Ten take-aways from this session:
- Try ‘lightning talks’
- Learn from failures and mistakes
- Create an impact map
- Be open to external and internal perspectives
- Know the difference between training and learning
- Consider cost effectiveness and value for money
- Develop self-directed learning
- Evaluate before, during and after learning
- Be aware that one size doesn’t fit all
- Write and conduct an audit on values
***The following transcript has been automatically generated and is presented here unchecked***
LinkedIn Live How to develop a learning culture in your orga…
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
learning, people, training, organization, culture, business, company, productivity, bit, development, listening, develop, agree, trainer, resource, important, terms, measure, teacher, learning styles
And there it says live. Welcome everybody from wherever you’re listening around the world. I’m Nadine Powrie, Executive and leadership coach, mediator and leadership trainer.
Hi, I’m Jenny Lynn. I’m a developer of leaders, and a facilitator.
There, I’m John Danes. I’m supporting leaders in the charity and education sector mostly.
My name is Nick sheriff. I’m a school inspector, education consultant.
I love this introduction today, we did very well actually.
We get to be
less we are we are. Okay. So today, we decided to focus on learning culture. And we posed the question, which was how to develop a learning culture in your organization. And when we were preparing for today, not that we are
writing any script at all. But when we were doing our research, we thought that it would be good to start with the definition of learning. So what is learning? Given that we are both for ex head teachers, we so we both have a background from education. So what is learning?
And then just
I’m just reminding you, we are live. Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. I, I’m reluctant to jump in with a definition at the beginning.
But because I think it’s such a the question, what is learning is so vast and so deep that I think that I suppose we could all come up with a definition now that we relate to and then perhaps have another one at the end? But I would, I would hesitate myself to come forward with a definition at this stage.
Okay, so So anybody else? Because I will want to say something, it might not be an accurate definition. But I think we need we need to start somewhere.
We don’t have to quote anybody can be our own definition.
Yeah, I mean, I can have, I can have a stab. Again, this is completely unprepared. But but in the most general terms, and this is based on really going right back to when I was a teacher, and I had people coming into my classroom. And if I didn’t take them from where they were to somewhere else. I don’t mean physically, I mean, in within their understanding or development of skill or whatever, then I felt that I had failed, and they weren’t learning anything. So I suppose it is about taking people from where they currently are in their understanding in their knowledge in their skill in their attitude, all of that and more to somewhere else, the next step on the ladder or the next steps on the ladder. Yeah, I broadly agree with that. I think education tends to talk about the acquisition of knowledge, skills and understanding, you know, but in a business context, that’s probably not enough. Most of the things that I’ve come across talk about the application of those things to a change in outcome productivity. At that point, you could use the term learning we may be use it differently, I would have thought in education, possibly. Yeah, I mean, I would agree with you that it’s about acquiring new knowledge and skills, and behavior and attitude and perhaps values as well. And perhaps preferences as well. But for me, as soon as we apply that, it means that the knowledge, it means that the learning is already in our brain, if we apply something the learning is there. So for me, it’s the the application is the second step.
The first step is we are processing
to understand and to acquire.
Yeah, it was just Is it is it more than drawing out.
Again, that’s one of the early things that that people who train as teachers get, get sort of not hammered into them, but they come to realize that the word educate me comes from a root means which means to draw out. Yeah. So. So the implication of that is that that’s already like you said the Dean within you. And your, your, as a teacher or during as you’re being educated. You’re having something drawn out of you.
Yeah, I think I think it is. But I looked at something this week that talked about all of the learning, which is under the umbrella of training
in the same business, you get trained and you learn things during your training. The interesting stat is that only about 20% of the people trained, actually produce a return on investment. So it sounds to say that 80% is left, you know, untapped resource. But the return of the of the 20% is often, you know, far outweighs the training. So you get bang for your buck, but harnessing what I think they people refer to as mission critical training. You know, when I was thinking when I was in the army, I wouldn’t have been able to accept a 20% return, it’s either everyone gets it or it’s not working. So I think it’s it’s on a scale is the idea that
there’s, there’s things monetization, and dollarization, that you can measure learning, your productivity goes up, but also behavioral change. And that is quite difficult to sort of measure, you can imagine speaking to the CEO and justifying what you’re doing, and saying, Yeah, but I’ve improved the behaviors of people.
