Components of a Learning Culture

Throughout my career I have heard the expression “learning culture”. Most companies have this as an ambition - “we want to create a learning culture”- and usually it’s manifested by an allocated learning and development budget per employee and often accompanied by several in-house training programs available for employees. No doubt these investments are well intended, but it takes more to create a culture where curiosity is fostered and learning is part of everyday work.

In my own career the biggest learning moments have been in settings where I have had the opportunity to be exposed to the expertise of others. Settings where we have collectively reviewed and scrutinized work and where feedback from more experienced colleagues or colleagues from different parts of the business was leveraged to make ideas better. Moments of on the job learning that have nothing to do with being thrown in the deep end and having to just “figure it out”, but that are characterized by the opportunity to hear and process real feedback on real topics. Moments where you problem solve together and take the time to discuss and understand the options. To get the opportunity to understand how others think is one of the best ways to refine your own thinking. What are the types of questions they ask? What are the dimensions they look at? By hearing that first hand you can learn how to ask better questions, to look at a broader set of dimensions and you evolve your own thinking and develop your own expertise.?

Contrastingly I have also been in many situations where I have gotten requests to produce an artifact to be reviewed in a meeting but with almost no context and no invitation to attend the meeting. More often than not these types of requests lead to several iterations based on feedback in the review, feedback that is translated through a third party and therefore loses even more context. And I have also acted as that third party trying to convey feedback to my directs. It’s almost always a frustrating experience for everyone involved. To be clear, I’m not advocating for huge meetings with double digit numbers of attendants, but what I am advocating for is ensuring that you establish direct lines of communication and exchange. Isn’t that what a flat hierarchy is, the readiness and ability to engage directly regardless of seniority level??

So how can you go about establishing a more profound learning culture? What are some of the components needed to facilitate this??

Rituals of Review and Exchange - Collaborative thinking?

One of our sparsest resources is our time. We have to prioritize what we pay attention to and for most of us by necessity that’s limited to what’s in our job description. Learning and developing your skill set is likely part of the expectations in that job description but carving out dedicated time for this is hard - we all have no time to spare. But by shaping ways of working where the exposure and engagement with the work of our colleagues is not only expected, but an intrinsic part of our everyday work, we can make learning part of the actual job description.?

One of the most common friction scenarios I have encountered in my career is where one team needs something from another team but rather than approaching the other team with a need, they come with their version of what the solution should look like. Not because they think they know better, but because there are no clear patterns of engagement for cross functional collaboration. Or put differently, there are no established forums where needs and ideas can be surfaced and tackled in a collaborative approach. In my experience the result of these kinds of interactions is not delivery but frustration. They feed cynicism and are seen as a point in case for why people should stay in their lane. And there is truth in that conclusion, a foundation for a functioning business is expertise, but the real benefit of expertise comes when you bring it together. If we only focus on our immediate scope we lose out on innovation. The magic happens when we come together and build on our collective strengths. To create that magic, you have to create the space for it to happen. Not in separate “innovation hubs” but in the day to day business. You have to establish regular forums where people come together with the expectation to review work to make it better.?

Creating rituals and habits of reviewing work also opens up for including roles and functions across the business. One of the most common challenges in most businesses is to break silos. Often one part of the organization is being described as a black box and there is frustration among stakeholders. In my career this has often been the case between technology and business teams. The business teams don’t understand why nothing ever seems to get delivered and the technology teams are frustrated by the perceived unreasonable demands from the business. By bringing the different functions together you can build understanding. An idea for a new business model may show great financial promise but the adjustments required to the tech stack would render those benefits void. Rather than just establishing this fact and being frustrated with the incomprehension of the other functions, you can open up a conversation to come together and problem solve - is there a different way to think about it? This requires forums where this dialogue can happen, and not as one offs, but as regular and predictable rituals where the intent is to come together to leverage the expertise of the various functions to contribute to a collective problem solving effort. Building a habit where the default is collaboration.?

Respectful Feedback - Intellectual Inclusion?

