We agree we need to change. Where do we even start?

An interview with Charles Jennings, conducted by Craig Simon.

CS: Charles, it was good to see you present at the 2024 AITD National Conference, I’ve had a number of attendees provide some very positive feedback. I have a loaded question for you; do you ever get tired of wanting to change L&D practices?

CJ: (laughs) I have a loaded question to ask back to you, Craig: Do you ever get tired of talking about things when you know, as opposed to believe, they work and make a huge positive impact on people’s experiences, whether that’s at work or in their personal lives?

CS: I can’t say I do get tired of it. I am wondering though how it is that ‘Learning and Development’ is still perceived and set up as a separate organisational functional silo as opposed to being an integral, all-encompassing part of any organisation’s performance and success, much like marketing, IT, sales or even breathing, if we want to take it to the extreme.

CJ: Historically, the notion of learning is anchored in teaching and schooling. From an early age we are taught to think learning is the same as schooling; that we need to be taught by someone, and that’s the only time we learn. Of course, that’s at the extreme end, but many L&D teams still work as if they’re teaching in school. They have curricula, or learning pathways, and courses and so on. Maybe they’ll do a few other things, but the core of their work is ‘schooling’. This approach may have served its purpose in shaping our industrialised nations in the 20^th Century, but it doesn’t work in today’s workplaces and certainly won’t work in workplaces of the future.

When we look at research data, for example some studies from The European Research Centre for Education and the Labor Market based in The Netherlands, they have found that around 96% of time spent learning occurs in the daily flow of work, while just 4% of time spent learning occurs away from the daily flow of work.

CS: That’s a staggering number but I have to wonder if L&D teams are taking advantage of that fact. What do you think?

CJ: No. Most L&D teams are focused on the 4%. Even eLearning takes people away from work; not as much as classrooms do, but due to the traditional set-up and understanding of L&D, organisations as a whole are missing out on the opportunity to realise an enormous performance and productivity boost. Both business units and L&D teams themselves are often stuck in what I call ‘the training bubble’, meaning if the focus is based on producing courses, programs, e-learning, and formal coaching to solve performance gaps, the results are likely to be sub-optimal. These may work to some extent, but they will never be enough.

The scope of change in L&D

Our work as L&D professionals is not just about learning, we need to expand our horizon. It is about helping our organisations solve problems and exploit opportunities. Learning may be one process in the solution mix, but it’s rarely the only one, and it’s not just about individual employee performance, either. It’s about the performance of teams and the organisation as a whole. In my view, one of the major challenges L&D faces is to de-focus on the individual as the core target and re-focus more holistically on helping improve performance of working teams and the organisation as a whole.

CS: That’s quite a paradigm shift. What can L&D leaders do to navigate through that shift, and how can organisations as a whole support teams for that shift to happen?

CJ: Any change one wants to embark on must start with a clear, honest analysis of the current state a team and organisation is in, to arrive at a shared understanding of what ground we can build any intended change onto. Over the past decades, we have supported hundreds of organisations through that journey, and we have a very clear understanding of the parameters we need to ascertain to get a sense of an organisation’s learning maturity level, as we call it.

‘Maturity’ can mean a lot of things. There are some good learning maturity models in use, but one simple way I look at assessing learning maturity in organisations for individuals and L&D as a whole is to determine the stage of development from a primary focus on ‘know what’ – usually taken as the essential starting point for new hires or people moving to new roles – to a more sustained focus on ‘know who’ and ‘know how’. Learning maturity can also be demonstrated by an increasing de-focus on content and the provision of more opportunities to practice and to be exposed to learning in specific work contexts, often with others.

CS: Essentially, shifting our focus to the actual problem being addressed, rather than ‘how’ we will solve the problem? Moving up and away from the classroom/content concept, towards integrated learning ecosystems?

CJ: It’s not an ‘either-or’ situation. Formal learning does have its place, but in the assessment of an organisation’s capability and willingness to open their focus towards ‘learning in-the-moment’, it’s a measurable step, yes.

CS: In your experience, how are L&D teams fairing in terms of self-assessing their maturity?

CJ: Self-assessing always has its issues! It depends on an organisation’s culture in terms of whether it’s okay to share mistakes and to learn from them, whether there is a high level of psychological safety and an openness to learn from peers and others. Sometimes, we observe the Dunning-Kruger effect kicking in, where L&D teams may overestimate their current knowledge or competence, and they self-assess with an unconscious bias. This is when we need to have the very important conversations to agree on the actual status quo, the current state, as measured on objective maturity criteria which we must define case by case in the organisation’s current context. We need to do this if we’re going to be able to decide what needs to happen to achieve higher levels of maturity and therefore better performance impact with our L&D efforts.

CS: It very much sounds like the whole team needs to be involved in this exercise, not only individuals?

CJ: Very much so, and, true to what we are willing to achieve with the notion of learning in our organisations, in our Certification Program L&D teams will have to work through specific projects, learning by doing in the workflow, to achieve the step-changes which make great L&D teams. Our goal is to shift them from order-takers to being able to provide true value to their organisations. We guide teams in doing just that, starting with case studies, before they tackle an internal project in real life to achieve the level they desire and can achieve in their context.

CS: Thanks, Charles, as always, a pleasure speaking with you, I discover a new nuance to L&D’s potential every time we do.

CJ: You’re most welcome.

This article was first published by the AITD in Training and Development Magazine, September 2024, Vol. 51, No.3.

About the Author

Craig Simon has extensive experience working across the various education sectors in K-12, Higher Ed and Enterprise Education. He has developed a broad network of contacts by working with leading companies, including Apple, Sun, PeopleSoft, and 3P Learning and with education authorities in the US, the UK and Asia. He has presented at numerous conferences across Asia, the US, the UK, and Australia. Craig currently leads Liberate Learning as General Manager, leading their 80+ strong, multi-award-winning team renowned for their cutting-edge custom learning and performance solutions.

About Charles Jennings

Charles Jennings is Liberate Learning’s Principal Strategic Consultant. As a former business school professor and chief learning officer, he’s recognised around the world as a leading thinker in innovative learning and performance approaches.

His career spans five decades and includes roles as head of the UK’s national centre for network-based learning, head of strategic technology at Dow Jones, Chief Learning Officer at Reuters, and as a member of advisory boards for international learning, performance, and business bodies. Charles has worked with the 70:20:10 model for 20+ years. This performance-centric approach is based on observations and research suggesting high performing organisations, teams, and individuals develop most of their capability by learning through workflow.