Learning is learning and productivity, aligned, I wonder about that, because to me, learning isn’t about producing something necessarily at the end, but the learning can be learning for its own sake. So what we’ve talked about knowledge, skills and understanding an application and I totally agree with what Nadine saying that unless you can apply, it can’t really say that you’ve learned it. But I think there are different ways. There are, obviously many, many different ways of learning, but there are as a process, but there are also different ways of learning as a cognitive function. And I think that unless you, I think productivity is a very narrow definition of what learning is. So for instance, let’s think about what we were doing today, that all four of us have, have made some attempt in different ways to learn the way that we learn best, so that we can share, you know, the expertise that we’ve had in the past plus something more up to date, but that’s not linked in any way to productivity. And I think that there’s, there’s learning a skill to do a job. And there’s learning something to actually understand the concept deeper, if that makes sense. It does. But for organizations who are spending, I mean, I was reading that businesses in the UK are spending over 44 billion in training. So any businesses is going to look at return on investment is going to look at their priorities for for training. And productivity is the third
priority for for training. So organizations, they actually link learning to productivity, and I think, you know, there’s a link learning to gross, gross targets, they also link it to, could be customer experience. So you know, whatever. But for organization, it’s really important that you ultimately, it is about growth, it is about productivity, it is about you know, perhaps job satisfaction, motivation to retain people, particularly right now.
I think it depends perhaps, on the industry that we are, we are in as well.
Because, I mean, as an ex teacher, I would always look at productivity for me to make, it’s making sense. But I also know that was of people may or may not may not do that, they may have different
pointers that they want to look at, as an executive coach, I look at the I look at what my clients have learned in terms of
going through, you know, a number of coaching sessions with me, and I’m very, very detailed about looking at their very specific learning.
Like, for example, we are detailing, we’re going into the behavior, you know, it’s like going, you’ve got a nice bag, and everything that you can see, we actually put it under the microscope to look at it and say so, so what, you know, you’ve done all of that you’ve done coaching, let’s say, Great, you’ve had, you know, 10 hours of coaching, so, so what have you learned, and this morning when I was reflecting with a client of mine, because it was his last session, and we reflected on the what he’d learned for himself, actually and about himself that had a massive impact on his teams, and on the org on the organization in in France, but also, you know, across the world because it’s a huge organization. So for me, it’s kind of a domino effect.
doing that that’s the gold standard.
Because if you’re going to be enabling somebody to learn to coach them is kind of at the top end of the processes that you could use. But within industry, I’m certainly looking back to when I was a teacher, CPD or training was wasn’t about, it was about learning how to do.
It wasn’t necessarily about using the process whereby we learn, it was using, you know, okay, there’s 20 people out there, and I’m gonna give them a training course on how to put together this, this piece of machinery and they, they learn, to me that’s limited, because what you’re doing is something much, much deeper, and is aimed very much at the, the individual’s personal needs. Whereas training is much more something aimed at for the organization’s needs, you know, we need 20 people to go through this threshold, or whatever it is. So I think I would pull training and learning out slightly, I tend to sort of,
I get the ROI productivity, but I think you can’t take out a business otherwise and say, Well, why would we spend money on it? Otherwise wasted resource? But if you park that, I do agree with Jenny, that, you know, there’s this notion of, you know, plays here and Jewish songs and learning isn’t there to use to French words, I got those in. But there has to be a pleasure of learning. What’s that? Granger Jones, quote, money doesn’t motivate and more money doesn’t motivate more? In a sense, you know, if you’re in a great job, do you need to go on training to learn new things? Or can you be engaged in the love of your work and do your own learning training, for me can also feel a bit forced? Yeah, we can make people learn and we can do protests as janitors. But actually, you know, from teaching, some kids, you don’t need to do anything, but just push them in the right direction, they love it, they get it, and other people need a severe structure and system around them to help. So I think at least I put learning on a spectrum, you know, trainings down one end and maybe an internal freedoms than the other. But for me, there is a formal learning. And there is informal learning, which is quite fun as well.
Because informal learning can be the it doesn’t have to be
a training that was meant to happen necessarily, it can be an experience that somebody’s giving you. And as a result of that, you will you will learn something, but it was it’s almost by, by accident, or it’s not being planned as such.
I was discussing actually with, with a client of mine, and she said that, you know, company, they do what they call a virtual escape room. I had no idea what that was, right. And I think some people who are listening to us might know what it is. So it’s, it’s, it’s a way to learn, but it’s very informal. And it’s when teams come together, and they solve problems.
Yeah, they solve problem on line, and they come together. And this is about encouraging, collaboration, teamwork team building.
There is no ROI with that, as such, right there, they just have access to that, to learn something informally. And because there is no ROI, or it’s not part of Performance Management, or you know, people are probably a bit more relaxed about it, actually, people are having fun. And now learning differently. We don’t, you know, sometime people think that learning is a very serious process. And as you said, it can be pleasure, it can be informal, doesn’t have to be inside as well. I came across two other things as well. The why what why bother to have learning? Surely you just go and do your job and you go home, don’t you? But I find that unless people grow in their work, then you end up with quite high staff churn, they become bored, they stagnate, they are unable to grow as as a person and then this notion of like a work flow bottleneck you’ve now got a collection of people can only do one thing and if you wanted to do something else, well they can’t do it now. I agree with Jeff Jenni about the training it it’s almost in a modern company. Yes, I can see mission critical training. But also I think you need to give the staff the freedom to to let go with it to to explore the bits they think are important because if you if you don’t do that, you do tend to wonder whether
Innovation comes from, it doesn’t come out of a training manual, I would say.
