seeks to make an employee more capable of thinking on his feet and resolving any type of challenge he might encounter. While training is always imparted through a formal event, learning can happen in different ways, both formal and informal. It can happen in conversations with your colleagues, reading, observing a mentor, etc. Learning seeks to broaden an employee’s mental horizon, help him see things from different points of view and make him capable of thinking outside the box.
For example, while learning a particular software is training, being aware of the latest changes in technology and being able to understand how that impacts your work is learning. Also, while receiving instruction on the HR policies of the company is training, knowing how to deal with and connect with people is learning.
Unlike training, learning has to happen naturally and continuously as part of the culture of a company. Learning can be incorporated into an organization culture in multiple ways. Here are six of them that have empirically been found effective:
Top Management needs to lead the way: People in leadership positions must model the learning behavior they want to see in the employees. Leaders can model learning behaviors such as taking risks, experimenting, learning something unrelated to their jobs, taking on tasks outside their comfort zone. They can let employees know that it is okay to experiment and fail. Leaders must also continuously communicate to their managers the value of learning and make sure they in turn model and encourage this in their employees.
Put premium on Curiosity: Organizations can design their hiring processes to identify and on-board employees who are high on curiosity and learning. Hiring managers and recruiters can use structured interviews, assessments and behavioral interviews to achieve this goal. Candidates displaying traits such as openness to new experience, tolerance for ambiguity, critical thinking, and inquisitiveness show strong linkages with a learning mindset. An effective selection process makes organizational learning much more effective because it is easier to augment potential than to go against someone’s nature.
Policy, processes & rewards that encourage Learning: It’s important that the company’s policies and programs clearly encourage learning behavior and upfront address key constraints that prevent people from reaching their full potential. Learning inhibitors like Ego, fear and complacency should be confronted and addressed by creating the right environment. Further right policies can be used to align employee interests to the characteristics of the job and culture of the organization. There is empirical evidence that such alignment tends to increase not just employee’s motivation to learn but also their performance.It’s also important for companies to put in place formal reward systems that reward learning. In a learning organization it’s not just about the results. Equally important is how the results were accomplished. For example, at American Express, “Fifty percent of your score comes from how you went about doing your work,”
Give constructive feedback: Receiving meaningful, constructive feedback from managers is an important source of learning for employees. Often, wanting to avoid an uncomfortable situation, managers tend to give more positive feedback. While this will help to encourage employees and give them confidence, it is a missed opportunity to improve productivity. Managers must be trained how to properly give feedback and coach employees on how to work on improving their work based on the feedback they receive.
Make learning a team activity: Employees learn best from their peers since they are also working in the same environment and face similar challenges. Having a peer community that is willing to help you learn how to approach challenges and is open to learning from your experience helps keep employees motivated, helps them feel like part of a team and increases retention. Team reflection can be encouraged after key projects. Teams can be encouraged to discuss what went well, what didn’t and what they would do differently. Having mentors that employees can look up to and learn from also helps furthering learning in an organization.
On demand learning: Every employee’s learning needs are different according to the project he is in and the kind of knowledge and experience he already has. The best learning is learning through experience. Employees need access to learning sources when they encounter problems at work. Such learning will be most impactful as they are able to immediately apply what they have learnt. Such learning has to also be of a short duration and easily accessible. While trying to meet a deadline, an employee does not want to spend too much time trying to find learning sources or spend too much time learning the material. Such personalized, on demand learning can be done by giving employees easy access to written materials, podcasts, short videos, apps, etc. Giving employees a way to access mentors and knowledge experts is also another solution.
To conclude, creating a learning culture is not just about your organization’s formal learning and development programs. It’s more to do with putting the right policies & processes in place, hiring smart and then reinforcing positive learning behaviors by giving constructive feedback to align employees’ efforts with the right learning goals.