David James is CLO at 360Learning, host of The Learning & Development Podcast and former Director of L&D for The Walt Disney Company.
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Your organization’s learning and development (L&D) team has its curriculum—likely with a large suite of content. Many organizations pivoted to virtual training sessions due to the pandemic yet still have skills and capability problems. With all that investment and activity, how can that be?
If it’s any consolation, your organization is in no worse a position than most others. This is because we’re placing so much emphasis on the known training needs that are common across organizations and so little emphasis on the missing aspects of learning specific to only ours.
To be kind to L&D teams, it’s the fault of the system, not the individuals. If we believe that workplace learning should be an educational facility, then it’s natural to assume that it requires educational systems. We typically categorize educational systems by topic—for the purposes of organization, delivery and consumption—because it’s what is generally expected.
But what’s missing?
What is missing when we see L&D as a topic-centric educational function is everything that emanates from the mentality of "How do we do things here?" Think about that for a moment: What is missing is how people work together—with customers, clients, systems and processes. Generic topic-centric content shares general ideas about personal effectiveness in the way that reading a newspaper can provide useful information and insight. But reading a newspaper might not lead directly to performance improvement. It’s interesting and can enrich understanding and conversation but consumption alone doesn't always lead to better performance.
What does lead to improved performance is an understanding of the context in which somebody is trying to perform a task and an understanding of what other successful people do in unfamiliar situations. When people are faced with challenges, situation-specific guidance and support can address friction more effectively, predictably and reliably. Since it affects the way the work is done, it, therefore, impacts the results gained. The difference in intention and execution between the two (generic content and highly contextual guidance and support) is stark.
What is the impact of missing learning?
When the emphasis of learning and development is on "known learning" (as most is), employees are directed to learning content that is remiss of all context. They are not guided and supported to understand the organization, its purpose, its culture, any nuance or the dynamics of how people and teams work together. They are directed to content that represents isolated skill sets (e.g., communication, time management, well-being, etc.) and asked to absorb content, retain almost all of that information and recall it at will when situations require it.
Have you ever read a newspaper cover to cover and then been asked what’s in the news? Did you recall more than two or three articles of interest? Well, we can think the same for other forms of content consumption. Humans are not designed to hoard a lot of information for retrieval at an undetermined time in the future. That’s why relying on your "known learning" to address performance needs and skills gaps is problematic.
What is the opportunity by plugging missing learning?
But hold on. It’s not necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is an opportunity for good quality content that provides ideas and insights—but unless it is addressing specific problems experienced by employees in your organization, then it’s incomplete.
Removing the context from a performance requirement or skills gap is like trying to remove an egg from a cake. It’s practically impossible. This is why a more collaborative approach to learning is necessary to uncover and surface the aspects of learning that are missing. By recognizing and highlighting the blockers to employee onboarding, assimilation, performance and outcomes, we can direct those with the knowledge and know-how to share with those who don’t. Although this doesn’t happen easily without knowing what problems employees are experiencing during periods of transition and adaptation.
Relying on subject-matter experts to freely share what they know is problematic because “here’s what I know” can be a long way from “this is what these employees need." It can leave too much room for interpretation for those in need looking to understand, contextualize and apply. Ideally, the least amount of work for the employee to do is better (i.e., recognize a challenge, benefit from the experience of a peer who had overcome the challenge, and be able to overcome the challenge themselves).
This is so far from the outdated notion of the "self-directed learner," who understood their learning needs and would plan development activities in their working life. This model freed the L&D department from responsibility as it provided learning content and programs but without being able to demonstrate that activities equated to meaningful results.
How do you plug the gap of missing learning?
There is no escaping that the first stage is analysis. If you don’t know the problem, then you can’t source a solution. This is inconvenient for a profession that likes to procure silver bullets that solve all known and unknown needs, but we are where we are due to a lack of analysis.
"Missing learning" will not be highlighted in a traditional learning/training needs analysis. A conversation about learning will spotlight more known learning needs, which will inevitably lead to a bolstering of a curriculum and content suite that leads to no demonstrable results. Instead, conversations must be about performance and results. What are you expected to achieve that you’re not currently achieving effectively or efficiently?
We don’t need a rebrand to do this in L&D. We need to engage in a different conversation about performance. The pivot will come in time when stakeholders and employees experience custom resources that speak to their work, their challenges and their ambitions. L&D leaders need to focus on employees' primary needs: doing their job better and faster while truly improving their prospects.
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