I think this is this is where my favorite model comes in. I mean, I think Richard Boyatzis has done a lot of work around adult learning and about self directed learning. And his model of self directed learning,
in that adults will make that learning journey providing they can see what’s in it for them. So they look at where they are now. And they look at where they want to be. And then they build the steps in to achieve that. And I think that self directed learning is how I suspect we for given what we do, I suspect that we learn that way. Because we have decided that that’s a gap we want to do. And so we fill it. And I think that that’s what, to me makes effective learning because you’re doing it because you want to because your motivation is there. Whereas training is more sort of organizational focused. And I think Nicola Morris has just come in Hi, Nicola, welcome back, is saying the word training gives the impression it’s done to you. I absolutely agree with that. ULINK professional learning, and that’s linking into what I’m saying about this and about that, that you taking control. And I think that certainly when I was ahead, all my staff, whoever they were, assistants, caretaker teachers, everybody had their own personal development plan. And within that personal development plan, they had set their own targets, which then had to be linked to the objectives in the school development plan. And that’s quite commonplace now, but it wasn’t so commonplace, then. So it’s got the training element, because it’s got the organizational values there, and the organizational objectives, but within that, it’s where does each person fit in? But I think even
even the old existing l&d departments, it feels like it’s done to you. You know, we the term is culture. What does what does that mean? And I think there does need to be structure to help create culture, otherwise, it really is in the ether. And I’m sure when you’re really a mature organization, you maybe can get rid of the structure. But I picked up two things this week that I like, one company’s got this thing called blameless retrospectives in post mortems.
Well,
what was interesting about it is they talk about acceptable failure, and innovations in the failure and what you learn from failure. But the takeaway, which I liked was, you’ve got to have more of those meetings, then because you can’t allow the distance from those meetings to be too great. And then expect people to come back and say, Well, I failed, you almost need to sort of allow them to push the edges. Because I suppose learning or growth is much like a muscle, isn’t it? If you, if you push it to the extremes and the edges, then then you’ll grow. But you need people to feel that they’re in the environment where they can do that. Without getting the sack.
Yes, it can be uncomfortable. The word failing, but if you actually flip it and call it learning, you know, you’re less likely to make that same mistake on you. Yeah, and I think there was another great term, they had this thing called lightning talks. I love this, by the way. And it’s if during the course of your work, you find something just surprise in a different way of doing it. I don’t know, a little shortcut in Excel. This company encourages people on a weekly basis to then book five or 10 minutes, no PowerPoint, at the end of the week, pop in, tell the rest of your team or the or the department what it is you found. So there’s constant sharing of new ideas and new learnings that they found. And I quite liked that, that it’s not really formal, you can, you know, it could be with a cup of coffee in your hand. I mean, it could be with PowerPoint, if it’s technical, but just maybe the the better dialogue and communication between people about what they’re learning, and they went to great pains to talk about. It has to be cross department and cross seniority, that if this can’t be the senior staff doing something to the junior staff, it must really be a fair exchange.
Well, that’s because they’re capitalizing on those learning moments to generate maximum benefit for the company, isn’t it? Because what that’s doing is, if you’re one of the leaders, if you’re at the top, you’re you’re modeling, learning, and it’s providing an opportunity for people in both directions to
develop relationships within the company, which has got to be good, isn’t it? Yeah. Can I Can I mention can
I, one of the things that we’ve said is, is why someone threw out a question. I think it was, Nick, why spend money on learning as a company? I think this came out of the 8020 thing that 80 80% of
training or, or development seems to be wasted? Well, so why spend money on learning? Well?
So this is this comes directly into the culture, because if you don’t
spend that money, you know, you, you may as you might as well pack up, because you are you you’re just removing yourself from, from that cultural position. So don’t
just and money is only a resource, and it could be anywhere. Just just dissolving a resource in a business context is not remaining. We want some outcome from the Yeah, well, using a resource maybe. Okay, well, I’ve got a couple of things that the link without one is that I think there’s the link, we’re in the business environment may be a little little tenuous, but I, but I think it’s a sad day when all learning needs to be linked to a specific goal.
You know, otherwise, is there any reason for anybody to learn about music or art, or literature, every everything would be focused on something a bit more, and those things give us the richness of our lives. Now, I’m sure there’s an equivalent in in, in a in a business scenario. And in fact, I reckon you could make an argument for enriching your workforce,
allowing them that I’m not I’m not, I’m not trying to develop an argument that there should be artful lessons on business time at all. But but but
I think there’s an another aspect to this, which is really about culture, which is about if you if you transmit an obligation to learn, I don’t think that’s as profitable
as if you make learning.
