DON'T invest in learning (invest in behaviour-change instead)

I know I've written about this before, but it's important and it keeps coming up in conversations I have with L+D people so I feel it would be timely to ask a few questions about how learning in organisations is understood. As you'll know I'm a specialist in experiential approaches to learning, so I'm going to look at the subject from that perspective, but there are a few questions that need to be asked long before you decide on the style of your learning delivery, and central to those is the key question of what you want to achieve with this intervention. When clients hear that question their answer often starts with "It's obvious.....", but, believe me, it rarely is.

Once we get into that conversation, we have the opportunity to unpack some of the disconnects that exist in many organisations, in particular the strange lack of alignment between learning goals and strategic organisational goals. An organisation enacts its strategic intent through its people; this requires those people to have the capability and motivation to deliver; the purpose of any learning intervention is to build this capability and motivation in a focused way. The trouble is that learning design in many organisations is almost exclusively targeted at building capability with little attention given to empowering motivation.

One clear indication that this is happening is a set of objectives / outcomes for the intervention that is almost wholly cognitive. The question that drives the design here is "What do I want this population to be able to do as a result of this training?", and that, on the face of it is a perfectly valid question. However, I'm always drawn to shorten that question and suggest "What do I want this population to do as a result of this training?". It's a very different question because it brings the motivation dimension into the equation. What we're asking here is for the designer to consider the ultimate implementation of the outcomes, what will we see the individual do differently in the workplace? Not what they might be able to do, but what you see them doing. In the best cases there is no disconnect between strategy and what L+D delivers because the behavioural change that the training produces is considered in the light of what the organisation needs these people to do differently.

It's not about the potential for change, it's actual everyday workplace changes that offer a return on L+D investment.

This is why, as early as possible in any design conversation, I shift the conversation away from cognitive outcomes and towards behavioural outcomes - I'm more interested in what people do with the learning they derive from the intervention than what they might be capable of doing. And this is a big difference because it expands the scope of the training to encompass what participants are motivated to do with their learning. If you want to know why I'm so dedicated to experiential learning approaches, it's because they offer the potential to seamlessly integrate the motivational outcomes into the learning outcomes. It's broadly called affective learning and it's hard to overstate its importance in the learning process; I consider it to be central to the internalisation of knowledge over time.  A positive emotional state in relation to any learning intervention enhances participant motivation both during and after the event - and it's after the intervention that I consider the true value of the investment. A month, six months, a year after the event are the participants still motivated to actively seek positive change in the workplace; or have they reverted to 'how they always did it'?

So, take a look at your list of desired outcomes and learning design; what is there that will deliver actual behavioural change? If it's not there then why are you suggesting this intervention? If it is there, is it ambitious enough to reflect the level of investment? Do this a number of times and you'll be amazed at how many times there's a close correlation between the desire for behavioural change and the inclusion of experiential learning content.