Creating a Learning Organization
Jess Ingrassellino, EdD, is the Director of Quality Engineering, Non-Profit and Education Clouds at Salesforce.
Supporting team members throughout their career journeys involves more than providing access to training or even providing great career advice. Learning experts agree that the best learning happens when peers co-create learning and meaning together. This post will explore the methods that the quality engineering team on the Non Profit and Education clouds have used to create a supportive, reciprocal peer learning culture that drives improvement and engagement.
Getting Started
Deciding to be a learning organization within Salesforce was easy, as we have so many opportunities and resources for learning! We started by getting familiar with Salesforce’s great learning resources, like Trailhead. Your company may have similar resources within an intranet, company wiki, or something else, but there are also countless sources for learning available online as well.
Once you are familiar with the resources, you can make a plan and engage your team in learning with you. There are other amazing resources for various kinds of learning and support, and they are worth investigating to meet the specific needs of your team.
As a team member, you can invite other like-minded team-members to engage with you for a group learning experience. Small, peer-led learning groups are very powerful ways to engage with new ideas and keep innovating in your team. The more skilled members of a team can be encouraged to share their knowledge, skills, and expertise with others.
As a leader, you can provide dedicated time, once or twice a month, for learning. Choose a Trailhead unit to complete, a video to watch, or an article to read, and then talk about it together. In the Quality Engineering team at the Non-Profit and Education clouds, we meet every other week to share our learnings about testing processes, as well as product changes or new features. Leaders that make regular time for team learning improve outcomes, encourage collaboration, and experience higher levels of engagement across their teams. Collaborative knowledge involves critical thinking, problem solving, and constructing new ideas together. In collaborative settings, the instructor or leader is a facilitating rather than owning the learning environment (Bruffee, 1995 cited in Sampson, Boud, Cohen & Gaynor, 1999 in Heavey, 2006).
Keeping it Going
It’s easy to start a learning community, but it’s difficult to keep one going. Try to anticipate any roadblocks that you feel your team may experience as you implement your learning program, and think of ways to plan ahead for those challenges. Some roadblocks we faced in the Quality Engineering team included scheduling issues and learners with different levels of experience. We addressed scheduling issues by recording our learning sessions and providing supporting materials following the class. We addressed the different levels of learning by differentiating available support materials and by providing a scope and description of the class so team members could make smart decisions about whether to attend based on their own needs and learning goals. Sometimes, we had scheduled time but no class topic ready to present. We have used this time to lead candid discussions about learning and applying class concepts in our day-to-day work.
To foster engagement, invite class topic suggestions from the entire team. When you have a more mature team-learning program in place, you can even open it up to other groups. For example, the Salesforce.org NGO and EDU Quality team regularly invites members of our broader organization (dev, product, docs, Customer Centric Engineering) to present classes or lead discussions with our team. We break down silos and recognize that we work better when we learn together.
Peer Led Team Learning strategies can also offer equity to participants who may not feel comfortable engaging in other ways. Studies have shown that Peer Led Team Learning helps close the achievement gap by providing a means to create equity in opportunity to access educational resources and participate in educational programs (Wilson & Varma-Nelson).
Every team member has something valuable to contribute and can be encouraged to develop confidence and deepen their content knowledge through co-teaching a class with you or a colleague. The key here is to be intentional. Ask directly for input from the subject matter experts on your team, and directly invite participation from people who may not volunteer otherwise. Create opportunities for your team to thrive and participate in your learning community.
Outcomes
So, why do all of this work? What’s in it for you, your team, and your company? Good question! As it happens, there has been a lot of research about the positive outcomes that peer learning and learning communities can have on individuals and teams. These outcomes extend beyond the specific material reviewed in a session, into formal and informal professional development.
So what great things can happen for you if you implement peer learning? Some key outcomes include:
- Those in the “teaching” role increase confidence in their own knowledge and in fact cement that knowledge by explaining to others.
- Multiple perspectives in the class environment lead to a nuanced understanding of any topic under discussion.
- A peer education program encourages the team to invest in their own professional development through formal and informal practices.
- Every team member has an opportunity to develop and practice interpersonal communication skills in a safe space.
- The opportunity can be used to align to, and reach your business goals.
Try it!
I encourage you to try building an internal learning community soon! You can use the resources provided in this article, and continue your research to refine your team-learning approach. Please reach out with any questions, comments, or ideas you have if you would like assistance creating and running a learning community within your organization.
