The learning interventions spectrum and the “ignored middle”

Most leaders want employees to learn continuously, to keep abreast of new technologies, to bring in the best practices of the industry into the organisation. However, in today’s world, the avenues for this learning are limited in availability as well as suitability.

Blogs, YouTube & Books

There is tons of “content” available to millions of people all over the world, at the lowest cost than ever in the history of humanity. This is the realm of “self-learning”. This is what people use to make their lives better; get a job, get a promotion, change careers, etc.

Using this as a method of organisational learning is a hit-or-miss. Organisations mostly make a budget available to the employees to use at their own discretion. Most of it remains unused. Even when it is used, unlikely to be aligned with organisational priorities. No wonder this is seen as an employee benefit rather than a medium to build better capabilities for the organisation.

Online Learning Platforms & Classroom training

This is the L&D zone where 90% organisational learning interventions live. While it can work at scale, and at relatively low costs to the company, the impact is pretty shallow. L&D departments have spent decades trying to measure impact and justify the ROI for interventions in this space but to no avail.

The reasons for low impact are that:

1. Employees are asked to attend these sessions which means there’s little “desire” to learn
2. The format is typically death by powerpoint
3. The buying decision is typically made based on the number of topics covered

Performance Coaching

If your organisation is really progressive you might be the few lucky people that gets real mentoring / leadership coaching support. This can be extremely effective but this is typically reserved for people who are taking up management / leadership positions in the organisation. So this is focused on personal effectiveness rather than craft skills.

Apprenticeship

This is the realm of true mastery. This is what we all have experienced when we’ve found a great mentor in the organisation and we get to work with them closely for a year or two. This is a truly transformative experience but it takes time and doesn’t truly scale.

Experiential Learning, Contextual Guidance and Team Coaching

This according to me is the ignored middle of the learning spectrum. Learning here is engaging, contextual and experiential.

People truly learn only by making their own mistakes. Experiential learning is nothing but a way to craft learning by creating opportunities for participants to make mistakes and learn from them. Add to that cohort learning and you have a potent solution.

Unfortunately this requires SMEs to be good teachers which is quite a rare combination. So most learning is divided between “trainers delivering content” & “Real practitioners mentoring on the job”.

At Next Iteration, we focus on this ignored middle by crafting learning experiences that ensure deep understanding and behavioural change, eventually resulting in visible uptick in relevant operational metrics in your value stream.