What About Workplace Learning?

It seems you cannot open a training or business magazine these days without being bombarded with advertisements from a plethora of companies offering technology-assisted learning solutions. This usually spurs the perennial debate of classroom versus computer-based learning methods amongst the training community. Although I am encouraged see these conversations centered around the all-important issue of transfer of learning to the workplace, which often includes workplace learning as a vehicle towards leveraging transfer, it still leaves me asking… why is it that the discussion seems to be only classroom OR technology-assisted, what about other options? What about workplace learning as a solution itself?

When asked by Training magazine ("A Confederacy of Apprentices" January 1998) about traditional classroom versus computer-based learning solutions, cyberspace pioneer and visionary John Perry Barlow replied, "I think both of these models are the wrong models", going on to say, "there is no substitute for experience".

This quote leads me to reminisce about one of the most successful learning experiences I have personally had, in terms of sustainable changes in behaviour. About 18 months ago, I was completing my annual competency review. As I was an internal consultant, and regularly provided advice and counsel to senior managers and executive, I wanted to work on the competency, "Impact and Influence". There were both classroom and computer-based courses available to me as learning options, but for this skill, I knew I had to embark on a learning plan that would really change my behaviour and increase my effectiveness. So I sat down with my manager and mentor, and we came up with a learning plan:

1. Identify the barriers to learning and performance.
The first step was to identify behaviours that were holding me back from performing at the level I wanted to (with the help of the rating scales for that competency).

2. Record and analyze current behaviours and identify desired behaviours.
I then embarked on on-the-job learning projects, reflecting on my own behaviour. Every time I had the opportunity to provide advice to a senior person I made notes on my successes and failures. I also observed people who I believed to be effective in this competency, again taking notes on their strengths and the related behaviours.

3. Create opportunities to apply new behaviours and ask an observer to provide feedback.
I had regular coaching sessions with my manager, as I was completing these reflection and observation routines, to discuss what I was learning and how I was incorporating it into my own changed behaviour. When I was ready, I had my manager observe me in a few key situations, when I was advising the executive on strategic issues, and we held debriefing sessions afterward.

4. Review results and compare to original assessment to determine transfer of learning.
Finally, we each re-rated my competency review, compared the results to my latest 360* competency assessment, and found I had in fact learned new behaviours, and implemented them to be more effective in this competency.

The only cost for this intervention was our time investment. The whole learning plan took place over approximately 9 months.

Aside from coaching sessions, mentorship, personal reflection and peer observation, other examples of workplace learning practices include any low or no structure learning experiences that happen in the workplace such as trial and error, job aids, performance checklists, on-line help, learning dialogue, peer coaching, job shadowing, individual and team work assignments, regular meetings as learning opportunities, discussion groups and debriefings to others.

Workplace learning will especially have organizational impact where learnings are shared. Organizations still struggle with finding out where informal learning takes place and how to bolster it. Identifying and fostering informal learning methods seems to be where we are still missing the boat, says OD guru Peter Senge, nine years after the publication of his innovative book, "The Fifth Discipline", in an interview with Training magazine (September 1999 "Why Organizations Still Aren't Learning"). Says Senge, "The biggest challenge (in creating a learning organization) remains the diffusion process: getting ideas and information out on a large scale…the guiding principle is that significant innovations must be diffused through informal, self-organized networks, through horizontal communities of practice".

In designing an integrated learning strategy, leaders must consider workplace learning, both as a tool towards leveraging transfer, and as a learning solution in and of itself. With a motivated learner, a skilled coach, and the right work environment, workplace learning is a highly effective, low-cost solution to closing performance gaps.