The Performance Improvement Blog

Employee-Manager Learning Alliance

In 1994, The Learning Alliance was published. This book, by Rob Brinkerhoff and myself, made the case that HRD (human resource development) was changing dramatically and that the key to employee learning had shifted from the training department to the relationship (i.e., alliance) between managers and the learners they supervise.

We wrote in the first paragraph of the Preface:

A revolution is taking place in the development of human resources. The traditional centralized corporate training department, with its catalogs of classes and workshops, is quickly becoming a relic of the past. In its place, a system of employee training and development shaped by a new paradigm for learning is emerging. This paradigm is characterized by a focus on business goals, customer needs, the total organizational system, and continuous improvement… In those organizations whose training leaders have accepted the paradigm shift, HRD practices are very different. The responsibility for developing employees and directing their learning on the job has shifted to each employee’s direct supervisor. Information and skills are provided when and where they are needed.

That was wishful thinking. Twenty years later, I’m disheartened to admit that fundamentally not much has changed. According to ATD's State of the Industry Report, most of the training and development dollar is still spent on formal, classroom training. This is after the invention of learning technologies that have the potential to transform learning in the workplace; to make learning just-in-time and just-the-right-way for each person.

Exceptions do exist. Some companies have made the learning and development of employees everyone’s responsibility. Some companies have shifted responsibility for learning to their managers. Some companies reward learning that happens from risk-taking and experimentation. Some companies have cultures in which continuous learning is one of their strongest values.

However, for the vast majority of organizations, the traditional training culture dominates. These organizations still need to recognize the value of the learning relationship between managers and their direct reports.

In a blog post titled, “Why We Need Mutually Beneficial Relationships at Work”, Shawn Murphy points out the importance of this learning relationship:

First, we need a relationship between leaders and employees that hones in on expectations of everyone involved in the work relationship. Employees need to understand the expectations for performance and results. Employers need to help employees realize their potential and help them flourish in life. Finally, the organization needs to provide the resources and people to help a mutually beneficial relationship thrive.

As I have argued on this blog previously, if organizations, whether business, government, or nonprofit, are to remain competitive and relevant, they need to dramatically change the way they think about learning. They need to develop a culture in which continuous learning is valued by everyone and is supported on a day-to-day basis in the supervisory relationship between learners and their managers. 

Smart Companies Have Learned How to Learn

David Grebow, in a blog post titled Only Smart Companies Will Win, writes about the necessity of changing from a training culture to a learning culture. He writes:

As recently as eight or ten years ago, transforming your organization’s culture from a teacher-led training culture to a learning culture, driven by digital technology, may have been a matter of managerial preference.  Today, it’s an absolute necessity.

Grebow highlights the fact that digital technology has provided people with many new ways to learn,
enhancing learning in our schools and homes. Students are using Web-based elearning programs, social
media, and mobile devices to conveniently and creatively learn in and out of school. Grebow contrasts that change with the much slower change that is going on in companies today. He describes the situation this way:

…relatively few leaders have fully grasped what enormous benefits there can be in transitioning their training culture to a learning culture and changing the way their employees learn. This is true despite evidence showing that significant value accrues to organizations that make the transformation from one culture to the other.

As long as organization leaders maintain a mindset that learning happens in a classroom by instructors conveying information to employees and that the locus of responsibility for learning lies with training departments, companies will not benefit from new learning technologies.  They will fail to use these technologies to create a learning and performance support system that ensures learning leads to results. Smart companies focus on learning, not training, and, therefore, are more open to using whatever learning tool works best the situation and performance goals.

Training Culture vs. Learning Culture

What’s the difference between a “training culture” and a “learning culture”? The answer is, “A great deal.” As the chart shows, in a training culture, responsibility for employee learning resides with instructors and training managers. In that kind of culture the assumption is that trainers (under the direction of a CLO) drive learning. Whereas in a learning culture, responsibility for learning resides with each employee and each team. In that kind of culture, employees are expected to seek out the knowledge and skills they need, when and where that knowledge and those skills are needed.

In a training culture, the assumption is that the most important learning happens in events, such as workshops, courses, elearning programs, and conferences. In a learning culture, it’s assumed that learning happens all the time, at events but also on-the-job, through coaches and mentors, from action-learning, from smartphones and tablets, socially, and from experiments.

In a training culture, the training and development function is centralized. The CLO, or HR, or a training department controls the resources for learning. Employees and their managers assume that if new competencies are needed, they should rely on this centralized function. In a learning culture, everyone is responsible for learning.  The entire organization is engaged in facilitating and supporting learning, in the workplace and outside the workplace.

In a training culture, departmental units in the organization compete for information. Each unit wants to know more and control more than the other units. This competition can result in short-term gains for those units and even for the organization as a whole (e.g., drug development in pharmaceutical companies). In a learning culture, knowledge and skills are shared freely among units. Everyone is working to help everyone else learn from the successes and failures across the organization. This creates a more sustainable and adaptable organization.

In a training culture, the learning and development function is evaluated on the basis of delivery of programs and materials. Typically, what matters to management is the courses that were offered and how many people attended. In a learning culture, what matters is the knowledge and skills acquired and applied in the workplace and impact on achieving the organization’s strategic goals. It’s less about output and more about the difference that learning makes for individuals, teams, and the entire organization.