Today, when we look at best practices and how they design concrete learning interventions, for example, a competence development programme or training, they design the learning intervention on factors that are most likely to combat the forgetting curve.
These factors are:
- Repetition and re-enforcement: More repetitions with “spacing” in between so that the neural networks can be strengthened.
- Focused attention: The simpler the message and the more concentrated attention to it, the better the retention.
- Relevance: The more “hooks” to the learner’s existing world/brain circuits, the easier learning sticks.
- Interaction and generation: The more the learner engages, the better the learning. Research shows that we cannot just absorb information passively. We must take an active, creative role.
- Emotion: Emotions play a dual role in learning. First, they have been found to increase our attention to a given topic which helps us focus. And second, emotions activate a brain region called the amygdala, which seems to alert the hippocampus that the material is important and worth encoding as memory3.
While these factors tell us a lot about the imperatives for the design of concrete learning interventions, another way to combat the forgetting curve is to design learning environments that build on in-situ and experiential learning.
In-situ learning is characterised by experiential learning in real-life contexts as opposed to learning interventions that are associated with traditional teaching in classrooms, away from the contexts in which the learning will be applied. Hence, designing a learning model that is based more on in-situ and experiential learning is a more holistic approach to combatting the forgetting curve.
Three key levers to create learning organisations
Traditional learning models build on the assumption that the organisation knows what learning is needed for the employee to do his or her job. However, in a VUCA world (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity), organisations are more and more dependent on creativity and organic growth, hence, calling much more for bottom-up initiatives and self-directed learners.
We argue that three key levers are key in creating the learning organisations of the future:
A. Foster and support self-directed learning
B. Frame the learning goals in a holistic learning framework
C. Set the right structural and cultural conditions for learning
In the next sections, we will explore these three enablers in more detail.
A: Foster and support self-directed learning
In a situational and holistic framework, learning is something that happens everywhere in every experience. Here learning is networked rather than hierarchical. Such an environment is architected such that motivated individuals, who are driven by a growth mindset and are self-directed in their learning, can thrive and drive the organisation forward.
However, this model can only be successful if it is coupled with individuals who can learn in networked, fluid, dynamic and experiential learning environments. In other words, if it is coupled with self-directed learners.
What is self-directed learning?
Self-directed learners are goal-driven and reflective individuals who have the tools necessary to assess their learning needs and goal setting and seek out opportunities to help them achieve those goals. Further, these individuals can reflect on their learning to help them transfer this knowledge into contextually novel situations.
Self-directed learners thrive in experiential learning environments. In such learning environments, learners go through four stages of learning, including having an experience, a reflection on the experience, distillation of the perceptions that one gains into abstract concepts and then active experimentation with this new information (Kolb, 2014).
Examples of such environments include internships, work-based learning experience, on-the-job training and peer-to-peer learning, simulations, and game-based learning. Each of these learning environments has one thing in common: The learner is acquiring knowledge and applying the knowledge in accelerated cycles where the distance between acquisition and application is very narrow, approximating real-life learning.
This contrasts with the traditional learning environments where the space between acquisition and application is long. This is not the natural way that learners learn in the real world.
Learning organisations foster self-directed learning by empowering their employees to constantly seek out opportunities for growth and providing them ownership of the success of the organisation. In a learning organisation, these individuals can then be experiential educators of this new knowledge, making the learning environment powerfully generative, building on everyone’s expertise as opposed to an identified few.
But as you might have noticed, to be self-directed, one must be highly motivated to learn. And how do organisations ensure that?
To foster intrinsic motivation and self-directed learners
A crucial point for corporate learning is how it is motivated – top-down or bottom-up? Our drivers (motivators) to learn can be anchored outside (extrinsic) or come from within (intrinsic) – pushed or pulled. When the driver for learning is extrinsic (driven by needs external to the learner), the learning experience is “pushed” on the learner. In situations where the interest in learning comes from the learner, the learning opportunities are “pulled” towards themselves. Such learning is far more robust, lasting and transferrable to new situations as opposed to learning that is pushed.
Motivation is also linked to the learners’ perception of their expectancy of success. The expectancy of success is driven by two variables:
- Outcome expectancies include the learners’ perception that their actions and engagement with the learning opportunity will bring about the desired outcome.
- Efficacy expectancies in which the learners believe that they are capable of identifying, organising, initiating and executing the learning opportunity successfully.
Organisations have significant control over their ability to motivate their employees. In traditional models, where the need for training comes from executives who developed clear performance directives, the motivation tends to be extrinsic with the learning materials being pushed towards the employees. Due to a lack of transparency, it is hard for the employees to understand the value of this training to the organisation and, more importantly, to themselves. Lastly, in the absence of transparency, it is also difficult for learners to assess their expectancy of success.
In a situational and holistic learning approach, the learning opportunities are created bottom-up, a lot of times by peer employees within one’s network. Because the locus of control over the learning is closer to the employee, they have a higher perceived sense of value (for example psychological ownership of the success that comes from their learning) and expectancy of success. As a result, the employee’s centre of motivation is far more intrinsic.
While self-directed learners are autonomous as the outset, their learning in a corporate context still needs direction and framing to be linked to the corporate intention. We argue that they need a clear guiding star and overall framing, rather than a role description and 100-bullet checklist of competences4. And this brings us to the next key lever: framing the learning needs in a holistic learning framework.
B: Frame the learning needs in a holistic learning framework
As we learn all the time, transparency in direction and framing of the learning needs become key.
But as we just stated, self-directed learners need a guiding star and vision for learners rather than a role description and a 100-bullet checklist of competences.
With such a model, self-directed learners have all the information they need to seek opportunities that might help them develop in a specific competence area or fulfil a certain role. They understand how their engagement in the opportunity develops their learning, and they can assess if the competence has integrated5.
A clear framing of the learning needs in the organisation is the outset of creating an environment where self-directed learners can navigate and flourish.
But what are the learning needs of the 21st century?