Don’t Mistake Training For Learning

Most organizations are running in place on a talent treadmill. They’ve been struggling for several years just to find enough “warm bodies,” with more than 10 million job openings consistently available, month after month, in the United States alone.

What organizations really need today—not next month or next year—is an uptick in talent with 21^st century skills, as digital technology, AI, analytics, robotics, climate, energy, sustainability and other forces reshape the way we live and work.

The default solution to the mismatch between the skill level of current employees and the talent employers need is training. But recall your most-recent training experience: How did that work out?

Companies spend billions each year on training. The most-recent statistics I could find, from 2020, peg total global spending on employee training at $358 billion and in North America at $194 billion. That was for 2019. Training magazine’s 2022 Training Industry Report, published last November, estimates U.S. training expenditures at more than $100 billion annually. Whatever the exact figures, we’re talking about a lot of money. And most of it likely was wasted.

Just think about it. When was the last time you mastered a new skill either at work (how to use Slack, Trello or Jira, for example) or at home (how to make sourdough bread or play Catan, the popular strategy board game, also known as The Settlers of Catan)?

Did you attend an in-house training class, participate in a Zoom webinar, or schlepp yourself off to a three-day immersive training retreat?

Maybe you did. But more likely than not, you did none of those things—you probably worked things out by getting someone who really knows the ins and outs of breadmaking, or the Slack app, to sit down with you one-on-one, explain how it works, show you how it works, and watch you as you tried to work it out. And then, duly motivated, you jumped into the maelstrom and started doing it yourself, regularly. And now you’re able to teach others.

So, the question leaders should be asking is what does this mean for their organizations’ training programs? Are they a costly throwback to an institutional culture that no longer exists? Should they be scrapped and replaced with coaching and structured practice exercises?

The short answer is no. While training and learning are not the same, they are complementary processes that involve the same organ—your brain.

Think of the process as a pyramid of sorts.

(1) The top represents the skill you seek to build or enhance.

(2) Immediately below that are the learning tools: day-to-day practices that will help employees develop the desired skills. It’s important to work these exercises into their daily routines and rhythms, including time for feedback and reflection.

(3) Now you’re ready to design a training program to get them started. What motivation do they need to learn this skill? What additional knowledge or tools do they need to start working in the new ways? How can you jump start the learning process—perhaps with several cycles of practice and coaching—during the training itself?

(4) At the base is what I described earlier as jumping into the maelstrom: putting what they learned into practice in their daily work, which might even involve switching jobs to get the needed experience under fire. Most people realize that the best way to learn is by doing.

Zoom was new to many of us when the pandemic began. Today doing a Zoom call is about as automatic a process as operating a TV remote. We jumped in. We did it; repeat; repeat again. Learning by doing, we eventually discovered—and became comfortable with—many of Zoom’s more-advanced capabilities, such as the ability to create break-out rooms and conduct polls.

Ditto Slack, Trello, Jira. I started using Slack about five years ago when some colleagues started using it to coordinate travel logistics and share other information. I asked a younger colleague for help to get me started. I was quickly hooked—not only because it kept me in touch with team members, but it reduced the flow of email that used to clog my inbox.

The same thing happened when my children started playing Settlers of Catan, which seemed overwhelmingly complicated. But my husband read the manual, watched them play, and taught himself how to do it. Then he taught me. We play several times a weekend.

My point is that proficiency takes motivation on the part of the learner, a coach to show you, answer your questions and get you started, and frequent repetition.

This is what Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool described in their 2016 book, “Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise,” as deliberate practice. To master new skills, the authors show, you need to understand clearly what you want to accomplish—then practice, reflect, try again, and repeat until you obtain the desired level of expertise. Malcolm Gladwell, in his 2008 book, “Outliers: The Story of Success,” suggested that it takes 10,000 hours of such practice for complete mastery. That, of course, is a bit more expertise than most of us want.

In the context of preparing to work differently, there’s no question that formal training can be beneficial. The question is: How much of what currently passes for “training” is geared to this learning model … and how much is listening to monotone speakers explain their infographics, charts, and diagrams? If even a portion of it is the latter, it’s time to retool.