As a leader I have always found sessions where my directs are present when their work is being discussed to be the biggest learning opportunities. Instead of trying to convey what the outcome was we can focus the post session debriefing on how to move forward with the feedback given or clarifying remaining questions. I use the word debriefing intentionally because part of creating a learning culture is embracing my responsibility as a leader to make sure that my direct comes out of the session understanding what happened and what’s expected of them, and also to just make sure they are ok. That is another, and I would argue fundamental, aspect of a learning culture - you have to behave respectfully. I may think a question is uninformed, but does it really help if I say that, or does it maybe help more if I ask why the question was asked? And yes, that can be hard in the moment, but if we assume good intentions maybe we’ll actually get to a further refinement of the question that is helpful, or a clarification that helps everyone understand why that particular aspect is out of scope. It’s in the dialogue that real understanding is built. To foster a learning culture you have to establish ways of working where junior employees get to participate and have opportunities to have their work reviewed and discussed by more experienced colleagues in a respectful way. No one benefits from having their work torn to pieces by an executive, but everyone benefits from hearing first hand feedback on how an idea can be further developed, or the direction the further explorations should go. Leaders have to embrace being role models in these interactions, both by helping people expand their horizons through asking helpful questions, and by treating everyone with respect. There will always be conversations that have to happen in smaller rounds, but you have to be willing to inject a lot of transparency and openness if you want your employees to learn and grow.

Documentation - The Power of Writing Things Down?

To build this kind of learning oriented collaboration culture there are several elements that have to be in place, and aside from exposure and respect, another fundamental aspect is the practice to write things down. Jeff Bezos famously banned powerpoint presentations at Amazon, and while there may be a place for slides, I do agree that this place is never as material for a ritual dedicated to understanding and developing ideas. For this you need a text format - a written narrative. Not only does this help make sure that everyone can build the same understanding by reading the narrative, but writing also helps you think. What can be glossed over as a buzzword in a slide can’t be as easily hidden in a written narrative. To be clear, written narratives come in different qualities, but you will never be able to get away with some of the muddled and half baked thinking that is all too common in most slide decks. In order to write something down you have to think it through. Thoroughly. A leader I worked with used to always ask for a write up as a way to test your idea - “write it down and see if it works”. And if you can’t write it down, that’s a sign you have to either think about it more or simply discard it. Writing is an incredibly effective way to weed out bad ideas as well as refine good ones.?

A written narrative is a self contained format that should require no further explanations. Unlike slides it doesn’t need a voice over, so even if you weren’t at the meeting, you can still read the document. In that sense writing things down is also a way to democratize access to information.

Access to Information - Transparency?

In one team that I joined the information and documentation deficit was a real and daily challenge but rather than succumbing to frustration an initiative to create the missing documentation had been initiated. This documentation effort had become part of the team identity and it greatly contributed to fostering a culture of learning, support and collaboration. It wasn’t simply a quest for documentation, it was a dedicated effort to make information accessible and scale the knowledge - to help everyone learn.

If you want the people in your organization to learn, you have to make sure they have access to information to help them be just that - informed. Even if not everyone can be in a meeting, everyone can have access to the documentation that was reviewed and the outcomes of the discussion. By sharing information transparently and broadly not only do you empower people, but you also set an expectation that they should inform themselves - you set the expectation that they should learn.?

There have been many occasions throughout my career where people reached out to me to get information that was already available (published on the intranet, a regular report, etc.) and it wasn’t because of laziness, but because they were not used to information actually being available and they had learned to rely on their connections to get the inside story. A situation that definitely does not scale for anyone. On the same note, I have lost count of all the times people have reached out to me to thank me for regularly sharing information - “I feel like I know what’s going on”. And that’s why access to information matters, people have to feel they know what’s going on. It’s fundamental for feeling engaged and connected. By transparently sharing information you not only create situations that are scalable but you also disable scenarios where information is being used as a means to obtain power and control which is the opposite of a learning culture.?

Learning As Part of Your Day to Day

A learning culture is not something that you implement as a one off, it’s a daily practice that involves everyone. The good news is that there are many things you can do to build a learning culture. Allocated budget and time are definitely important aspects, especially since they signal a commitment and dedication to learning and development, but even more important is fostering a mindset of collaboration where people are regularly exposed to the expertise and experience of their colleagues. This is what sparks curiosity and where learning becomes an organic part of the job. Because let’s face it, we’re all more than busy, and if “using your learning budget” is the only opportunity you really have to learn, then there is a high likelihood that you won’t do it.?

Establishing regular forums where you come together to review work in a respectful way and share outcomes broadly and transparently helps you build alignment and a culture where collaboration is the default and growth and learning become fundamental parts of doing your daily work. Yes, it takes precious time, but it’s time you invest in your employees and in innovation and the return on investment on this is tremendous.?