Peter Senge described a learning culture company as an “organization where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.” Nobel Prize winner James Heckman found that investing in training pays 10-20% dividends.
To create a learning culture, a company must:
- Define success, then identify outputs produced that lead to success and the tasks accomplished to produce those outputs;
- Identify the specific behaviors that you want employees to demonstrate….then help them change what they believe in order to support that behavior;
- Base hiring decisions on personality traits;
- Train to the job requirements (capabilities, competencies).
The benefits of this learning culture include:
- Agile and responsive to work requirements;
- People equipped with skills and knowledge to perform tasks that produce outcomes that ultimately achieve business goals;
- Lean and efficient learning program: focused on things needed to produce desired outputs; objective performance assessment; remediation is clear; aligns coaching; standard taxonomy across HR;
- Contextual change management – employees understand why their performance is important, how it needs to change, and what support they will have.
Does your organization have a learning culture?
