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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What are the key skills that determine whether somebody is successful? Communication? Prioritization? Resilience? Ask 10 people and you’re likely to get 10 different responses. But would you get the same type of answers if you asked 10 people, "What is it that you’ve done at your organization specifically that has made you successful?"
These are two very different questions, and they highlight the disparity between what L&D departments work on and what they could—and perhaps should—be working on.
As an L&D professional, I know that working on projects focused on isolated topics aligned to generic skills wasn't what made me successful. I’ve also worked with many professionals to help them perform in roles and achieve promotions, and those kinds of programs weren't what helped them to progress either. So if it’s not an isolated skill set that leads to success, what is it?
Culture Influences Development Needs
I’ve learned that, at any given company, key success factors include recognizing how the business works and then using that intel to get the right things done in the right way. This means that the most important element is understanding the way things get done, or the company culture. Many things impact a company's culture and approach to work, like the industry sector, size, leadership and organizational structure, customer or client expectations, operational values and the processes and technologies that support employees.
For instance, when I worked at Disney, the key culture factors I needed to consider were that it was a matrix-structure organization with a highly political environment. Decisions were made by consensus, and the goal was for solutions to be unique. There were also perceptions that key people were critical to someone's professional success, as well as a general desire to improve but a reluctance to change.
Before I uncovered any of this, I felt like a technically proficient L&D professional who had no clue how to employ my skills in this unfamiliar, idiosyncratic environment. So I undertook courses and learned more about isolated skill sets that seemed beneficial. But they ended up being more like distractions from the critical development required. The learning management system was filled to the brim with generic content, none of which spoke to the challenges I faced.
This, of course, meant it was also harder for my peers and me to build content that wasn't just as generic. We were doing what felt right and achievable by providing generic content—and vast amounts of it. After all, we were a small team with a large client base. How could we possibly provide personalized content for everyone?
Employees Need A Real Map For Applying New Knowledge
Now, I’m not saying there's no place for generic content, but a digital learning strategy based on the provision of off-the-shelf content cannot deliver planned, meaningful and sustained impact. I consider this kind of isolated skills approach to coursework as drawing a map of the ideal employee without ever visiting that land. You place a palm tree here and a cabin there, and a dotted line weaves across the sand with arrows pointing toward buried treasure. But this doesn't account for the actual territory, so it's very difficult to apply on the job with much success.
In a 1985 paper on training principles, educational psychologists Clark and Voogel wrote, “[T]here is considerable evidence that much of what is learned can only be applied to problems that are similar to those experienced in training.” What they were talking about is the concept of near and far transfer of learning. With near transfer, if the contexts of the learning and the applicable situation are similar, people can easily capitalize
This is why the investment and reliance on generic or only slightly contextualized content suites for upskilling has been largely misguided. It doesn’t matter if you procure 10 million individual learning items on the basis that "There must be something for every employee," because there simply can’t be.
So what should you do instead?
Make Smaller Bets On What Matters
I highly advocate that, instead of placing all your chips on large content suites, you should make smaller investments in the cohorts of employees who need your help. It’s actually better to provide true, focused support to one group than attempt to help everyone all at once. So think about situations that are costing your organization today when it comes to productivity or skill sets. If you wanted to understand a particular cohort to help them achieve their goals, who would it be?
Often, you will find that the content problem is not the real problem. It's the performance and capability issues that need addressing. To do this, you must recognize the people in your organization, including where they are and where they need to go. When you do that, you'll be able to give them the map to success that they truly need.
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