Reframing mindsets and language use

How shifting mindsets can help to re-frame learning within your business

How many times have you heard a phrase similar to “L&D aren’t great at [insert something here]” or “L&D don’t focus on [X] enough”? I imagine it’s quite often. We’re all guilty of collectively grouping the whole of L&D together to moan about what hasn’t changed over the past decade.?

Let me provide you with a recent example of where I saw this in action.

Using statistics to tell a story

Fosway have been releasing excerpts from their Digital learning realities report over the past year, and Learning News most recently spotlighted the ‘L&D priorities’ section, which talks about what has shifted or changed over the past year. The most interesting thing to note here was that skills have knocked compliance off the priorities top spot for the first time ever. Which is hugely positive, because it indicates a bigger shift is happening.

I watched David Perring’ s analysis of why this might be on the Learning News channel, where he stated:?

“Most L&D teams don’t believe that their learning strategy is very effective in developing people skills. Only 17% would say that they are very effective.” - David Perring, Chief Insights Officer, Fosway

What this statement sparked me to do was investigate how the other 83% of respondents had replied to the question: “How effective is your learning strategy at delivering the following: Upskilling and reskilling?” It turns out that 64% of L&D teams actually think they’re ‘quite effective’ at delivering against it.

Now if we change David’s quote and reframe it against this stat:?

“64% of L&D teams believe that their learning strategy is quite effective in developing people skills.”

What we end up with is a much more positive outlook or L&D.?

The language use of ‘very’ and ‘quite’ on the question is so subjective here that it’s impossible to tell what they mean, and whether the teams who answered were being humble, or were guilty of thinking “but there’s so much more I could do…”.

Either way, stats can be used to reinforce the message that we want to convey. And whilst I think it’s true that many L&D teams are not approaching skills as effectively as they could, there are also many teams who are well on their way towards being skills-based organisations.

So the first thing to think about here is: How does the language we use to talk about the state of our industry become a self-fulfilling prophecy in the industry itself?

Secondly, let’s take a look at learning mindsets.

Learning Mindsets

In a recent reflection of the first day of the LPI’s Learning Live event, Martin Couzins pondered on the fact that ‘time’ is still named as the number one barrier L&D cite when discussing the challenges or barriers to learning within their organisations (referring specifically to Deloitte’s culture in this instance). When I was reading it, I was reminded of the phrase: people make time for the things they care about, and wondered how much of what is being asked of people when it comes to ‘learning’ falls into this category. Something we see Nick Shackleton-Jones talking about regularly.?

However, beyond that, it also got me thinking about what the broad perception of ‘learning’ is that people (within Deloitte in this example) have. Because if “time for learning” is given as an option on a survey people will likely think “yeah I haven’t had time to sit down and attend a training session or complete a course so therefore I must not have time to learn” rather than something like “actually I’m constantly learning and adapting”.?

And this is a mindset shift that’s needed, not a time problem.

I always go back to the example of a new starter in an organisation. The learning that happens here is as ‘on the job’ as you can get: watching, listening, observing, questioning, doing, practising! You have to learn because if you don’t, you won’t have a job for long. But in reality, this continues in your role as you encounter new tasks or challenges, and apply what you have absorbed in very specific ways. But it always has to relate to you as an individual and what you’re trying to achieve in your role or career.

So the second thing to think about here is: How can we help to shift mindsets about what learning is or can be for people within our organisations?

To wrap it up?

?I’m curious.?

How are you framing ‘learning’ within your organisations? Is it something that is done to you - at a specified date and time? Or is it something wider than that, which you’re taking responsibility for??

And are you guilty of focusing on what could be done better, rather than what has already been achieved? And how can you re-frame this thinking?

If you’re interested in finding out more about how Thrive can help you shift your learning culture, book in for a demo.