Learning Environments: Making Learning Fast and Furious
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Slow burn development plans that never get delivered are frustrating and are of no use to anyone – they often revolve around an issue that needs to happen now. So, how do you make learning fast and furious?
- Be really clear about what needs to be learnt. Development plans fail when people don’t really understand what they’re supposed to be developing or learning. So take time to help your team members fully understand what you want to see more of or less of from them. The best way I’ve found to do this is to describe what it is that you’re seeing that’s either really good or really problematic, and then explore ways to build on or address that.
- Review learning regularly. There’s a saying that “what gets measured gets done”, but it’s not strictly true. You can measure something, but if you don’t review it – nobody takes any notice of it. In reality it’s “the things your boss checks up on get done!”
With that in mind, check up on people’s learning. A friend was recently telling me how their manager would put people on the spot, asking them to summarise and play back the thing that they’ve just discussed or learned to the rest of the group. Because this often came without warning, people began to pay close attention. You don’t have to spring these questions on people – just make sure they know they will have to talk about what they learned. Your team will be more likely to deliver something if they’re expecting you to ask about it. - Teach others. This is another way to give people an opportunity to consolidate and play back their learning to other people. Whenever you get people to learn something new (for example when they have been on a course or have spent time with an expert), ask them to get the team into a huddle and do a five-minute discussion or include a slot in the next team meeting to give a presentation or discuss it.
- Little and often. Don’t just focus on large learning opportunities. Doing learning “little and often” will help team members absorb new information fast – especially if they immediately get several chances to explain it or apply the knowledge. As they say, “use it or lose it”.
- Get people to learn in a way that they find interesting. Don’t default to offering a training course that’s going to take place in six months. While a course may be interesting, it’s a big chunk of time (and not all of the content may be relevant to their need. It’s also a long way off – and learning is most effective when it takes place now. Instead, consider offering them time to learn from an expert, or suggest a TED talk or YouTube clip they might find interesting to watch – something that can be done as a bite-size chunk and is interesting will often get done quickly. Don’t ask them to eat the whole elephant in one go, sometimes you need to cut it up for them – or teach them how to cut it up for themselves.
- Make it okay to fail. People are put off learning when they feel the price or effect of failure is high. Clearly failure is not without problems, but when they know you’ll be cross or disappointed if they fail, or they’ll lose face in front of others, they’ll play it safe or maybe not even start at all. So allow people the scope to fail, but try and protect them from it. Don’t just wait for an outcome, monitor the tasks that your team are doing – particularly those things that are new – so you can pick up on issues early enough to make necessary course corrections. Usually this will help them avoid big mistakes. Also take the time to help create positive learning experiences if they do fail, or fall short of the ideal.
- Make learning a part of people’s daily activities. Get people to keep a log or journal of their successes or mistakes and at every one-to-one ask them to come prepared with some reflections on both. This highlights to you some of their successes whilst also helping to reduce the number of mistakes. And the simple process of capturing and reflecting on what they’ve done gives them the opportunity to replicate the good and avoid the bad next time around.
Rely less on big “set piece” learning events, and integrate “speedy learning” into your own and your team’s way of working.