IF INTERESTED #174: Learning

hi,

Recently I have been to an event by Pluralsight in London. In my recent companies, we use Pluralsight as a source of online upskilling, mostly on technical (software development, cloud, etc) skills. However, I don’t want to limit their definition only to an online training provider. They are redefining their product areas. This issue of IF INTERESTED is not sponsored by them, and I don’t have any commercial or other gain from mentioning their name. However, meeting their leadership team, and seeing their new product portfolio, I was impressed, and decided to convert my thoughts to an IF INTERESTED issue. In a way, they inspired me to write this issue.

There are select activities like Bootcamps and Field Employee Learning Campaigns (product-specific short programs for sales teams) that have created a lot of value, but corporate learning activities including leadership development have mostly fallen short of delivering expected impacts. One of the main reasons is that the need for and importance of learning and upskilling increased exponentially, but the learning solutions haven’t evolved at a similar pace, even though learning tech has. Here is my learning tech stack IF INTERESTED issue.

The underlying reasons are complex, as it is with everything human behaviour related. Learning happens given the right cognitive space, work context, good content, good platform and right channel. Having them all in place is difficult. I will cover three headings, with hopes to start more informed conversations; the Future of Learning, Learning Protocols and Learning Modes.

1. Future of Learning:

   Leaving this topic to another IF INTERESTED issue for a deep dive, I only will discuss the two headings that learning should focus on:

   1. Content Curation

      There is endless amount of content in the market for every skill. A short look to LinkedIn learning, Udemy and similar platforms will overwhelm anyone. Just like Youtube, or the Internet in general. Curation of good content, that is specific to the learning need, through the right channel, will be the most important aspect of good learning departments. This will be through communities, thought leaders and learning influencers with the help of advanced suggestion algorithms, customised to personal skill level and learning pace. It’s a vast topic that I hope to discuss in another issue.

   2. Content Creation

      Every organisation has an enormous amount of valuable information and accumulated experience with its employees. To “unleash” that information, and make it available at scale to all employees across the organisation will create immense value. Information Elaboration is a critical competitive advantage. Imagine a platform providing the means to get the knowledge out to the organisation through a great podcast studio, a good moderator and an algorithm that dissects and tags information correctly. Imagine instead of watching 87 minutes of boring powerpoint slide show recordings, you can have content tagged and professionally moderated and create a forum of knowledge sharing right there in the platform. Wouldn't that be powerful.

      More to come on this topic in future issues.

2. Learning protocols.

   I will just direct you to the source of knowledge for this topic. Andrew Huberman mentioned those protocols in two different podcasts of his, and here is the article. The human brain is complex until we figure it out. Once we crack how it works, it is easy to hack it (ask TikTok), so Huberman Lab gives short protocols to maximise learning. Adrenalin with a rightly-timed nap and rightly-timed coffee seem critical, without giving too many spoilers : ). Check out the article.

3. Learning Modes:

   If we can identify different learning modes, we can have better solutions for each mode. Here are the three main modes that I have identified in organisations:

   1. To overcome a daily work challenge

   2. Skill development

   3. Learning a completely new capability set

   Those three different learning modes require different mix of learning methodologies.

   a. Daily work challenges:

   These are the short learnings during the day when we have encountered something we don’t know or a tactical / operational problem. Typically a learning time of a few minutes to an hour. Just like (or very much like) Googling something that you don’t know. During the 2010s, a different version of this was called “micro-learning” but never took off.

   The on-the-spot availability of material is critical for this type of learning. Usually it is a more experienced co-worker that gives the answer. If that’s the mostly the case, then your organisation probably doesn’t have a decent knowledge management system in place. Github or Stack Overflow are great examples of this type of learning.

   b. Skill Development:

   This is a more time and cognitive energy consuming learning. It is mostly about learning an adjacent skill to the ones you have or advancing one of your skills. Typical examples can be for developers to learn a new coding language that is the evolved version of what they know. Or learning to use Salesforce, after using the legacy platform of your small company. These are longer time period learnings, can be from 2-3 hours to a few days or weeks. The main difference is the learning content and methodology has to be more structured / sequential and at the same time learning must include practice. A combination of online, tutor-led and some supervised practice gives the best result.

   c. New set of capability or Role:

   This type of learning includes a set of new skills which comes with new tasks to be performed in a new context. The typical learning timeframe is 6-9 months. For example, a first real leadership role, a function change from finance to sales, or a technical pivot from a front-end developer to cloud architect are some examples.

   The main differentiator from the two above learnings is apprenticeship. The best way to structure a learning is starting with a formal training, followed by a project assignment with 30% of the work-time under supervision and mentorship of a good teacher. Talent marketplace platforms like Gloat are great tools to enable that project assignment and apprenticeship.

   Learning in the flow of work is a good concept, that requires some more evolution, but here is a good podcast with Bob Mosher. Josh Bersin also frequently mentions the term, but Bob explains better.