People are creatures of habit and often become frustrated when something interferes with the comfort and familiarity of those habits. However, modernity includes an accelerating rate of change in both our personal and professional lives.
It is not difficult to find articles and blog postings where training professionals express doubt about new electronic/digital forms of learning. This includes comments suggesting face-to-face instructor-led training (ILT) is the “gold standard” and discussions about the difficulty in determining the efficacy of e-learning. Budgets and time pressures of learners, and learner needs for “learning on demand” are interfering with our comfort and familiarity of ILT. Training professionals can choose to embrace the digital revolution and the learner-centered movement, or resist it. Of course, resistance is not likely to stop the revolution, and as a result, training professionals risk becoming non-relevant.
Control is good when you are driving your car or driving a golf ball down the fairway. Control can be problematic when you attempt to exert control over human beings. Just having people show up for a course does not equate to learning, and if learning does occur it will take more than great course content and an engaging instructor for that learning to “stick.” Learning occurs in the learner’s brain and ultimately, the learner controls her/his learning.
So how can you create a culture of learning, where people eagerly engage and share what they have learned? It starts with a mindset change from unilateral control to a mutual learning, or action learning, mindset. In other words, it requires a change from “telling” people about our great content, to asking questions and encouraging everyone within the organization to join the inquiry process. It requires knowledge creation, storage and open sharing, with accessibility 24/7 and an end to protected corporate silos.
Change management performance statistics consistently estimate 70 percent failure rates. Indeed, Kathy Gersch of Kotter International recently reported Forbes article that, “only 5 percent of change efforts achieve all of their stated objectives.” That dismal statistic provides excellent motivation to dig deeper into why change efforts fail to meet performance objectives. Resistance to change occurs along a continuum from lackluster engagement to partial obstruction to full-scale revolt. In an article published by the Harvard Business Review, Rosabeth Moss Kanter argued, “Smart leaders leave room for those affected by change to make choices. They invite others into the planning, giving them ownership.”
Action learning (also known as mutual learning or action inquiry) is one tool providing a level of control and autonomy to front-line workers. Action learning by its nature is active, experiential learning. It is a bottom-up approach to learning in that learners drive the process. In action learning, workers most affected by a problem, issue or concern form an action/inquiry group to research the situation, generate possible solutions and take action. The team has ownership of the process and the outcomes. Action learning has no set curriculum, although the inquiry process follows guidelines and is usually facilitated by an action learning coach.
Action learning participants work on an actual problem for which there are no readily available solutions. Participants of the action learning team discuss the problem, ask questions and practice critical reflection—that is, they scrutinize assumptions and examine the problem from multiple perspectives. The learning coach facilitator keeps the team focused on the problem, probes for organizational assumptions, raises questions, re-frames the problem as necessary, manages constructive conflicts and helps the team identify next steps.
Action learning teams become communities of practice as they document discoveries, decisions, actions, outcomes and processes for continuous improvement. The team may uncover training needs such as research, project management or conflict resolution skills, or may discover a need for content to be accessible on a learning management system (LMS). The L&D group may provide action learning coaches for the team, and/or deliver specific skills training. Will learner-led training and development bring about the “learning organizations” and “learning cultures” theorized and debated for decades? As L&D expands its role in consulting, coaching, mentorship, and collaborative learning, it’s exciting to think of the possibilities.