Optional.
Do you see what I’m saying? If if something if you’re doing something, because the law requires you to do it, that that isn’t as that doesn’t produce the results? I thought you said, anywhere near as well as if you give free if you allow freedom for people to make positive choice, you create a culture and an environment within which people will automatically decide they want to you you kind of already giving them permission. But you’re not, you’re not dictating that they have to do that. Do you see there’s a real sort of subtlety there. And I think, therefore, the the 8020 thing that may have come out of a scattergun approach, you know, we’re going to your work, you’re going to be trained well, quite clearly, you know, a lot of people are going to, it isn’t going to, it isn’t going to, it’s not going to resonate with them.
That’s where this comes in with this self directed learning, you know, because if, as you know, as a sophisticated human being, if we can see what’s in it for us, we’re much more likely to buy into it. So if, if the organizational aims have filtered down to my specific aims, then I will be doing that to achieve what I feel is right for me within that organizational structure, which is why it’s so important to get that organizational cultural structure in tune so that everybody’s working towards the same now.
Yeah, I think I think it’s really important as well to do to do an audit skills gaps within the organization to know exactly where people are in relation to the business, to the strategies and the plans for the future. I think this is really critical. And I think there is one thing that we didn’t explore, which is the difference because we talk we talk a lot about training since 24 minutes, but there is a difference between training and upskilling.
There is a difference.
Yeah, when you have upskilling people, it’s because they’re role evolving. When you are training people, it can be because actually their role are changing fundamentally.
And recently, some people have had to, you know, retrain because their jobs have disappeared. And some people have had to upscale, in fact, millions of people around the planet have had to upskill you know, in timelines
to understand how to run virtual meetings, how to do breakout rooms, you know, all of that. Enough.
ek we’ve all been upscaled very quickly, you know, over the past six months.
So for me, there is a little bit of a difference between the, the two terms there. And the importance of the audit skills gap. No matter, you know, what’s happening, you need, you need to know, we said last week when we were talking, we, you know, an organization needs to know its people well.
And I will always come back to that. So we need to know the skills of our people their behavior as well, because that will be a consequence of their skill.
Over would just say, I read something this week. That said, You’ve got to ensure that staff training has a learning focus. And I think that is key. Because training in itself does not mean that people are going to learn something, it just means they go somewhere, there’s something structured at the end is probably some sort of assessment. Now, what that might mean is you can pass the test. But how does passing the test equate to you doing your job differently, which they often talk about is the return on investment or, you know, an increase in productivity. The other thing I’d say is,
the days of going to university and studying a course for education sake, are getting further and further away. If you look at the way universities describe themselves as courses now, there is now a link to how many people go and get a job afterwards. Well, that was never really the role of university. So I think, unless we grab learning back off terms like training, and productivity, we are in danger of losing what it is. And just like us, as teachers, we talked about teaching to the test, rather than going through the entire syllabus, we could end up with quite a narrow old version of learning.
Just to throw it just to throw a question in what about the way people learn? How important is it to understand the way people learn?
It’s paramount in a in a learning context, isn’t it because that means you get efficiency of learning. That’s what you’re after you’re after the maximum bang for the buck for the individual the best possible chance they’ve got. And you can come up with a number of initiatives to make that information activity really tuned to the individual. Again, you know, that’s great in schools, great in universities, that’s looks more complicated when you put it in a business context and say, right, you know, the learning and development department are going to do that for every individual staff member, I think, is it necessary to do it for every individual? Or is it is it worth looking at, at sort of different styles, or the way people learn? You know, I mean, if, if you’re, if you’re doing a lecture, for instance, and you’re standing at the front, and you’re giving 30 people a visual cue, and you’re telling them and they need to write things down, that will only actually resonate for a certain number of people. Because they may be dyslexic, they may prefer, you know, they may be a very active learner, and actually sitting in a lecture and listening to somebody droning on is not getting them going. So I think that if you’re actually if you want the best bang for your buck, and you want to hit the maximum amount of
proper
connected learning, then you have to be aware that one size doesn’t fit all and
need to have one, you know, one on one is great. That’s the gold standard that’s going back to Nadine, and coaching. But even within a group of people. I mean, I deliver NVQ Arsalan ml and within a group of middle or senior leaders in education, you can see that certain people are much more comfortable in perhaps working together in a group and contributing to the group. And then one person will always be more keen back than others. And I think that it’s about get, to me, it’s about giving the different
ways people like to learn at an opportunity within a learning environment, which is kind of what you’re saying, Nick. But it’s not necessarily one on one. But it’s actually having the variety of experiences so that not everybody is having to listen and process. I think what you’re you’re taught, you’re right, you’re 100% right. But you know, the people in the Learning and Development Department haven’t all got their PGCE or their four year beard. They’ve got some
indication and if they’re in a learning, if they’re in a learning department, sorry, I’m pushing this one. If they’re in it
They call themselves learning and development and they need to understand what learning is about what’s not about. It’s not about training. That would be that would be my, what I’m saying is you’re correct that what I’m showing is the odd juxtaposition of the same thing. Some people to in order to get learn into this four year period PGC, and everything you’ve sent. But when we get to business, we don’t do that. But the learning bits, the same, the human processes information exactly the same way. It’s not done like that. And maybe modern ideas of having a learning culture in business, are trying to lean it towards what you’re saying. So it isn’t about a training course. What’s that? That guy who I looked at this week,
Brinckerhoff saying, Look, if you’re just talking about the learning events, and a number of learning events, then that’s not a learning culture. It always has to happen when you’re not there. And you’re not forcing it to happen, then you’ve got a learning culture.
