A barbecue or microwave approach to learning & development?

Summer is my favorite time of the year. There is no school, relaxed schedules, no homework, vacations, and lots of opportunities for time with friends and family.

Here in the midwest, that also means lots of backyard cookouts which are my favorite! Cornhole. Swimming. Fire pits. Smores. Great conversations. And most importantly, great food!

There is something special about food slowly cooked in a smoker or barbecue grill that you can't replicate in an indoor oven or microwave. (I'm getting hungry just writing this!)

The approach organizations take with learning and development has many parallels with preparing great food for a cookout. Unfortunately, these L&D experiences can feel more like being in a microwave than a barbecue grill.

Does your organization use a microwave or barbecue approach to learning and development?

The Microwave Approach

We love our microwaves because they cook food fast. When you're in a rush, trying to get kids out the door or make your next zoom call, a microwave is an appliance you want. Microwaves are an efficient solution.

However, my good friend Jeremiah Clark, who was voted the top chef in our city, hates microwaves. He says they produce terrible food and points to data that some believe microwaves may change the molecular structure of the food. He reminds me that no high-end restaurant will microwave your food (that's what happens at fast-food restaurants). Just because microwaves are efficient, it doesn't make them effective at creating high-quality food.

Just because microwaves are efficient, it doesn't make them effective.

In our culture, we love the microwave approach to L&D. We often use it as the primary solution to develop our people. Microwave approaches to L&D are often experiences such as conferences, workshops, intensives, off-sites, and retreats.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE these types of experiences (I was at a retreat this past weekend with my daughters). The ability to build community and deepen relationships with those that attend is hard to replicate. Getting away from distractions provides opportunities to focus. They're great for inspiring and motivating change. Also, some people's learning styles are best suited for in-person environments. There is a time and place for these experiences.

However, these types of L&D experiences often have a disappointingly low return on investment. Their effectiveness looks a lot like this.

They're effective for a short time but then quickly fade.

Maybe this is why so many executives are frustrated. Even though over $80 billion is spent annually on training and development, it's hard to see a tangible return on their investment.

Why do these microwave-type experiences not have a greater long-term impact? Here are a few possible reasons:

• Episodic - By their nature, they don't happen that often.
• Not accessible - Usually, only a limited audience can attend these types of events. They're often reserved for top performers, leaders, and managers.
• Not actionable - People struggle with the "Now what?" Learning new knowledge or being inspired at a conference or workshop may not translate into tangible action they can take back to work.
• Expensive - The costs for travel, lodging, food, and registration quickly add up.
• Disruptive - Pulling people away from their work for hours or days is very disruptive.
• Busy - People are busy personally and professionally, and it's hard to find time to attend these types of events.

However, the most significant limitation to the microwave approach of L&D is that people forget what they learn.

...the most significant limitation to the microwave approach of L&D is people simply forget what they learn.

Often, just days after returning to work from one of these experiences, people are hard-pressed to remember what they learned.

The Forgetting Curve

Hermann Ebbinghaus was a German psychologist who pioneered an experimental study of memory in the 1880s. He is best known for deriving a mathematical formula called the Forgetting Curve.

Adults, as you might expect, forget information over time. What's surprising is how much information is quickly lost after it's learned. Ebbinghaus discovered that people forget over half of the knowledge they learn in an hour and nearly two-thirds in a day!

Some argue that Ebbinghaus's findings don’t apply to today’s adult learners due to the conditions and parameters of his experiment. However, other organizations have performed similar studies and found similar results.?So, regardless of the exact numbers, it's clear that episodic L&D is not that effective.

The Barbecue Approach

I don't think anyone will argue that food cooked on a smoker or barbecue grill is far superior to microwaved food. Food cooked at a low temperature for an extended period of time produces a richer taste and texture.

Instead of forcing a lot of knowledge and training into people, in short, infrequent bursts, what if we lower the intensity and increase the frequency of L&D? It might look something like this.

The near-term effects may be less than the microwave approach, but the cumulative results last longer and result in greater effectiveness.

While we always want to look for ways to optimize the L&D spend and reduce costs, let's not compromise effectiveness in the name of efficiency.

While we always want to look for ways to optimize the L&D spend, let's not compromise effectiveness in the name of efficiency.

Barbecue L&D efforts often have the following characteristics:

• Continuous - They happens continuously over time through micro-learning and micro-coaching.
• Scalable - L&D can scale across an organization of any size in multiple locations.
• Accessible - It can be available to ALL employees regardless of role or job title.
• Personalized - Managers receive different content than those with no direct reports. Content is personalized based on interest and experience.
• Actionable - Since it engages people during their workday, there are immediate opportunities to put learning into action.
• Less disruptive - It doesn’t pull people away from work for hours or days at a time. It can be consumed in bite-size chunks when time allows.
• More cost-effective - Because you now can develop more of your people, the per person L&D cost is less.

I'm not saying we should do away with conferences, workshops, intensives, off-sites, and retreats. However, I am saying that technology provides opportunities to develop and grow our people in ways that we never could before.

It's time for a paradigm shift in how we approach developing our people. It's time to adapt our approaches in our post-COVID world. It's time to use fewer microwaves and more barbecues!

Who's hungry? Let's grow!

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Microwave L&D sounds great in theory, but what would it look like to transform everyday experiences from a microwave to a barbecue approach?

In my next posts, we'll reimagine what everyday experiences like a half-day workshop, new hire onboarding, or working with an executive coach/consultant could look like using a barbecue approach to L&D.