Learning is NOT the responsibility of select few in your organization

In my previous post I mentioned briefly about "Its not my fault" as a learning incapacity. In most companies that fail or do not perform as per their potential, there are enough signs available in advance that the organization is learning slowly as compared to its competitors

Pinning your hopes to select few for the collective learning of the organization is another "learning incapacity"

Who manages the learning and development of people in your organization?

Most organizations consider it the responsibility of HR or learning and development department. In a small or medium size business it’s the responsibility of the CEO or the Business owner. For, a technology company it is the responsibility of your product and innovation team? In, today’s era of fast-paced change- is it wise to rest the onus of organizational learning on the select few shoulders?

In a big organization, a program in a month seems to be the flavor, however the number of failed programs out number the successful ones. A failed program is the one which wasn’t able to bring about the change that the organization thought it would.

Too often the organizations seem to be in the action mode. Seldom people have time to reflect and identify the patterns of their behaviors that are producing sub-optimal results.

I was once working with one of my clients in retail garments business. The organization was new and keen to increase the customer footfall and therefore offered a scheme of one plus one. under this scheme the customer used to get one item free of the same MRP along with every fresh purchase. The company in its initial phase could taste success. After a certain period, the traction stopped and footfall dropped. The company again introduced a 60% flat discount offer–once again this increased footfall temporarily.

Now this is an appropriate example of a failed opportunity for collective learning and execution. The people should realize that there is a downfall of this strategy. If they continue this offer for too long, they will be considered as a “discount brand”

Instead they should have learned about the footfall pattern, the customer demographic, the product in demand, sizes, colors and so on. It’s the collective duty of everyone to contribute in the learning.

Sales teams could have spent time in stores to identify the merchandising, assess the selling skills of the store staff, train them if required and, prepare a store operational checklist.

Technology team could have analyzed the sales figure and throw insights on the product mix, price mix, color mix, high and lean footfall timings etc.

HR could have used this data to plan sessions for the store staff and finally, the managing director of the company could have adopted an inclusive approach to involve the actual store owners, and its employees and create a shared vision.

Unfortunately, nothing of that sort happened, the select few in the top management thought discount is the best option to increase footfall and kept offering it in different permutation and combination. A year down the line they were staring down the barrel, different departments were glorifying themselves and never used this opportunity to come together for collective learning, brainstorm and create strategies to increase foot fall and build a healthy bottom-line.

For organizations to succeed, learning should not confine to classrooms or online platforms. Every day is an opportunity to gather new information, synthesize, involve, brainstorm and communicate so that learning becomes a habit.