I’m not I mean, I understand that there are learning styles, I actually work with a great lady called Barbara crasnick. She’s in New Zealand, I met her. And that was when I was at Covington, High School, which is now coming to learning village. And she did a she wrote a book on learning styles. And in a way with learning styles, we’re all in a box, right? And we have to fit in that box. And we have to behave according to, to that style.
And I’ve learned over the years that
I’ve questioned that, actually, because I think that if we do too many activities for a specific learning style, then we’re almost creating a deficiency of the other learning styles. So for me, I think it’s important to try to always develop all the learning styles that are there. And I think it’s important as Jenny was saying, to always get the choice of people. And I think we fall when we’ve delivered training and we’ve delivered training together, we give people a choice so that they end up well, choosing what they prefer what they are best at. And, you know, we can challenge them a little bit to make sure that the gap between devils dollar in style isn’t too too huge. And I think it’s a it’s actually a strength as
as as as a trainer to ensure that for people to learn that there are different styles in the room. And that you have to give people a choice of variety of activities. And yes, a choice and different kinds of support, because not everybody has the same DNA. Your choice as a process flows through it, doesn’t it? Because I I actually don’t agree about it being in a box, I don’t think you are in a box. I think you have a certain way of doing things that is perhaps preferred, and maybe therefore a strength. But I think that, you know, if you look at David Kolb’s work in terms of going through the experiential learning, then you’re talking about, if I design learning, I design a learning process with all four aspects so that people are there right now, because we’ve doubled it so that people experience
all the learning style, but they may, for instance, they may be much more active learner, and they do it in a different way. But it’s about giving people not only the choice, but the opportunity.
And I, I think I think it’s not I know that what my preferred learning style is, but I didn’t find that out till after I became after I left my headship. And it can change any as well. It can change with watch with experience, it can, but it also changes I think, with motivation. Because I think that if you’re really motivated, you are more likely and that goes back to go out says you are more likely to be comfortable with a style, it’s perhaps not your preferred learning style. Because you want to you want to learn, I would just to sort of give you a start point. If companies are going to offer training learning as a staff benefit, then they’re going to have to do that individual bit. But of course, companies do that because they want business performance. So some training accelerate strategy. That’s the only reason they’re doing it. It’s because they can get there quicker, more efficiently, using less resource and maximize profits for shareholders. But I think if you if you don’t practice reading, let’s say
and you then get a piece of text in a subject area that you’re so passionate about. Maybe you still haven’t got the skills to be able to read and engage
is with that really lovely texture? Like, if if you don’t practice it,
you know, and can companies be expected to give you everything like you would give a child in the classroom, and that extra support. And if you’re not at the standard, there’s this other support mechanism that comes in for you to try and move you along. I mean, at some point, I do appreciate that the business performance returns mean, the company has to support you to get you there, they will probably say, that’s about recruitment. But equally, if I’m saying it’s a staff benefit, then maybe you need to step forward as the staff member a little bit and meet me halfway as a business. But it’s also the job of learning and development team, to outsource the greatest people to make sure that they deliver the greatest training,
or the greatest learning of their,
of their employees. And I think that’s, that’s the skills because there are many, many trainers around the world. And we’re all doing things differently.
