Written for my work with t-three, this article takes a look at how we can make learning something that's easier and quicker to adopt into the everyday. Learning that truly blends with everything we do already.
Here's a quick look...
Learning at work is about more than the classroom. Learning at work is all about making change happen and making it stick. Making something stick means that people come back to it time and time again. Like an earworm of a song, they can’t stop thinking about it, and that persistence is what makes them actually DO something differently.
If we look at leadership development programmes, the effective ones move beyond theory and models, they move into practice almost straight away. Effective leadership development programmes teach people more than how to just think about leading well they get them doing it as well. A good leadership development programme gets people to practice these new leadership behaviours until they become habits. A great leadership development programme helps your leaders make these habits stick.
Behaviour change doesn't just happen.
Designed with the end in mind, great learning knows that the forgetting curve is real and most often, life takes over. If you want learning to stick, there are a few things you can do to increase the glue:
practice - create and protect a safe space in which everyone can practice their new skills without fear
truthful feedback - adopt robust structures of open and honest feedback, where learning from our mistakes is encouraged and we know what we can do to 'do a good job'
blend it in - learning is an everyday habit. Learning that sticks is all about marginal gains, celebrating the small and try, try, trying again.
Within my work at t-three, the methodology we use is our Provoke, Plant, Practice model. This is applied at every stage of every learning intervention. We believe that successful behaviour change is driven by a succession of nudges and practices that get us to think, reflect, redo, and keep going - all supported by the structures of teams, behaviours, values, expectations, and technology around us.
If you'd like to read the full article, please follow this link.
Samantha x