IT’S NOT TOP-DOWN, BUT A WEB OF
KNOWLEDGE-SHARING WITHIN AN ORGANIZATION.
BY MARC ROSENBERG, PH.D.
You’ve established a great e-learning program within
your organization. But that alone will not assure its
effectiveness.
You can’t just implement e-learning into an organization
that’s not ready for it, doesn’t support it, or doesn’t
have a culture based on knowledge sharing. Corporate
culture — be it good or bad — will always win out. So
e-learning professionals must build a positive learning
culture within their organizations in order to ensure
the success of their elearning strategies.
The exciting thing about a true learning culture is all
the horizontal knowledge-sharing.
It’s not top-down or bottom- up, it’s an
I-share-with-you, you share- with-me mindset. Employees
work as teams. Trainers collaborate, sales people in
different regions collaborate. Networks are built and
communication channels are established.
DEFINING A LEARNING CULTURE
A learning culture can be defined as an organization
that knows how to learn, with people who freely share
what they know and are willing to change based on the
acquisition of new knowledge.
Certainly, one of the most important elements of a
learning culture are high quality, sound learning
programs that are evaluated not only for their
effectiveness but also for their potential for really
making a difference. That kind of corporate appraisal is
a self-check on the quality of the program and whether
it’s being endorsed and supported.
Organizations that simply release large catalogs of
training courses without consulting their clients or
assessing their unique needs exhibit more of a course
culture — the more courses, the better — than a learning
culture. Trainers that are satisfied simply to publish a
large e-learning course catalog, and not much more, will
be less likely too be seen as business problem-solvers.
Another indication of a good learning culture is senior
management support — and I’m not just talking about
words, but long-term funding. For learning to take root,
senior managers must do more than just endorse learning;
they must embrace it and become users themselves. This
will make them good role models for the rest of the
organization.
Good learning culture requires an investment in good
learning measurement and evaluation. It’s critical to
show that learning makes a difference and that its
benefits are not simply conjecture. Some organizations
that are just focused on design and delivery tend to
miss out on the front end (needs assessment) and the
back end (evaluation), which are very culturally
specific.
Good learning culture gets out of the classroom and out
of the instructional mode to become involved in the
workplace. If employees get two or three weeks of
training a year, that’s pretty good. But what are they
doing for the other 48, 49 or 50 weeks? They didn’t stop
learning; they’re learning on the job. So the ease by
which employees access information, form communities of
practice, and use performance support to learn and
improve their performance in the workplace is a sign of
a good learning culture.
Another aspect of a learning culture is how well and how
thoroughly we integrate front-line supervisors into our
learning strategy. Do they approve whatever training the
employees request but not pay any attention to outcomes,
or are they integrally involved in developing their
people?
Then there’s the whole performance appraisal and
performance review system. To what extent is learning
really incorporated and embellished, and to what extent
are employees encouraged in the review process to teach
one another and share their knowledge? This is where it
becomes very important to review not just whether the
employee took the requisite number of hours or the
requisite number of courses. That becomes very
mechanical. Employees — managers especially — have to be
evaluated on their coaching and support for learning.
Managers must presume that energy comes in large part
from learning and growing. They must really think about
their own “learning quotient” (their interest in, and
capacity for, learning new things) and the learning
quotient of their employees.
Also, a learning culture cannot encourage knowledge
hoarding, but rather knowledge sharing. If I know that
I’m going to be rated on what I know, why would I share
information with someone else — which would give them an
advantage in the appraisal system, especially with
companies that rate on a curve? If I come up with a
brilliant idea and share it with everybody, I should get
credit for sharing it, even though the idea then would
not be to my exclusive benefit. The design of a
performance appraisal system has to balance any kind of
required rating and ranking with criteria that focuses
on knowledge-sharing, learning and teamwork.
BENEFITS
>>With
a good learning culture in place, the first apparent
benefits are
higher employee satisfaction,
morale and — probably — retention. Employees are more
motivated and more inclined to do a good job when they
feel their ideas are heard, when they can share and be
recognized for what they know, when other people are
available to help them, when they learn from mistakes
rather than being punished.
>>A
company with a good learning culture tends to
surface ideas
more efficiently. Employees are not hesitant to come up
with ideas for fear that they’ll be shot down. The
simplest example of a learning culture is the old
suggestion box.When management ignores suggestions, they
are discouraging employee participation. But when
management welcomes ideas, the culture changes and even
more ideas are generated.
>>Another
benefit of a good learning culture is
reduction of redundancies.
If two people or teams are working on the same type of
project in different parts of the business, a good
learning culture might expose those people to each
other, thereby combining resources and ideas to
eliminate the redundancies and concentrate more
creativity and brainpower on the critical needs at hand.
>>A
good learning culture has the potential to yield an
improved reputation
in the business community for the organization itself,
plus a better value proposition for that organization’s
training department.
>>Finally,
a good learning culture will integrate a company’s
talent management
strategy. Learning will not be separated from
incentives, rewards, pay, working conditions, tools,
recruiting, selection, retention, selection, and
long-term employee support. All of those factors seem to
be merging in the business community, and without a
learning culture you have a big gap in your talent
management strategy.
STARTING FROM SCRATCH
You
can’t turn around an organization — or its learning
culture — overnight. You have to start developing the
culture where employees are more apt to be supportive of
learning. There may be groups of people who are too
autocratic and too top-down oriented for a true learning
culture, so I would start by looking for opportunities
where people are more inclined to build this kind of a
culture — even if it’s in a small part of the business
—and showcase it. Let everybody else see the benefits.
If you are thinking about significantly increasing the
level of technology in your overall learning strategy,
one of the initial problems you may encounter is the
differences in the levels of computer savviness among
employees. Some people are more comfortable and some
less. The more computer technology is imbedded into
their work, the more comfortable they will be in using
it to learn. So we have to take special care in helping
develop these skills and a comfort level. Over time,
that usually works out, especially if you design the
interfaces and technology right.
Building a learning culture will become more and more a
key skill area for top managers. You can’t do it for
them, but you can help them do it. If a key manager is
not inclined to working in this area, there may be
others who are, which gets back to choosing the right
projects, because you have to find a place to
demonstrate value, and then it’ll take off. But
certainly, everyone can benefit from analyzing what your
cultural situation is and whether the training function
is even organized right and sending the right messages.
All the well-best, well-intentioned, well-designed
learning and training programs run great risks of
failure of they’re implemented in a lousy learning
culture. It’s a two-pronged attack: create the best,
most valuable programs, both in the classroom and in the
workplace; and get the organization to value learning as
a strategic initiative. That’s the learning culture
imperative, as important — if not more so — as anything
else we do in our field.
—Marc Rosenberg, Ph.D., is a management consultant and
expert in training, organizational learning, e-learning,
knowledge management and performance improvement. He is
the author of the best-selling book, “Beyond E-Learning”
(Pfeiffer). For more information, visit the Website
www.marcrosenberg.com.