I know, trainer, sorry, I never I know all the times when we introduce ourselves, and we have all these words to describe ourselves. One thing I will never call myself as a trainer, because I don’t train people to do a job. I develop or I upskill or I
you know, and I think a trainer going back to Nicholas point, is it something that’s done to you? And I would hope that every time I do any kind of learning Viet, a workshop, or even a lecture, I would hope that it brings people with their comfort. So maybe, I mean, the the time this hit me most was I had a client who was dyslexic. And I was I was constantly giving him diagrams and, and articles and things to read, because he was trying to develop his sort of self awareness and personal development. So I spent a long time giving him these things. Oh, yes, I’ll look at that later. And as time went on, we began to realize that he would, he would, he was very bright, but would listen to podcasts. And he started now this is about three, three years ago, he started developing his learning styles for listening to podcasts. And he soaked it up like a sponge. This is a school, somebody who wasn’t successful at school, but it’s super bright, found how he learned was self directed, because he knew he wanted to learn. And the irony is, it’s flipped now, because he sends me links to podcasts that he thinks will be interesting. Well, I don’t, I’m not obviously not a good auditory listener, because I don’t listen to his podcasts. But I come along with something else and another diagram and give it to him. So I think it’s very clear that he was expected to learn in a certain way for a long time, and never actually felt he was able or bright at all. And I think sadly, that’s what happens in organizations, as well as in schools, if they don’t fit in with what learning and development think is training, then perhaps they’re not being able to express themselves. And I think that’s why it’s so important to be aware of how different people are learning. I think that you’re right, you’re highlighting a narrowness. Now in in a business context, the narrowness is there because we have a strategy. And we don’t want to waste resources on things that go outside the strategy, or they may be great for you as an individual for development. There are some bits outside the strategy that that mean it and I don’t agree with it, but it means it gets paid back. I mean, it’s only so much resource. Whereas I would argue, in a, in a school context, that happens in a more limited way in a subject. But I think when you’re in the school, you then get access to all the other subjects on the syllabus, and it may be as less visible, it’s just work seems a bit narrow at times, and therefore doesn’t look as rich as maybe the learning we see in schools. What about diversity? You know, it worries me that what what what you’re talking about is productivity, and that we you know, that that organizations can’t make time for people? Well, you know, if you if you don’t, if you’re not inclusive, as an employer, and you’re not making allowances for maybe dyslexic, who may be autistic, they may have a huge contribution to make. But there are adaptations that need to be made to enable that. And I think that if you’re social, if you’re totally out focused, then you’re disenfranchising a huge part of the workforce. I’m sure you’ll agree, John. But this is why we this is why we’re going back we’re going back to knowing your people journey on Twitter, every LinkedIn life, you know, know your people. Yeah, I think I would say that
Absolutely, the company should explore the staff members they’ve got, you know, at any activity, any learning that happens within that organization
must ultimately be for the benefit of the business, even if that includes and is simultaneously for the benefit of the individual. But I think what we’re you are, we’re really in danger of, of being a panacea in this area. You know, I agree with you that work has to support individuals needs in moving forward. And, and why wouldn’t you invest in that, because the return, it’s certainly in terms of innovation, could be, you know, indescribable, but sadly, it has a monetary aspect to it. That may be even, it doesn’t education, because, you know, we don’t teach them everything, they don’t get all the resources, you know, there’s a limitation on everything, somewhere, I just think company wide say to people is, if you can get your hands around the learning bit, and you know, our return on investment happens, you can create a very good business case to somebody use productivity orientated, for a behavioral set of activity and learning, because you can prove it’s going to improve the business.
And that would be a good thing, I think.
To say something what Well, yeah, I, I’ve been very much enjoying
hearing the conversation. No, no, it’s been quite
where my mind has been going? Well, two things really well, one is the cost, the contract for schools and colleges, is completely different from, you know, the learning contract their raison d’etre is to is to help people learn, whereas business, you know, they don’t have the same contract.
You know, their raison d’etre isn’t to educate their employees, that that’s something that they may or may not realize that they need to do, in order to keep ahead of the game, or keep in the game. And that takes us absolutely into the cultural, you know, developing a learning culture and, and it’s a spectrum isn’t it, and I suppose words, like, train, and
then when other when actually are completely different from identify, nurture, develop, that there are
identifying, nurturing, developing is, those those things if those are going on, those are signs of a well developed culture, learning culture. If you’re if you’re seeking to train and deliver, maybe that’s another word I was looking for. It suggests that you perhaps as an organization, you are
not quite as far along the spectrum of having a healthy learning culture as you might otherwise will be.
If you haven’t got a healthy learning culture, or if you don’t see that your workforce needs that development, then you’re gonna miss, you know, how can you stay in the game, because the world and the marketplace and everything is moving so quickly, that if you don’t see how important it is to have a learning culture, then you know, you’re going to be you’re going to be where you are not going to move forward? Yeah, I agree with your journey. However, going back to what John, you were saying about the school, you know, schools have very limited budget. So,
you know, it’s got to be careful on how you’re going to be spending the money.
And organizations, although have limited budgets, one of the first budget to be frozen, sometime is learning and development is training, you know.
So it’s also about value for money, cost effectiveness, all of those kind of measures that we need to look at before we develop
a learning culture as well, because the welding learning culture is very grand, and small companies like SMEs, they can they can have a learning culture, you don’t have to be a big company to have a learning culture differences that they have much less money, they have access to grants, you know,
but it just depends how it depends about the politics of that as well. Yeah, you see, I think it’s more about attitude than about resource. I really do.
