8 steps towards becoming an Exceptional Learning Organisation
The LPI (Learning and Performance Institute)
The global body for workplace learning professionals and organisations. We are making learning work.
In early 2020, we asked people to complete an online survey with just one question: “What traits, technologies, capabilities and cultures make a company a great place to learn?”
The research could not have been more timely. Within a few short months, COVID lockdown arrived, triggering the beginnings of the ‘Great Resignation’. Huge swathes of the working population would soon be re-evaluating their career paths and work-life balances. And, for many, personal development and learning (or the lack of it) was the catalyst for change.
Today, it is insufficient for companies to offer generic training or off-the-shelf e-learning to employees. If learning is treated as an afterthought or, worse, seen as a trivial distraction, employees will quickly become disenfranchised. And what of those that do offer reasonable professional development? Is this enough?
We are living in exceptional times and, as such, we need exceptional learning organisations.
Standing apart from the ordinary, these companies truly understand how learning is fundamental to employee performance. They build communities in which people and technology can collaborate freely and purposefully. They use learning as a shield to protect their revenues against uncertainty, challenge, and change - and to guarantee its future success.
For many L&D functions, helping their companies become exceptional at learning is a monumental task. It requires them to look outside themselves - not just at the wider business but also at external, global forces that disrupt and astound in equal measure.
But every journey starts with the first step. Let’s look at eight things you can do right now that will bring you closer to becoming an Exceptional Learning Organisation.
“What makes an exceptional learning organisation? One that is not merely bureaucracy, but that encounters a variety of challenges on a regular basis. One with leaders who challenge team members, set stretch assignments, and properly support people to complete them successfully. One that enables employees to take on challenges without fear of failure, and builds psychological safety and a growth mindset.”
1. ADMIT THAT LEARNING IS A COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY
Learning is no longer the sole remit of L&D. Employees can now learn on their own terms, availing themselves of faster, more connected devices and more hyper-linked knowledge than ever before. So the Exceptional Learning Organisation knows to shift the responsibility of learning away from a central team to the company as a whole.
While this may sound like the death-knell for L&D, it isn’t. Firstly, not every employee will have the maturity and independence to be responsible for their own learning. There will always be those who prefer the andragogical safety of an instructor-led course or the collaboration of a mentor. Secondly, self-directed learning approaches rely on a supporting infrastructure of people, process and environment, and easily available technology and information.
L&D is therefore uniquely positioned to help - by providing the scaffolding, guidance and incentives that make employees feel valued (and recognised) from the investments they make in their own learning.
By creating an environment where people are encouraged to explore and push their own limits of performance, L&D can move from a training ‘cost-centre’ to a collaborative agent of true behavioural change.
2. ENCOURAGE LEADERS TO BE ROLE MODELS
The era of the all-knowing leader is long gone. Tomorrow’s leaders will inspire teams by admitting they don’t have all the answers. But they will have an authentic commitment to learn new things and explore fresh ideas.
The ‘leader as role-model’ seeks experiences and challenges outside of their comfort zone and then shares what they have learned, and how they are applying it.
So, identify and encourage leaders to contribute their personal learning journeys, explorations, and knowledge via video or self-produced content - widening their field of influence and sharing their wealth of wisdom throughout the organisation.
Encourage them to share stories of employee success (including their own) and to support, champion and defend learning in all its forms. Help them realise that, by demonstrating a commitment to learning and performance, and implementing it as a collaborative partnership between themselves and their teams, that they improve the whole mood of the organisation along the way.
“An exceptional learning organisation has a self aware, emotionally intelligent c-suite with a learning mindset who model learning as an enabler, and create the climates for mastery to take place.”
3. FIND AND DESIGNATE SPACE FOR PEOPLE
In today’s “always-on” world, it’s no surprise that mental health and wellbeing suffer. Many of us now experience fewer social and collaborative interactions with remote work colleagues, and a blurring of the once clear boundary between domestic life and the workplace. What we need is space.
Permission Space
Psychological safety - where people can freely express their views and make suggestions for improvement without fear of reprisal - is a critical component of the Exceptional Learning Organisation. Psychological safety is a group-level construct and, although it is by no means a new phenomenon, remote working, social media communities, and distributed teams means it may be harder to achieve than before. For example, employees who thrive in face-to-face meetings may find less permission space in a WhatsApp group, where the true intent of a text comment can be easily misinterpreted. Find ways to fix this.
Leadership Space
The Exceptional Learning Organisation creates enough space for teams to carry out their tasks unimpeded by technological restrictions, micromanagement, or overly strict processes. Whilst some level of control is necessary, especially if projects are complex, leaders who step back and encourage independent work and decision-making in their teams benefit both themselves and their people.
Exploration Space
Curiosity, exploration, and experimentation are attributes that have been responsible for nearly all discoveries and progression in human history.
When employees are free to learn as they do in the outside world, removed from workplace training schedules, mandatory compliance and rigid programmes, they rediscover their curiosity and find things that spark their interest. The Exceptional Learning Organisation knows this, and makes every effort to encourage and leverage these behaviours in corporate learning.
Consider changing the way you validate how people are developing by moving them from an instructor/course-led model (how many courses they’ve done) to a self-creative model (how many ideas they’ve contributed).
Physical Space (and Time)
The hybrid worker, flipping between home-based and office-based work can lose perspective on what it means to be genuinely being alone with one’s thoughts. Self-development requires physical space and time to think, reflect, and improve. Simply going for a walk, or adopting asynchronous work routines that allow for physical space can have dramatic effects on employee performance.
“An exceptional learning organisation is one that has a nurturing environment and proactively lives its value - not one that takes a recreational approach to learning. As individuals we are constantly learning and yet if we had to pinpoint a good experience it would be when we felt safe, value, inspired, and supported.”
