Embed learning into doing
James Carter
Leadership & Culture ?? Field CTO @ Team Covalence ?? Developing cohesive and effective teams at scale
A common leadership pitfall is to become fully absorbed in getting the work done, and neglecting the investment in capability development and people’s growth.?
Leaders intend to do this and value it, but can increasingly find the pressures of delivery force them to neglect this. They try to ring-fence separate time to create time for skills and capability development, but because this isn’t linked to direct value it often gets eroded by the latest fire drill, and because it is separated from value it also delivers less learning benefits.
There are lots of ways to learn, and learning on the job can be much more effective than separated or formal learning. There are lots of ways to embed learning into doing, and this is something it always makes sense to consider when you’re working out how best to approach the next challenge.
Without delving too deeply into theory, here are some practical and simple questions to ask yourself to consider how to embed learning into doing:
?? Does this task/activity have to be prioritised for delivery speed and efficiency, or can it be optimised to involve learning and capability development?
? ? If so, who is motivated and capable to learn this, and what support will they require?
?? If not, who can be involved to contribute or at least shadow so they are more ready to take something similar on next time?
If you think you need to look at this more strategically, there are several good models, such as the Situational Leadership Model developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, to use to look for and create opportunities to do this more frequently. The benefits are prompting you to evaluate when and how you might help someone develop their capabilities, and deciding which approach to take to structure safe and effective learning.?
Look to embed 'learning' into 'doing' wherever possible.
Design the way you execute to include the development of people’s capabilities.
This content by James Carter is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Climate - Energy - Technology - Deep Tech
1 个月This is a great for the private sector - the public sector not so much (apart from the regulatory led orgs like the HMRC, Medical profession etc who already have in built training schedules) In the private sector this could be another competitive edge. But the senior management team must have the vision to employ a visionary learning & development professional. Then involve that individual to create a L&D audit of the business to look for, plan out and implement (through a mixture of digital and face to face means) a L&D strategy that will create a more talented, intelligent and capable workforce at the end of the financial year then the beginning. Again this comes up with a raising of communication standards for the senior management team who themselves must be on the a L&D plan. Looking forward to developing this with a new sustainable brand we are working with in 2025. Thanks for the post James.