I think it was more
If you’ve got an organization that doesn’t encourage
creativity from its employees, doesn’t encourage people to seek external perspectives, within within their, whatever, whatever their industry might be, then that that’s, that’s
a risk, I think. And it particularly becomes a pertinent risk at times when, at times like this when when thing things are getting dodgy things are getting getting a bit a bit more competitive. There’s, there’s some threats.
If you’ve got, if you’ve got people who can, who feel that they can take a risk of making a suggestion for something they’ve seen outside the business.
If the only people doing that are the people who are at the top, then then you’re missing, you’re missing a huge slice. And that and there’s, there’s very little cost with that. Those are attitudinal things that have communicated through an organization, which I suppose is the Will the real culture, I would say, nothing will kill that thinking more than when people don’t do anything about it. You constantly go to your manager, legalese, and then nothing happens.
I Jenny makes a really good point, I think, and that is back to what we keep saying, the pace of modern working life and how you were an expert last year. And now Now you’re back to the drawing board. So learning to keep pace with changes there. But also personal development and growth, creating engagement. So you’re wanting to be a happier person at work if if you’re allowed to engage if you’re just talk to me in training. But that’s not the solution, it will get you a return on investment. But I think my point is, it only gets you the 20% Yeah, there’s this other 80% If you can get this engagement with the workforce and do the things, Jenny’s going to maybe mean that you don’t have to do so much of the training anymore, because the workforce feel that they’re allowed to learn that their ideas are wanted, and they’ll do a lot more. And that other idea that skill development, back to ROI skills development gives you efficiency and effectiveness. So you can talk the language, if you like of the return on investment, money, people and still get the behaviors. One last thing that a quote, and that is a robust behavior. We’ll see you through bad times more technical training, sort of component.
Yeah, I think Nick, it depends in which company you’re working for. Because some companies actually you do need you do need that? The technical side of it. So just Yes, Jenny? Yeah. Can I just bring in somebody who’s put a post saying Alan Toffler has rightly said, and quote, the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write. But those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn, which I think is a very pertinent point. So thank you for sending that in. I am intrigued, who is who is this LinkedIn, use LinkedIn. And we get this, don’t we? Sometimes we do. You can identify yourself. That’d be really nice. We have.
We have about 12 minutes left, and we need to do our take home messages from some already. We’ve got some we’ve got lightning talks. I really liked that.
The acceptable failure. That’s neat contribution today. That’s great. Thanks a lot, Nick.
Okay, so we’ve got those tools, any, any anything that we want to put on our messages for people to? Yes.
There’s something called an impact map. The idea if you’ve been somewhere and learn something, you and your line manager should create an action plan about what how do we map out the impact of this new thing I’ve learned? How does the manager support me in this new thing? And what are my new goals now, having learned this new thing, so it doesn’t just sit in the ether? You don’t I mean, you feel good, you’ve learned something, but it’s not really having any benefit between you and the company. It can go into a live document because the the impact, you don’t have to know it straight away. It can be something that you measure as you go. It’s almost like a diary. Kind of. Yeah. You’ve got to be looking for it.
Well, you’ve got you’ve got to, you’ve got to know what impact means.
Yeah, yeah. Thanks.
John. Yeah, can I offer an openness to both external and internal perspectives?
Yeah. For for a healthy culture.
I would say that training and learning are not necessarily the same thing.
So be what, what? So be clear, you’re seeking clarity, their
organizational clarity on whether you’re offering training and or learning. Is that where you’re going with that? No, I’m just saying that just because you train somebody doesn’t mean they learn anything.
Yeah, the evidence suggests they don’t. That’s exactly the point. I think it’s linked to the processes that we’ve talked about, I think it’s linked to the fact that if training isn’t within the sort of the cultural direction that the organization is going into limited, if the people haven’t bought into that process and made that part of their own development, then that’s a missing link in the process.
raishin sorry.
No, no, no, I thought you had finished sorry. Oh, so if the evaluation of the impact isn’t in it, then that, you know, so there are certain sort of kick boxes almost that you need to go through in terms of direction content? And how you’re measuring that? Yeah.
Spend money on training, and you’re not looking at how how’s it gone? So if I’m spending 100,000 on training, and only 20% of its effective, then, you know, how do I know it’s not effective? And what am I going to do about it? Don’t measure the training?