4. RE-EXAMINE YOUR GROWTH MINDSET
When we believe our skills and talents can improve over time, we call this a growth mindset. In today’s fast-moving workplace, this doesn’t just mean getting better at things we already know, but using our cognitive flexibility to adapt and contribute to new and unfamiliar domains.
Our potential is huge but not limitless - so we must recognise when we need the help of others. Cultivating a growth mindset in L&D – and beyond into the wider business – means asking for that help. It means asking some searching questions:
Why are we doing this? Should we be doing this? Where do we want to go?
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The answers to these questions cannot come from a single person. They must come from a diverse group. A psychologically-safe, connected and value-driven community that is ready to think about new ideas, and keen to challenge the status-quo.
So how to begin? We start with courageous dialogue, and we learn to recognise what an inclusive culture really looks like. Not just gender- or race-diverse but also generational and geographical. We reflect on experiences of power and privilege at all levels in the organisation, and then leverage those diverse perspectives to empower innovation.
“An exceptional learning organisation is one that is humble enough to admit mistakes, curious enough to understand why they happened, and willing to take a risk and try something different - all while the C-Suite role-models this consistently and boldly.”
5. BRING ABOUT A SHARED VISION
When employees understand their own purpose, the organisation’s purpose, and where the two complement each other, there is an increased desire to contribute more through personal development and innovative thinking.
The Exceptional Learning Organisation, then, is explicitly clear about its mission, vision and goals, and consistently aligns its learning strategy to support them. By putting employees at the heart of its business strategy and creating a clear career path for everyone, the organisation promotes transparency and trust - and this benefits everyone.
Cognitive flexibility, or the desire to learn and adapt to new scenarios, should itself be encouraged as an organisational value, written into the company’s mission statement and actively recruited for. This makes sense: technical skills and knowledge come and go, but employees with an aptitude to learn new skills will always be valuable.
So, set an expectation for employees to develop themselves and share their experiences, and build a community that drives and rewards that behaviour. Recruit for those attributes.
“An exceptional learning organisation is one that creates a dynamic environment that responds to the needs of the business and learner equally.”
6. BUILD COMMUNITIES, NOT CULTURES
Some companies pride themselves on their ‘culture’. The trouble with cultures is that they are beholden to certain ideals, and expect employees to conform to the rules (written and unwritten) that make up that culture. And putting rules before people is the quickest way to make the participants within the culture feel isolated.
For example, people working in banking, pharmaceuticals, or defence, will encounter a more risk-averse culture than those working in advertising or creative. An insurance industry employee would feel very out of place within a marketing agency culture, and vice-versa.
Communities, on the other hand, can adapt and evolve because they’re guided by values rather than rules, and have the flexibility to reflect the personalities and interests of their members in ways cultures cannot.
So when we talk about building a learning culture, what we really mean is building a trusted, goal-oriented, human-centric mindset towards learning. A vibrant community where learning, technology, rewards and recognition, manager support, and ability become greater than the sum of their parts.
“An exceptional learning organisation has agility and a practice-led mentality. Agility in the sense of being able to spot changing business needs and pivot quickly, and creating environments where employees can practice their new skills, rather than just learn the theory.”
7. COLLABORATE, NURTURE, AND MENTOR
Collaboration across all functions and levels is vital in the Exceptional Learning Organisation. For example, interns working with CEO’s; contractors working with marketing; first-line support staff working with product designers - all cultivating a respect and an understanding of how each person contributes to the success of the organisation.
But rather than passively expecting collaboration to happen organically, actively develop communication and teamwork skills in your people through targeted learning. Launch communities of practice and regular knowledge sharing sessions/forums where individuals can connect with peers and experts to learn and share. Encourage and reward the sharing of stories, lessons learned, knowledge, skills and content - not just across teams and departments but further afield to customers and partners.
Promote a spirit of collaboration that becomes simply the way the company does business, written into its DNA.
“An exceptional learning organisation creates a ‘critical mass’ of nurturers. In terms of motivation, potential and success, nurturing helps employees and stakeholders (of all backgrounds) get to places they wouldn’t have gotten to otherwise. And help them be the best version of themselves (not the version the organisation thought they ought to be).
8. KNOW THY LEARNERS
The Exceptional Learning Organisation understands that every employee is different, and has different motivators. Learner profiles that categorise people into ‘thinkers’ or self-reflectors’ or ‘communicators’ (to name just a few) can be useful when combined with other data such as learning content or delivery preferences. But the Exceptional Learning Organisation knows to go beyond these basic learner profiles.
It knows that internal and external forces act on and shape people (whether they know it or not) into complex individuals, whose engagement and experience with learning can be turned on a dime. For example, if someone is committed to a non-linear career path, they’ll only be interested in learning that offers transferable skills. Or if they’re part of an older demographic, they may leap at opportunities to develop mentoring skills.
When the organisation really knows what makes people ‘tick’, only then can it begin to provide truly personalised learning. Technology helps, of course, but the beating heart of the Exceptional Learning Organisation will always be people.
“For me, an exceptional learning organisation is one that puts its humans at the heart of it. Ultimately, if you're not giving your humans the time, energy and resources to learn and grow, your business will suffer. If you let your team learn, grow and flourish, business success will naturally follow.”
NEXT STEPS
An exceptional learning organisation arises from excellence in several key areas that impact not just L&D but stakeholders across the wider business.
The LPI believes there are six core areas to consider: leadership, technology, culture, data, L&D skills, and infrastructure.
The Accredited Learning Organisation programme has been designed to evaluate these six areas, and to understand how they intersect with, and influence, the wider business.
Organisations that achieve the accreditation can say, with confidence, that they are going above and beyond to ensure learning is a fundamental element to an employee’s experience and forms part of the organisational DNA.