The Power of Social Learning

Humans are the most powerful species on the planet. Why is that? Is it thanks to our vast intellect or collection of superior skills? Perhaps our ability to face obstacles bravely and seek out adventure?

While all of these factors play a role in our success, there is one that trumps them all — social learning.

Social learning is the process of acquiring knowledge or skills by observing and imitating others. It’s how we learn to speak, walk, and behave like those around us. And it’s by far one of the most critical aspects of our lives.

Think about it — most of what we know comes from observing others and imitating their behavior.

We learn how to speak by listening to our parents and repeating the sounds they make. We learn how to walk by watching them take steps and then copying their movements. And we learn how to behave by observing the social cues they give us.

Social learning has led to many of today’s most significant innovations. Boeing took the inspiring work of the Wright brothers and developed it into a global industry. Steve Jobs revolutionized global communications (and community) by building on world-changing ideas from Alexander Graham Bell and others.

Social learning allows us to move ahead without starting from scratch over and over again. By looking to the role models who have come before us, we can learn from their successes and failures and build on their progress. We can upskill our existing workforce, create new opportunities for those who are willing to learn and drive innovation in our economy.

It’s all about learning from other humans, based on human experience, together with other humans.

Social Learning in the Modern Workplace

While social learning has resulted in many of the world’s most significant innovations, it is also playing a critical role in the modern workplace.

Every day stellar leaders and colleagues are retiring from the workforce. In their place, fresh graduates come onboard with little to no experience in how to write emails or host meetings. Yet we all seek for ways to make our workplace more innovative, efficient, and profitable.

If we follow the concept of social learning, then it should be true that all the data and guidance that someone needs to be successful at work is readily available. Online courses and e-learning platforms allow employees to learn new skills at their own pace. But these traditional methods of learning can be quite isolating, and are proven to be far from as effective as social learning is with knowledge retention rates of only about 10 % compared to 85 % in social learning.

Social learning fills in the gap that mere information dumps leave behind. When individuals have access to the right mentors and influencers, they can quickly develop the skills they need to be successful.

But it starts with understanding the underlying forces of social learning and how it works best in a business setting. Let’s dive into the three primary forces powering successful social learning in the workplace.

The 3 Forces of Social Learning

When it comes to social learning in the workplace, there are three key forces at play:

1. Learning from Others

2. Role Models

3. Social Technology

These three forces work together to create an environment where social learning can thrive. Let’s take a closer look at each one.

1. The Power of Learning from Others

One of the most significant workplace learning methods is learning from others with a shared experience.

When individuals have the opportunity to learn from those who have gone before them, they can develop the skills they need to be successful more quickly. They can avoid making mistakes that have already been made and focus on the things that matter.

In his work, The Social Learning Theory, Albert Bandura posits that “most human behaviour is learned observationally through modeling from others.” From observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviours are performed, and on later occasions, this coded information serves as a guide for action.

Think of the famed 70/20/10 model of learning. In this model, knowledge comes from three sources — 70% from challenging assignments on the job, 20% from exposure, observations and social interactions with others, and 10% from formal educational experiences.

Learning through modeling from others does not only include watching another person engaging in an activity but also hearing verbal instructions, listening to other people’s experiences, reading, and even watching the actions of characters in books and films.

Cross-training is an excellent example of learning from others. When new employees are paired with more experienced staff, they have the opportunity to learn the ropes and develop their skills more quickly.

Mentorship programs are another great way to harness the power of social learning. By pairing up new employees with mentors, they can get one-on-one guidance and learn the ropes more quickly.

2. The Power of Role Models

Learning from others isn’t the only way social learning is possible in the workplace. It can also occur when individuals have the opportunity to learn from role models.

Role models are people who we admire and look up to. They possess the qualities that we want to develop in ourselves. Seeing these people behaving in a certain way gives us a reference point for how we should behave.

According to The Motivational Theory of Role Models, a role model serves three distinct functions influencing goals and motivation: acting as behavioural models, representing the possible, and being inspirational.

We can think of role models in three recurring and interrelated themes:

1. Role models show us how to perform a skill and achieve a goal: They are behavioural models. They show ‘how’ someone can do something. The role model demonstrates how to achieve the goal. This isn’t just for behaviour, but also for cognitive and emotional strategies that the role model uses to achieve success.

