The Performance Improvement Blog

Leaders Learning about Learning

Recently, I conducted a workshop for the leadership team of a company that wants to increase the impact of its training programs. I explained the limitations of formal training and the need for taking an organizational learning perspective. I argued that in order for any kind of learning intervention (training, coaching, mentoring, action learning, etc.) to have a positive impact on achieving the organization’s goals, managers had to take an active role in supporting learning.

This message was well received by these senior leaders. They immediately understood the vital role they play in developing individuals, teams, and the organization as a whole. They wanted to know specifically what they could do to facilitate learning.

I suggested the 5As Framework as a place to start. This is a useful model for ensuring that, regardless of the learning intervention, they will achieve performance improvement and organizational success. The 5As are: 1) Alignment – align learning with strategic business goals; 2) Anticipation – expect success; 3) Alliance – form a learning alliance between learner and boss; 4) Application – apply new learning immediately; and 5) Accountability – hold learner and organization accountable for business results.

We discussed what leaders can do to ensure that these elements are addressed. Here are their suggestions:

• Alignment: explain to employees the importance of a particular training program and how that learning will help them help the company be successful; make this conversation part of employees’ performance reviews.
• Anticipation: clarify expectations for what you want employees to learn and communicate high but reasonable expectations for their learning; make this part of informal conversations they have about performance on a frequent basis (not only at annual performance review time).
• Alliance: meet with employees before training to identify learning goals, meet with employees during training (if possible) to discuss progress, and meet with employees after training to identify what was learned, how employees will apply that learning in the workplace, and what additional learning they need
• Application: provide opportunities for employees to immediately apply learning in their work in a way that will make a difference
• Accountability: give employees feedback on their application of learning and measure the impact of that learning on their teams and the organization

I was encouraged by the enthusiasm and understanding that these company leaders had for their role in learning. I can only hope that higher level executives and the company's CEO will support this role and recognize and reward what my workshop participants are doing to facilitate continuous learning throughout the organization.

Training Isn't Learning

Companies continue to put substantial resources into employee training programs with the hope that these programs will prepare their employees for jobs now and in the future. For example, AT&T is starting to retrain its entire workforce as it transitions from phone lines to the cloud.

In an article for the Wall Street Journal titled, “AT&T’s Ambitious Effort to Retrain More than 100,000 Workers,” Rachel King writes:

As AT&T Inc. takes on a massive effort to transform its technology infrastructure, the company is trying to give workers new skills for the new environment…The scale of the effort is unusual as many companies today tend to lay off employees when their technology skills become obsolete and hire new employees with the new skills. AT&T is an example of a company that’s trying something different in an effort to close the U.S. digital skills gap, where demand for highly-skilled tech jobs outstrips the supply of qualified workers.

The problem with AT&T’s approach to change is that training isn’t learning. Formal training programs, including online classes, do not transfer into performance improvement unless the organization culture is aligned. That is, goals are clear, expectations are high, managers are supportive, practice is immediate and frequent, and learners are held accountable for results.

Rachel King interviewed me for her article about AT&T and included this quote:

The success that AT&T will see overall depends largely on how the program is implemented, said Stephen J. Gill, co-owner of Learning to Be Great, a firm which helps companies create a learning culture. Skills learned in online classes need to be reinforced on the job by managers, he said. “Whether the training program will translate to AT&T preparing employees for the future is a leap of faith,” he added.

I would argue that companies like AT&T can't depend on faith. They need to be very intentional about learning, not training. The culture of these large, long-standing organizations is typically one of command-and-control management, hierarchical decision-making, silos of work, and fear of failure. This is not an environment conducive to learning and applying that learning on the job. Training is nice, but learning is what the company needs.

Force Field Analysis of Organizational Learning

A force-field analysis helps us with a problem by modeling the factors that drive people toward achieving a particular change (i.e., learning) and the factors that block people from achieving that change. The table below lists forces that commonly drive learning in organizations and the factors that block learning in organizations.

