Building a learning organization is no longer an option in a world of rapid, constant change. Companies that want to maintain their competitive edge must continuously upskill employees to meet the market’s demands.
But if your organization is stuck in “damage control” mode, simply meeting current demands and only adapting when necessary, building a learning organization may sound impossible.
What is a “learning organization,” and how does one begin to build one? Here are six tips to help your company get unstuck and start building the learning culture it needs to grow for the long term.
What is a Learning Organization?
A learning organization encourages continuous upskilling and knowledge-building by implementing the processes, culture, and tools that allow all employees to learn every day.
While every organization is unique, there are several characteristics common to learning organizations:
- Everyone is on a path to understanding the big picture: In a learning organization, every employee from the top down understands the system as a whole and its individual components (or is on a path to that understanding).
- Employees embrace risk and reflection: Team members are willing to try new theories and approaches that challenge assumptions and beliefs. If those new ideas don’t work, they reflect on how to improve or change them.
- Team members own their development. Learning isn’t owned by HR or L&D; rather, each individual is responsible for personal development. This doesn’t mean that HR or L&D have nothing to do with development opportunities. Successful learning organizations empower employees to own their development while providing various learning opportunities.
- Leaders set a tone for continuous learning: Leaders across functions and levels set an example for learning. They actively pursue development, constantly ask others what they are learning, and demonstrate openness to new ideas.
- Everyone shares knowledge and insights: Learning organizations have informal and formal ways to share expertise, knowledge, and skills. There are no learning siloes; the team is empowered to solve problems in collaborative ways.
Here are six ways to build this kind of organization.
Six Ways to Build a Learning Organization
1. Encourage a Growth Mindset
It can be tempting to assume that employees have a fixed set of skills that serve limited purposes, and some may even be tempted to believe that about themselves.
In a learning organization, leaders encourage everyone to embrace a growth mindset that seeks new skills and knowledge. As part of this growth mindset culture, leaders must communicate that failure and discomfort are expected and reassure team members that learning and upskilling can look messy. Psychological safety is vital to a growth mindset.
2. Promote an Iterative Process
Anyone familiar with agile methodology understands that an iterative process is a formal way of testing and revising on the way toward a goal.
But, an iterative process doesn’t have to be formal, nor does it have to be associated with only one function or role in the organization. Everyone can benefit from taking an iterative approach to work, learning, and development.
Learning is rarely a “one-and-done” process. To truly embed knowledge, people must encounter situations, processes, and tasks more than once. Avoid punishing people for mistakes and encourage iteration as they learn.
3. Offer Development to Everyone
Offering development to everyone has many advantages, including meeting future technological and workforce needs and improving the employee experience.
Organizations can and should offer development to everyone across the organization. However, it’s not enough to develop leaders to take on new business challenges; without highly skilled staff and employees willing to learn new things, even well-developed leaders won’t be able to keep their organizations healthy for the long term.
4. Implement Non-Classroom Opportunities
As Tapaswee Chandele points out in her account of how Coca-Cola became a learning organization, training is not the same as learning.
While classroom learning or formal training can be part of an overall learning and development strategy, most learning is experiential. People tend to learn best by doing.
Companies should offer lots of opportunities for hands-on learning. Project-based work is ideal for this, especially if it’s also cross-functional. When team members encounter new situations, they build the ability to think and solve problems in new ways.
5. Model Lifelong Learning
Leaders can support learning and development in many ways, but one of the best is to model lifelong learning. Leaders should be open about what books and experiences have shaped their thinking. They can share notes about conferences, host book clubs, or simply e-mail team members to share new insights.
Leaders can also foster a spirit of curiosity and openness to new ideas and ways of thinking. They can ask team members questions about methods and processes they aren’t familiar with, and they should be open to honest feedback about their ideas and suggestions. “What do you think?” might be one of the most powerful questions any leader can ask.
6. Share the Knowledge
When learning is collaborative, and knowledge is shared openly, everyone benefits. Team members can find new connections to creatively solve problems or overcome obstacles. The company preserves institutional knowledge because knowledge belongs to everyone.
Preserving institutional knowledge is becoming especially important as Baby Boomers retire and younger generations move into leadership. In addition to the loss of knowledge and experience, this shift represents, younger generations tend to have shorter tenures in their positions. When knowledge belongs to everyone, the company experiences fewer speed bumps when key personnel leave.
Any organization can become a learning organization. When leaders foster curiosity, experimentation, creativity, and imagination, they can help prepare their companies for anything the future holds.
SELF CHECK:
- What is one way we could expand learning opportunities to more people in our organization?
- What is one way we could encourage more curiosity and imagination across the company?
- How can we better meet the needs of our employees through learning opportunities?
