The Argument for a New Style of Learning

The Argument for a New Style of Learning

?What would happen, for your business (or your career), if each person in your team, spent 1-hour per day, learning something new? That’s 5-hours per work-week. 46-hours per year. (that’s only 2.5% of their work-time). Consistently increasing their knowledge, ability and competency. Would they become more “productive” (able to do more work in less time)? Would they be able to do new things, that they could do before, allowing your business to broaden its scope of service? Would this make your business more competitive, agile, resilient, profitable? Of course, we know the answer is obviously true, so why don’t we do it?

?We don’t have the Time.

One argument is “we can’t afford the time – we are too busy”. I very much doubt that anybody is running at 100% efficiency. We all waste some time during each day on unproductive things. Anybody could find 1-hour, if they really wanted to. But they don’t have the incentive or motivation to do this. They don’t appreciate the “value” of spending this time, compared to wasting time on something else. Mostly, I think they are not really sure what to do in that time.

?We can’t Afford It.

Another argument is “we can’t afford the cost – we don’t have the money”. That’s probably not true either. We live in the “information age” – most knowledge is available either free, or as a low-cost commodity. People spend more money on a cup of coffee or tea each day, than they do on their ongoing professional development.

There is no Incentive or Motivation

Learning something new takes effort and energy. Of course, we are ‘biologically’ programmed to conserve energy. In other words, it is far easier to do nothing, than it is to do something, even if you understand the logical reasons to learn something new, it is sometimes not enough to motivate people to do anything about it. ?People need a ‘compelling’ reason to make effort, to spend energy, which is greater than the motivation to conserve energy. Of course, the ‘threat’ of falling behind, or losing your job, or not being able to find a job, could be a reason, but ‘threat’ seldom works as a long-term sustainable motivator (as people don’t like ongoing ‘threat’ and will try to avoid it). Developing a daily ‘habit’, that is easy to follow (which doesn’t feel like a chore), of learning something small and incremental, particularly if it has an element of ‘fun’, would have a much better chance of success (see game theory ).

?We don’t know where to Start.

Another argument is “there is so much information, we don’t know where to start, or where to find what is really relevant and useful to our day-to-day job”? This argument may actually be true and valid. One of the “downfalls” of the “information age”, is that there is access to too much information, without knowing if it is relevant or useful. Also, everyone is performing a slightly different role, and at a different level in their career journey, and needs different information, because everyone is at a different level of competency. This can be a real “challenge”. How to determine, and deliver, the ‘bespoke’ combination of knowledge or skill that people require, for their particular situation. If you deliver too much irrelevant information to people, that doesn’t suit their individual and immediate need, they won’t absorb and internalize the information, and will either ignore, or forget it. The old saying “use it or lose it” really applies when it comes to acquiring new knowledge or skill. The “best” solution, is for each person, to learn a new piece of knowledge, or skill, that is immediately relevant to them, and begin to use and apply that knowledge or skill to their day-to-day work. This results in a small incremental increase in productivity and competency. And if you applied that principle each day, the end result, over time, would be a significant increase in productivity and competency, with associated benefits of competitiveness, agility, resilience and profitability.

?The above idea, “challenges” the traditional “classroom style” type of learning, where for efficiency purposes (for those delivering training, or those paying for the delivery of training, NOT for the learner), you deliver the same content, to a large group of people, irrespective of whether they are in a position to actually accept, absorb, learn, and immediately apply this knowledge or skill. I’m not saying there isn’t a time or place for “classroom style” learning, of course there is, particularly when you want to impart lots of learning to lots of people. But it may not always be the most “optimum” form of learning.

?A New Style of Learning – “Learner Centric”

So what might a better form of “learning” look like?

First, it should be focussed on the “individual needs” of the person who needs to learn (the student), not only on the needs of the organisation delivering the learning (the teacher, or the company paying for the teacher).

Before you start, there needs to be some “measure” of what and individual should know (for their present and future role), and an “assessment” what they do know right now. (as Lewis Carrol said, “… if you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there ...”).

And then there needs to be a “roadmap” of how the individual gets from where they are now, to where the should be, over time. With lessons in knowledge and skill delivered, or provided, in the right order, so that they are immediately useful and relevant to their present job, so they can use and apply the knowledge/skill, absorb and assimilate it, and move onto the next step, building towards a more productive, more competent future role.

There needs to be ongoing “assessment” or evaluation of how the student is progressing along the journey, as set out in the roadmap. (as Peter Drucker said, “… if you can't measure it, you can't manage it …”).

Lastly, there needs to be a “delivery model” that allows an individual, to get bespoke, relevant and useful “content” of knowledge and skill, in small increments, at a time or place that suits them, while still providing the teacher and organisation delivering and paying for the delivery of content, to do that in an efficient way.

(I think this last point suggests that the traditional “classroom style” type of training is not always going to be the “best” model, from the students’ point of view anyway).

?Technology to the Rescue

“Role-based Learning”, involves taking “snippets” of larger generic knowledge and skills content, and combining these into smaller “bespoke” collections of content, to be delivered to specific people, performing a specific role, at a specific stage of their career development, based on an individual “assessment” against a pre-determined learning pathway (or “roadmap”). It helps answer the question, “if I was willing to spend 1-hour today, to learn something new, that would be relevant and useful to me, in my current role, at my particular stage of my career, then what should I choose to learn?”. And if the “individual” was willing to ask that question each day, and was able to receive the answer, in the form of the correct knowledge and skill content, then at the end of the year, they would be in a much better place, in terms of knowledge, skill, competency.

?When it comes to managing and delivering large amounts of “content”, to many different people and roles, we need a “technology” to help us. Trying to do this manually, would be too difficult, or time-consuming. Pinnacle Series, by Eagle Point Software , is a technology, which provides companies with the ability, to carry out skills and knowledge assessments, and deliver bespoke “role-based learning” to staff, based on a combination of generic content, and other company specific knowledge resource, to make sure learning is highly individualized, relevant and applicable to their daily job. And the best thing about this, is that the technology costs less than a cup of coffee or tea, for each person per day. Technology is always “cheap” when compared to the “value” of human capital. ARCDOX are really excited about our partnership with Eagle Point Software , to help bring Pinnacle Series to our clients and customers, to ?“enable and support BIM” for individuals, companies, and project teams that we support. Please contact us to find out more about how this could help you, or your business. https://www.arcdox.com/pinnacle-series ?