Learning Culture Eats Content and Tech for Breakfast
If you want to create a solid learning culture (which many recent LinkedIn posts suggest companies do!) then you are far more likely to succeed if you give people and organisations what they need — not what they want.
Also, whether it is good or not, your organisation’s Learning Culture already exists. However, you can use great solutions and technology to direct it towards what the organisation needs.
Four tips to nourish a learning culture based on need
So here are some bits of advice to create a learning culture that’s more bespoke — that’s curious, that investigates problems before deciding on the solutions. Bespoke, people-needs-focused, and far more likely to help your learners succeed (and come back for more!).
Tip 1: Start at the top, and dig into the problem
Engage with senior management to ensure you’re addressing core challenges, aligned to business strategy or initiatives. This will allow you to create solutions that practically deliver on those challenges.
An example. Once, we at Solvd were approached and asked to deliver “Sales training” for an internal team (which we don’t do). However, during the scoping meeting with senior stakeholders, as we dug in and asked questions and explored a bit more, we discovered that the actual problem was that buyers didn’t know about the products. This was compounded by the company’s resellers not knowing how correctly help buyers choose the right products (or even speak to the client about the problems the product solves).
So we got interested, and decided to work with them. We designed a combined information campaign and experience-based solution that engaged and connected the two audiences (but not the internal training team).
When ready, we helped the internal team learn how they could better support the resellers. Essentially, we solved the problem without training, but in a way that aligned with what the company wanted to achieve.
Tip 2: The value of experience
Help people solve problems and challenges they have at work to make your solutions purposeful and helpful. Work with people to find out what challenges are causing the issues, and then craft experiences and resources that solve them.
You can also use the learners’ needs to create context/scenarios that drive the solutions. This way, you speak the learners’ language and address what they want to hear — while solving the actual problems.
For example, if you want to improve a company’s manufacturing safety leadership, don’t just tell the leaders what to do in a training programme. Instead, teach them a better process, have the leaders solve real problems with their teams to apply what they learn, and use peer coaching to provide feedback. That way, you get measurable results whilst the leaders learn.
Tip 3: Go where they are
If people are already using Teams — then use Teams. If they use an LXP, use that. Go to where people already are and where they feel comfortable. People learn best when they’re relaxed. Then create a good engagement campaign. For example, think about this in influencer terms. Find some local heroes and work together to bring the other learners with them by sharing content in places they’re already familiar with and regularly inhabit.
Tip 4: Atomic habits
Once the company knows you are addressing problems with an impact, and people know that you are helping them solve real problems, you will gain their trust.
Remember that your solutions are shifting behaviours which, over time, change the learning culture. It’s small, incremental steps, and a cultural transformation won’t happen overnight. But keep at it. As you continue to deliver solutions with impact and obvious ROI, the company will keep bringing their problems to you, and the learners will want to keep learning. This creates that healthy, hungry, tailored learning culture you were looking to grow.
Ready to rock? Grab our free guide and start nourishing a healthier learning culture
If you need (or want!) to get better at asking the questions that ensure your solutions solve real problems, or if you want ideas on how to improve the solutions you design for your people, go take a look at our free 5Di Toolkit. Friends, partners, clients, and competitors alike are all welcome to it 😊
That’s the kind of learning culture we like at Solvd.