DRIVING	BLOCKING
Strategic Goals	Limited Resources
Technology	Lack of Leadership Support
Competition	Work vs. Learning
Compliance	Fear of Failure
Need for Agility	Lack of Alignment
Hiring	Low/Unclear Expectations
Retention	Not Role of Managers
Creativity	No Opportunity to Apply
Innovation	No Accountability

The forces that drive individuals, teams, and whole organizations to learn and, therefore, improve performance, often include: shared commitment to achieving organization’s strategic goals; constant and rapid change brought on by adoption of new technologies; global and relentless competition from old and new players in the marketplace; government and industry regulatory requirements for quality, safety, security, and service; a need to be agile in response to internal and external pressure for change; attracting the right people, getting them in the right jobs, and keeping talent; and being creative and innovative with products and services.

The forces that block individuals, teams, and whole organizations from learning and, therefore, prevent improvement of performance, often include: a mistaken belief that there isn’t enough time, money, and energy for learning; leaders who do not communicate and model their support of learning; a mindset that working and learning are separate activities and that work is more valued; fear of not succeeding at something and, therefore, not taking any risks; not knowing how a learning intervention (training, coaching, etc.) will help the organization achieve its goals; not being clear about what needs to be learned and why; managers who do not involve themselves in the learning process; no opportunity to apply new learning in the workplace; and no accountability on the part of employees and managers for learning and performance improvement.

The usefulness of this force-field analysis of organizational learning is in stimulating action to add and enhance the factors that drive learning and stimulating action to eliminate and reduce the factors that block learning. What are the factors that drive and block learning in your organization? What can you do to increase the drivers and decrease the blockers?

Organizations Don't Learn

The culture of most organizations prevents them from learning. And without learning they are destined to have disengaged employees, high turnover, low performance teams, unproductive workplaces, inadequate responses to competitive pressures, an inability to keep up with the pace of change, and an unsustainable business. They might survive, but without continuously acquiring new knowledge and skills, enhancing competencies, and adapting to a rapidly changing environment, they cannot perform at the highest level.

What prevents organizations from learning? Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats, in an article for HBR titled Why Organizations Don’t Learn, provide us with some answers. They write:

Why do companies struggle to become or remain “learning organizations”? Through research conducted over the past decade across a wide range of industries, we have drawn this conclusion: Biases cause people to focus too much on success, take action too quickly, try too hard to fit in, and depend too much on experts.

The authors argue that organizational learning depends on overcoming these biases. Companies should embrace failure. They must see failure as a growth opportunity. Companies should take time to slow down and reflect on their actions and learn from that reflection. Companies should respect non-conforming behavior that might result in creative solutions to problems. Companies should give employees opportunities to apply their strengths and learn from each other.

In summary, they say:

It may be cheaper and easier in the short run to ignore failures, schedule work so that there’s no time for reflection, require compliance with organizational norms, and turn to experts for quick solutions. But these short-term approaches will limit the organization’s ability to learn.

I would add a few more barriers to organizational learn. One is that leaders tend to desperately seek control. Leaders use short-term, simple solutions, as well as policies, rules, and norms, out of fear that they will lose command of the situation. This discourages risk-taking. A leader who is self-confident, trusting, and has a growth mindset, will put learning ahead of control and will encourage risk-taking for the sake of learning.

Another barrier to learning is the work-learning dichotomy that is drilled into people at a very young age. Work is what your parents leave home to do someplace else; learning is what you do in school. This mindset is reinforced in college and in the workplace. When jobs and knowledge changed very slowly, this distinction made sense. Today, workers need to be continually learning and improving their performance. Work and learning have merged and it no longer makes sense to separate these activities.

Still another barrier to learning is the training culture of most organizations. This is an environment in which training is seen as the solution to any deficiency in performance, whether individual, team, or whole organization. Rather than accept responsibility for employee learning, managers assume that a training department, or a CLO, or HR will solve the problem by offering a training program that addresses the issue. A course on leadership, a workshop on listening skills, a seminar on ethics, or an elearning module on the latest project management software. Participation in training is considered a proxy for learning when we know that learning requires so much more.