The truth is - talent and team learning can ensure your organization's survival

A book review by Allison Constantino

Continuous & Embedded Learning for Organizations

By Jon M. Quigley and Shawn P. Quigley

In today’s competitive corporate environment, if you’re standing still, you’re losing ground! Success today does not guarantee success tomorrow.

How does any organization stay ahead of the competition? What steps can ensure an organization’s bright, long, prosperous future?

This book is like being thrown a floatation device when you’re drowning!

The authors identify complex learning topics that can be turned into behaviors embedded into daily work habits.

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, states, “Habits are mental shortcuts learned from experience. In a sense, a habit is just a memory of the steps you previously followed to solve a problem in the past.” “The primary reason the brain remembers the past is to better predict what will work in the future.”

“For an organization to be an effective global competitor, it will require constant learning by the individual team members that enable the organization to become increasingly competent and efficient and able to discover new opportunities and effectively take advantage of these. This ultimately requires more than the individual to learn, but team learning, and learning that spreads through the organization.”

“A learning organization neither waits for an issue to implement change nor wastes an opportunity for change even during a change itself.” “…the cycle of learning and action is consistent and part of the organization’s structure itself.”

The authors state, “This book provides an overview of the many systems, both social and technical, required to create a learning organization, as well as ways to capture and propagate learning throughout the organization. The longevity of the organization depends upon the ability of that organization to learn and propagate that learning throughout the organization.”

“This book also explores the difference between learning and knowledge and how these two different mindsets are commonly misunderstood. This approach is instrumental in knowing what, when, where, why, and how to plan and execute a plan for motivating your personnel, developing your organization, and using your project to obtain both.”

“Learning is how we gain knowledge, and that knowledge is the logical application of what we have learned.” “While most organizations understand that in today’s environment, change is inevitable, they do not relate this change to what is being learned or the need for learning, but to what new technology is available. Technology is not necessarily the savior of the organization. Organizational development is a manner to bring about planned change.”

“Tools are not the savior of the organization; it is the talent.”

“While we know from years of experience working as team members and team leaders, one size does not fit all and must be tailored to not only the people but the organization and the project, that is why the approach is to show opportunities and allow you to determine the when and how of the application.”

Organizations pride themselves on their mission or vision statements, but are they relevant?

 “We have all been part of organizations that have a mission or vision statement that says its people or innovation, or some other catchphrase, are key to their success, but when you delve into how these actually stack up in what and how the organizations run they are but curtains on a broken window: look nice but have little to do with how the organization operates.”

The authors state, “We are believers that embedding development: personnel and organizational, into everyday processes, in project plans and aligning this development with the mission or vision statement of the organization will reduce the chance of these items being reduced or even stopped during times of need.”

“To remain relevant, the organization must constantly work to understand and adapt to the external environment as well as improve the internal environment.”

The authors reference one of my favorite TV series, Airplane Disasters, broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel.

The relevancy of Airplane Disasters to organizational disasters is the same. When airplanes or organizations crash, the reasons are complex. There is usually more than one thing that brings down the plane or organization!

We tend to jump to conclusions about the failures. “It is seldom the first thing we think is in fact, the problem. There is also a significant chance that the root cause is not, in fact, a single thing, and very likely not the single thing we may immediately believe to the problem often based upon biases and experiences.”

“There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience, and that is not learning from experience.”

“Learning provides the mechanism for improvement. We learn what does not work; we explore to find what may work and experiment to ascertain what will work. We work to understand those things that limit our performance, hindering us from the objectives we wish to achieve, and then work with our team members to devise potential solutions to overcome these limitations, then experiment with potential solutions, learning along the way.”

“Most organizations fail to exploit their lessons learned because their focus is on the now instead of the long term.”

“Each failure, each success provides us with an opportunity to learn. If we take and maximize that opportunity (spread throughout the organization), we become stronger as an organization. We learn more as a group about what works and what does not work. This is helpful for the product and for the project, but we must pay attention to what is going on and listen to those that have learned lessons that we have not yet learned, as well as teach lessons to those who have not learned. Student and teacher are one and the same.”

“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.”

“Many people may consider change as something that occurs only when something happens to cause it or when a new plan or process is enacted. However, change is always occurring even when there is no visible cause (issue or accident) or even a plan for it.”

The authors state, “…plan for an opportunity rather than react to a situation.”

“In 1948, 3M introduced a unique program that quickly became one of the signature elements of the company’s reputation for innovation. The 15% program, which continues today, allows employees to dedicate up to six hours a week to their own projects, to range beyond the responsibilities of their job, hatch their own ideas, and see what can become of them. The program is a perk that delivers benefits both to the individual and the company. Among other innovations, the company attributes the invention of Post-it Brand notes to 15% time.

“Understanding what works well or the strength of the company is like discovering gold nuggets. These are the areas that can propel the organization to truly new heights. When we see what works, we can work to move these things that work in one location for consideration to other parts of the organization.”

This book provides organizations with a step-by-step embedded learning plan tailored to their specific needs for their immediate and long-term success.

During a recent team-building event at work, I had the opportunity to share some of the book’s examples of how teams can be made stronger. The stories popped into my mind because they were relevant to the situation.

Isn’t that the litmus test of any book? Can you use what you know?

Yes! I was able to use some of my new-found knowledge and share these nuggets of relevant information with my team of co-workers!