We have all heard of the learning formula of 70%, 20%, and 10%. 70% of learning comes from experiences, 20% of learning comes from coaches, mentors, managers, or peers, and only 10% of learning comes from reading and lecturing, or what is commonly referred to as “traditional” classroom learning. Hence why there has been more focus over the last several years to incorporate on the job learning in order to enhance people’s workplace learning and performance.
If you are not in a position to completely revamp your current learning and development curriculum to 70% experiential learning, you may want to try some of these simple strategies to help you achieve a quick lift in performance:
Performance Journaling
Keeping a Performance journal is a powerful learning tool, and if you have attended my workshops, you might already be doing this. To take it one step further, to enhance the experiential learning and that of your team members, have them revise their resumes based on what they have recorded in their journals. This is not to encourage team members to leave the organizations, but rather it acts as a way to enhance team members’ experiential learning and gives them a sense of accomplishment even if you are still using the traditional 6 months review cycle.
Debrief Meetings
A debrief meeting is a simple exercise towards improving experiential workplace learning and workplace performance. This doesn’t mean you need to debrief every project, to start, just focus on the projects that have the greatest strategic impact. The key is to create a forum for learning by having each team member share their experiences and outcomes. This will help shape action steps towards creating a human performance workplace and improve learning and team dynamics.
Coaching
Coaching and what I refer to as person-to-person learning represents 20% of our learning, however, these opportunities have a cascading effect by improving peoples experiential learning through reflective thinking. Sounds simple, but often hard to implement due to the perception that coaching and mentor programs are hard to implement and the return is not necessarily seen immediately. This is where I often recommend to my clients something I learned as a high-performance athlete, “you must learn to slow things down first in order to go faster”. So take the time to develop a coaching and mentoring program and soon you will see a workplace transform into a dynamic performance culture.
As the pace of business continues to increase more organizations are requiring a transformation towards “on the job” workplace learning and development. This can only be achieved through the consistent use of agile experiential learning and development strategies, which lead to creating a performance culture.
All the best in achieving your highest performance.
Paul
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net