The organization uses the training to impact upon what they do. That’s what should be, yeah, I have put cost effectiveness and value for money. And it’s not because you’ve got the term learning culture, in your brochures in your company that your company has a learning culture. It’s a little bit like what we discussed a few weeks ago, it’s not because you give books to kids that they can read. Yeah. Yeah, I don’t I don’t agree with with what you said, Jenny. Because I think you actually said that training isn’t the same as learning whether you meant that or not. That’s I think that’s what you said. And I don’t agree because that it is because you can be you can you can learn and develop a skill through through training. I think I think there’s a narrow and I think there’s an implied narrowness there
with training and a broader view with learning maybe, but I’m, I think it’s still you still learning something through food through training? And indeed, through repetition? I mean, it doesn’t sound very sexy, does it repeating but but actually,
it’s, it can be an effective way of learning something, I can learn to pronounce a word in a foreign language by repeating it or well, then we get into the shallow, deep and profound learning. But it’s still learning. It’s still learning. Yes, it is. But it’s shallow learning, and therefore it has it has its limitations, but it may also have its use.
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. We have eight minutes.
We need far more take home message. What about something around the freedom as opposed to the obligation? self directed learning? Yeah.
The within the what’s in it for me? I would say, what happens before and after the training is more important than the training itself? How you set the team up to know what they’re going into? And at the end, what you do with it after a period, while equally important, I don’t think it could be more important than it. Well, why worry about training, he could give training to the could give the same train to do different companies? What the outcomes for the staff be the same? Yeah, probably no, I think there needs to be something else, and kind of ended on things, you’re enhancing the training, aren’t you? You’re creating an environment where the training is more valuable. And that’s the learning culture, I think, good. Yeah, good training. Learning Culture is amazing, great training in an awful learning culture doesn’t go anywhere, it stops after the training. So the issue there is pre and post, then the issue there is don’t underestimate the value of pre and post learning is a one size doesn’t say nothing.
It’s one size doesn’t fit all. So you might carry out a training program or a development program or whatever in one organization and take it to another one. But because the culture is so different, absolutely, it doesn’t necessarily work. So I think it’s about doing it’s about the
quality, it’s about the focus and the quality of the training that agree with your journey. And this is why you know, when Nick says what happens before and after, actually, for me, it’s what what’s happened before, during and after the audit, it’s going back to your audit, isn’t it? And the quality, the quality of that learning as well, you know, whatever they’re called trainer or facilitators or you know, whatever they
Yeah, I would say for the past 40 years, it’s been 8020. And we’ve got really good at training, we get learning more, we’ve got greater technology, and they’re not It’s not impacted on that at 20. Unless you have a learning culture, there was another thing, and that is
a manager can undo in 30 seconds, a year’s worth of training. You know, that idea? Yeah, well, that training a bit is great. But in my department, we do things.
So without, you know, leadership and management coming on board,
you know, and it’d be in an organizational learning culture, I think it could be, could be a rather what, that a lot of wasted money. We didn’t talk about values.
And for me, there is the importance of transparency. So you know, we should all be open about the kind of learners that we have, we are, how we are learning. Difficult, we have some time in learning certain things, and sharing that with people as well. And how is that reflecting the values of the organization? You know, that learning culture? If I look at the values of the organization’s Where do I see in those values, that learning culture is actually at the core of that organization? For me?
constants? How many times do you see on the performance management set of measures is learning? You know, it’d be nice to think that that was measured annually, you know, you as a leader, how are you leading the learning of your of your team? And you as a worker saying things like, well, you know, what have I learned this year, and it’s going to be measured? So I need to make sure I engage like,
yeah, it’s a resort. You as a leader, how are you promoting the learning culture?
Yeah, because I think Julie’s point about it. It doesn’t have to be formal. I think that’s the danger it, people think it’s all about training. And it’s all about stuff done to you. And yes, that’s useful for mission critical things. But it isn’t going to drive you as a person to engage more with your work. That needs to be something more intrinsic, I would say.
The organizations that aren’t learning organizations that don’t accept expect their employees to have any kind of learning, I think, are in danger of losing them. Because so many people, if they would say, you know that their main thing is frustration, because nobody’s listening to me, or I’m not learning anything other than the same place that was four years ago. So a learning organization is about reinvesting and valuing their own workforce, bringing them on and developing them. Whereas if you’re just leaving them, then people are gonna go to organizations that actually value that learning because I think as a human race, we all want to move forward, rather than staying still. I would also say, Don’t be worried about the 20% the 20% of your control group, and that your justification to the board is too wide to do more invest more in it, because it works for these 20 And look what we can do with these 20. So I don’t think you have to be looking for the high 90s and 100 percents when you’re when you’re looking at this.
Okay, okay, well, thank you very much for, for listening to us for you know, from wherever you are in the well, we’ve not decided yet what our next week will be. But I think next week might be our last LinkedIn live before Christmas, because we won’t be doing a LinkedIn live on Christmas on Boxing Day.
Well, we won’t know we won’t. So thank you very much everybody for listening and as always on. On Sunday, I will put a post out to show everybody to take home messages with those 10 bubbles. And we will let you know what we will be talking about next week. But for now, it’s goodbye from London. Thank you, everybody. Bye