Learning in the Flow of Work Won’t Work Unless it’s Personalized to the Learner

Everyone learns differently.

I have seen firsthand when learning is personalized to meet the needs of the individual, growth is rapid and sustained. This has become clear to me from my experience raising my two boys, both of whom have Autism. Autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), refers to a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication. With a combined 11 years of experience creating the right learning environment for them (Ethan and Aaron), the incredible progress they have made has made me an advocate and believer in personalized learning. While Ethan and Aaron are both autistic – how they learn, their learning agility and capabilities could not be more different and further from each other. As the saying goes, when you’ve met one child with Autism, you’ve met one child. There is no one type of Autism, only many.

Autism brings its share of learning difficulties, varied in forms of academic, social, communication and life skills, just about all categories of skills we as humans need to live a fully functioning and independent life. My experience has taught me a learning disability (or as I like to call it “different ability”) is not a problem with intelligence or motivation. Children and adults who learn differently aren’t lazy. Their brains are simply wired differently. This difference affects how they receive and process information. This can lead to trouble with learning new information and skills and putting them to use, the same problem businesses are facing as workers grapple with learning new information, skills and putting them to use in this new world of work. This has created a $240 billion global market for corporate training and education platforms (Josh Bersin). Begging the question, with so many resources and advanced technologies at our fingertips, why isn’t learning boosting productivity?

Simply put, a one size fits all approach to learning will not deliver the desirable outcomes to increase productivity. Everyone learns and retains information differently. Technology continues to evolve to make learning in the flow of work. The next iteration is for leaders to advocate and design work so that it integrates (without penalizing) different learning styles, requiring an organizational mindset shift. For example, observing my kids over the years, I’ve learned that Ethan is mostly a visual learner, learning is retained with simple one step directives, lots of pictures, practice, and gummy bears being his preferred reward. An avid reader, he naturally gravitates to short stories and books. Aaron on the other hand is capable of handling multiple directives, reads long stories, and requires some visuals for context, no reward needed – he is a teacher’s dream. Requiring Ethan to read long stories along with Aaron has proven to be non-beneficial. Similarly, in business, the expectation that all workers have access to the same information and therefore, should learn the same has proven to be non-beneficial, creating a multibillion-dollar industry aiming to crack the code on how to reach each learner.

Corporate learning is being continuously reimagined. Learning in the flow of work as coined by Josh Bersin has become wildly popular, and lots of companies have designed learning so that workers have information anytime, anywhere. Advanced technologies have also made this shift possible. This is a giant step in the right direction providing workers with the right information at the right time. But I’ve learned access alone is not the enabler. Access coupled with personalization are the real drivers for learning new skills and retaining and using them. Having access to a learning site/app anytime, anywhere on any smart device is good, but if the content is not designed to meet the needs of the particular person, learning is hard to achieve.

Corporate learning has gone through many iterations in how learning is designed and disseminated – it is my belief that the next wave of iteration for increased productivity is going to be personalized learning. This is backed by research. As one of my favorite thought leaders of our time, Heather McGowan, says, “the future is learning.” This makes our ability to learn the new currency for success. Therefore, in addition to providing access to learning in the flow of work, the worker’s preferred learning style must be taken into account. To move the needle in this $240 billion learning and development space, and to create real value for each learner, access and personalization need to be at the center of corporate learning strategies.