Your team is struggling to learn new skills. How can you motivate them to keep growing?

2 Choose your learning methods

The second step to motivate your team to learn new skills is to select the best learning methods for your goals and preferences. There are many ways to learn new skills, such as online courses, books, podcasts, webinars, mentors, coaches, peers, projects, or experiments. You can also mix and match different methods to create a personalized and flexible learning plan. The key is to choose the methods that suit your learning style, your schedule, your budget, and your interests. You can also ask for feedback and recommendations from your manager, colleagues, or customers to find the most relevant and useful resources.

3 Create a learning culture

Fostering a learning culture in your team and organization is the third step to motivate your team to learn new skills. This type of culture values curiosity, openness, collaboration, feedback, and experimentation. It also encourages people to learn from their successes and failures, as well as share their insights and questions. To create a learning culture, you should communicate the importance of learning new skills and recognize and reward your team's efforts. Additionally, provide time and space for your team to learn and apply new skills. Moreover, challenge your team to try new things and solve new problems, while modeling a learning mindset yourself. Finally, encourage your team to learn from each other and from external sources.

4 Overcome your learning barriers

The fourth step to motivate your team to learn new skills is to identify and overcome the common barriers that may hinder your learning process. These barriers include a lack of motivation, confidence, and time. To address a lack of motivation, remind yourself and your team of your learning goals, connect your learning to passions and purposes, and celebrate small wins. To combat a lack of confidence, adopt a growth mindset that believes you can improve with effort and feedback. Seek support from mentors, coaches, and peers as well as focus on strengths and achievements. To deal with a lack of time, schedule learning sessions in advance, set realistic goals, and reduce sources of interruption or procrastination.

5 Enjoy your learning journey

The fifth step to motivate your team to learn new skills is to make your learning journey enjoyable and fun. Learning new skills can be challenging, but it can also be rewarding, exciting, and satisfying. To enhance your experience, you should choose topics and methods that interest and inspire you, add variety and creativity to your activities, incorporate games or quizzes into the process, seek feedback and recognition for your achievements, share your stories with others, and reflect on how the journey has changed you. Learning new skills is not only a necessity but also an opportunity. By following these tips, you can motivate yourself and your team to keep growing and learning, embracing the changes and challenges that come along the way.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?