2. Role models show us that it is possible to achieve our goals: They are living examples of what is possible. This is critical for children and adults alike. We need to see proof that it can be done to have hope that we can achieve it too.

3. Role models make a goal desirable: They are inspirational. They make us want to achieve the goal because we admire them and their accomplishments. We want to be like them because we see how their outcomes have impacted their life and legacy.

Role models are more powerful the more they embody a person’s already existing goals. A role model needs to showcase success in the environments the aspirant is operating in to be highly effective. This can include having skills and competencies the aspirant is trying to build and achieving goals the aspirant is aspiring toward.

In short, a role model is someone who’s been there, done that — and done it well.

Interestingly, for role models to succeed in being inspirational, they also need to be seen as someone the aspirant can identify with.

If the role model is seen as someone too far away from the aspirant’s own environment, identity and values, the role model will be seen as unattainable and not inspirational by the aspirant.

Important to note is also that once goals have changed, it might well be that a new role model is needed — a role model who embodies these new goals. This is why a single mentor throughout your career may not be as effective as having access to various role models across your different life goals.

3. The Power of Social Technology

The third force in social learning is social technology.

Social technology encompasses a wide range of tools that facilitate communication and collaboration. This includes everything from social media platforms like TikTok and Twitter to video conferencing software like Microsoft Teams and Zoom.

Consider that the average person spends 2 hours and 27 minutes daily on social media. What keeps them coming back day after day?

One of the key reasons is that social media provides us with a constant stream of information. We can learn about what’s happening in the world, connect with friends and family, and find new things to be interested in — all from the comfort of our homes.

But social media isn’t just a time sink. You can also use it for learning.

In fact, social media is one of the most powerful learning tools at our disposal. Why? Because it allows us to connect with other people and learn from them.

Think about it: when you have a question, who do you ask? Most likely, you’ll turn to Google or another search engine. But if you can’t find the answer you’re looking for, you might ask a friend or family member.

And that’s exactly what social media does. It gives us access to a huge network of people who we can learn from.

We all know you can use these technologies with bad intentions too. Still, taken into a learning context, they can remarkably impact building habits and learning new skills together with others.

Part of the potential within social technology is the connection between dopamine and learning. Likes, comments, mentions, and push notifications generate a dopamine rush that hooks people to their accounts.

This is observable in social media usage: when an individual gets a notification, such as a like or mention, the brain receives a rush of dopamine and sends it along reward pathways, causing the individual to feel pleasure.

So how can this work in social learning in the workplace?

Nudging people to learn and share others’ experiences can produce dopamine rewards. So turn that into practical social learning experiences!

Leveraging gamification such as streaks to help people build a sustainable habit of learning and stay on track with their professional development, daily or weekly instead of the ad-hoc training session once a quarter.

It has been reported that self-disclosure on social networking sites lights up the same part of the brain that also ignites when taking an addictive substance. When people share their knowledge and experiences on social learning platforms, the same brain reward centers activate as when people talk about themselves in person.

But what about the drawbacks of social technology?

Social media use becomes problematic when someone views social networking sites as an essential coping mechanism to relieve stress, loneliness, or depression. Social media use provides these individuals with continuous rewards that they’re not receiving in real life, so they engage more in the activity.

On the contrary, rewards received through social learning are more ‘real’ as you’re actually developing professionally and can apply the skills and knowledge you’ve learnt through the platform behaviours.

Humans have a massive desire for social validation and a “fear of missing out” (FOMO). Fearing missing out on what your colleagues are sharing and talking about can lead to more learning, and you end up learning more because you want to stay up to date.

This is a downside of other digital learning modes — you have no incentive to stay up to date with a video learning platform where you’re all alone on your own.

Put the Power of Social Learning to Work

Taking the three forces together, we can see the immense power of social learning. When used effectively, you can leverage social technology to help people learn directly from role models together with others.

When we share our knowledge and experiences with others, we not only help them learn, but we also get a dopamine rush that reinforces our own learning.

Social learning is how we’ve learnt for centuries and generations and is the reason we have phones, airplanes, and vaccines today. Why let it stop there? What if your workplace became a learning organisation that actively harnessed the power of social learning to stay ahead of the curve?

The power is in your hands. Will you use it for good?