Marc My Words: Ten Steps to Building a Learning Culture

Alearning culture is an environment that celebrates and rewards learning,incents people to freely share what they know, and helps them to change basedon the acquisition of new skills and knowledge. We all like to think we work ina positive learning culture, but that’s not always the case.

There’sno question that learning is likely tofail if it’s poorly designed, the content is weak, or the technology doesn’twork. But learning will absolutelyfail if the culture doesn’t support it. As I mentioned in The Three Laws of eLearning Failure, when great learning comes upagainst a lousy learning culture, the culture wins every time.

Butit doesn’t have to be this way. Here are 10 key steps to building a positivelearning culture in your organization:

1. Start with leadership. Culturebegins at the top. If senior leadership doesn’t support a learning culture, noone else will. If you are looking for a breakthrough, find leaders who willinvest in and champion your efforts, even if the project is smaller, or less visibleor significant than you would like. You need some initial success stories tohelp spread your message.
2. Expand the mission.You’regoing nowhere if you simply equate learning with training. Learning—individualand organizational—is much broader than courses. Don’t make the mistake oftalking “learning” but doing only “training.” Think more about a learning and performance ecosystem than simply a course catalog, and then act accordingly.
3. Get buy-in from the front line. Ifyou want employees to learn, make sure their supervisors learn first. You can’texpect them to get behind something they don’t understand themselves. Buildsupport for learning into their appraisals and reward managers who put learningnear the top of their team’s agenda.
4. Get the content right. Puttinglots of content out there does nothing to encourage learning if the content isconfusing, inauthentic, biased, low value, hard to access, incomplete, or justplain wrong. Content curation may be the most important thing you can do.
5. Get the technology right. It’snot just about making sure the technology works, but making sure it’s the righttechnology for the right use. Be careful the technology doesn’t get in the wayof learning, or that you are not using more tech than you need. Technology isimportant; learning without technology cannot scale, but technology withoutlearning is just a “shiny object.”
6. Ensure readiness to learn. Oneof the biggest factors in fostering a poorlearning culture is providing learning programs to people who aren’t ready forthem or who don’t need them. This can be terribly demotivating. Make sure yourlearners have the right prerequisites, have clear learning goals, and haveadequate time and resources to learn, and are not wasting their time. Providethem with valued incentives to learn, and be sure you understand why they mightbe resistant to your efforts.
7. Communicate for the long term. Launchingnew learning programs can sometimes be more hype than substance. Of course youneed to promote your efforts, but be sure your communications strategies arelong-term, valuable in the learners’ eyes (“what’s in it for me”), and trulyhelps them develop their own positive affinity for the learning process itself—anaffinity that can be contagious if enough people buy into it.
8. Provide for learning transfer. Makingsure that what they learn in class they can apply at work is critical. And it’sjust not being able to do what you’ve been taught; it’s also recognizing thatwhat you’ve been taught is actually helpful to you in doing your job better andeasier. The connection between job performance and learning is a key tobuilding a sustainable learning culture.
9. Demonstrate success. Betterto have a small success than a big failure. Demonstration projects, pilots, andproof-of-concept work are all essential in building support for learning. Aswas noted in step one, culture begins at the top, but it’s also important forrank-and-file to see how the new learning programs work, and how they might benefit.Showing success is much more powerful than just talking about it.
10. Measure results and provide feedback. Youwant to measure how much is learned, but perhaps more important from a cultureperspective, you want to measure the value people attach to learning. And, ofcourse, nothing speaks louder than the positive impact learning has onindividual and organizational performance. So go beyond measuring course-levellearning. Find out the real impact of the program on participants and theorganization.

Usethese 10 steps as a checklist for your organization, if you like. How well areyou doing?

Learningfails when nobody really cares about it. You can always mandate learningprograms, or hype them incessantly, but that is not culture change. If you truly want your learning and performancestrategy to have a positive and sustainable impact—if you really want people towant to learn and the organization towant to invest in learning—you mustcreate an atmosphere of value, support, and appreciation for what you areoffering. Without it, people may just be going through the motions.