When you ask any team member, how often you learn, the response is rarely or occasionally. Learning as normally understood is when you take a course or attend some training program.
For most of us, learning is something that we learn formally. something that is structured, scheduled delivered by experts many times owned by the company. However, there is a golden opportunity to learn that is not realised as such and may be missed out totally as it is neither formal nor structured.
Learning in the flow of work – where learning happens as you do the work and as part of the daily work is essential. Failure to do this would lead to many challenges for the organisation going forward. When team members do not find ways to learn as they work, they are only limiting themselves and reducing their response to changes in the marketplace.
Once team members learn to incorporate learning into their daily work, it becomes part of their daily routines and becomes part of the way work needs to be done.
3 principles of Learning in the Flow of Work
- Learning becomes integrated: We started on work after learning how to do it well. Learning can also be done on the job itself. It is not something that you schedule. You learn it as you start doing it. The focus is on learning from meetings, projects and work that is part of your job.
- Learning is active: To help learn in the flow, members should be proactive and have the basic skills to learn in the flow. It requires continuous action by the team members.
- Learning is routine: When you start learning in the flow and do it consistently, it becomes part of your routine. Learning should be a collective responsibility, where every team member can learn in the flow, share knowledge and help other team members learn.
Help teams learn in the flow.
- Mistakes: When mistakes happen, we focus on finding solutions quickly and miss out on learnings from them. These are opportunities to learn in the flow and must be understood seize the moment and ask ourselves – what can we learn from it?
- Spotting strengths: Feedback sessions can be a powerful occasion to learn from others. Team meetings can include time for feedback and the possible learnings from it. Feedback can be grouped into “what worked well” and “What would have worked better” to help team members learn from the work that is being done. Team leaders can pinpoint things that are going well and motivate the members and increase their confidence.
- Prototypes & Pilots: Experimenting is a good example of learning in the flow. Team members can pitch their ideas and get the approval of the team leader to experiment. Prototype help in giving shape to ideas and visualise how the product would look in real life. Pilots test the idea in a real environment. Team leaders should encourage members to experiment and take their ideas to reality and see how it works in practice.
learning at work is fundamental and we should incorporate this in our daily routine. Learning should not be an add-on, not necessarily scheduled, formal or structured. Learning at work should become part of the way we work and this would make work fun and at the same time a learning platform.
How to Help Your Team Learn in the Flow of Work
by Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis
HBRH 2023/02
R2G 