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hbr.org

Where Companies Go Wrong

with Learning and Development
by Steve Glaveski
8–11 minutes

Not only is the majority of training in today’s companies

ineffective, but the purpose, timing, and content of
training is flawed. Want to see eyes glaze over quicker
than you can finish this sentence? Mandate that busy
employees attend a training session on “business...
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Organizations spent $359 billion globally on training in
2016, but was it worth it?
Not when you consider the following:
• 75% of 1,500 managers surveyed from across 50
organizations were dissatisfied with their company’s
Learning & Development (L&D) function;
• 70% of employees report that they don’t have mastery of
the skills needed to do their jobs;
• Only 12% of employees apply new skills learned in L&D
programs to their jobs; and
• Only 25% of respondents to a recent McKinsey survey
believe that training measurably improved performance.
Not only is the majority of training in today’s companies
ineffective, but the purpose, timing, and content of
training is flawed.
Learning for the Wrong Reasons
Bryan Caplan, professor of economics at George Mason
University, and author of The Case Against Education,
says in his book that education often isn’t so much about
learning useful job skills, but about people showing off,
or “signaling.”

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Insight Center

• The Future of Education

Sponsored by Qatar Foundation

Preparing the next generation of leaders.
Today’s employees often signal through continuous
professional education (CPE) credits so that they can
make a case for a promotion. L&D staff also signal their
worth by meeting flawed KPIs, such as the total CPE
credits employees earn, rather than focusing on the
business impact created. The former is easier to
measure, but flawed incentives beget flawed outcomes,
such as the following:
We’re learning at the wrong time. People learn best
when they have to learn. Applying what’s learned to real-
world situations strengthens one’s focus and
determination to learn. And while psychologist Edwin
Locke showed the impact of short feedback loops back
in 1968 with his theory of motivation, it’s still not widely
practiced when it comes to corporate training. Today’s
employees often learn uniform topics, on L&D’s
schedule, and at a time when it bears little immediate
relevance to their role — and their learning suffers as a
result.
We’re learning the wrong things. Want to see eyes

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glaze over quicker than you can finish this

sentence? Mandate that busy employees attend a
training session on “business writing skills”, or “conflict
resolution”, or some other such course with little
alignment to their needs.
We quickly forget what we’ve learned. Like first year
college students who forget 60% of what they learn in
high school, studying merely to get the CPE credit
suggests that employees, too, will quickly forget what
they learn. German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus
pioneered experimental studies of memory in the late
19th Century, culminating with his discovery of “The
Forgetting Curve.” He found that if new information isn’t
applied, we’ll forget about 75% of it after just six days.

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Use It or Lose It
We can blame biology — and our innate, evolutionary
desire for survival — for the fact that humans quickly
forget what we learn. As Matthieu Boisgontier, of the
University of British Columbia’s brain behavior lab put it,
“Conserving energy has been essential for humans’
survival, as it allowed us to be more efficient in
searching for food and shelter, competing for sexual
partners, and avoiding predators.” As a result, our brains
quickly forget what we don’t use. Incorporating new
learning into your work is one way to retain knowledge.
Another is spaced repetition. Originally proposed by
psychologist Cecil Alec Mace in 1932, it refers to

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spreading learning out over time (material should be

reviewed in gradually increasing intervals of roughly one
day, two days, four days, eight days, and so on). This
approach takes advantage of the psychological spacing
effect, which demonstrates a strong link between the
periodic exposure to information and retention. Studies
show that by using spaced repetition, we can remember
about 80% of what we learn after 60 days — a
significant improvement.
Sadly, most L&D programs overlook these biological
realities and invest billions of dollars into what amounts
to transfers of quickly forgotten information.
What needs to change
Today’s fast-moving business landscape calls for
organizations and their people to adapt to changing
circumstances rapidly, and to always be learning. As
Wired co-founder Kevin Kelly puts it, “Get good at
beginner mode, asking dumb questions, making stupid
mistakes, and teaching others what you learn.”
Lean learning, which pays homage to Toyota’s lean
manufacturing system, stresses using effort only when
it’s needed, improving outcomes, and cutting waste; it’s
short, affordable, and provides employees and
organizations with an immediate capability update.
Lean learning is about:

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1. Learning the core of what you need to learn

2. Applying it to real-world situations immediately
3. Receiving immediate feedback and refining your
understanding
4. Repeating the cycle
Like lean manufacturing and the lean startup before it,
lean learning supports the adaptability that gives
organizations a competitive advantage in today’s
market.
How to Apply Lean Learning
Think 80/20. Tim Ferriss, entrepreneur and author of
The Four Hour book series, is an advocate of a lean
learning method he calls DiSSSCaFE. He suggests
identifying the minimum learnable unit (MLU), and
applying the Pareto Principle. If you want to learn
Japanese, focus on the 20% of words and phrases that
show up 80% of the time. Then apply what you learn in
actual conversations with Japanese speakers as
frequently as needed.
Apply learning to real-world situations. At Collective
Campus, we don’t just teach executives a specific
innovation methodology. We first ensure that they can
actually apply the methodology internally, and we
request that they bring real-world projects to workshops
so that we can apply what’s learned in real-time, shorten

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the feedback loop, deliver business outcomes, and

encourage “aha” moments.
Leverage guided learning. Rather than provide training
at specific intervals, guided learning embeds continuous
learning into a live application. Think screen pop-ups as-
you-go that support rapid, context-sensitive, and
personalized learning. This is especially applicable for
functional leads, employee on-boarding, cross functional
teams, IT, and end-user training.
Personalize content. Using today’s technologies, you
can personalize training so that it adapts lessons based
on employee performance, tailoring content to every
single employee’s needs, learning style, and delivery
method.
Provide ongoing support. Providing employees with
further support after a learning session via a
combination of instant messaging, voice messaging, and
chatbots ensures that they can apply learning to specific
challenges.
Activate peer learning. When your employees want to
learn a new skill, they typically don’t Google it or refer to
your learning management system (LMS) first; 55% of
them ask a colleague. When you account for the fact
that humans tend to learn as they teach, peer learning
offers a way to support rapid, just-in-time learning, while

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strengthening the existing understanding your

employees have about concepts. It could be as simple
as establishing an online marketplace, or periodic peer
learning workshops, to connect employees who are
willing to teach specific skills with colleagues who want
to acquire such skills. Incentivizing peer learning by
incorporating it into performance reviews can ensure
that employees continue to invest time into the program.
Offer micro courses. Give employees short, bite-sized
learning opportunities, which can take the form of
digestible, hour-long courses on topics of relevance to
an employee’s immediate challenges or opportunities.
Moving From Credits to Outcomes
In order to begin practicing lean learning, organizations
need to move from measuring CPEs earned to
measuring business outcomes created. Lean learning
ensures that employees not only learn the right thing, at
the right time, and for the right reasons, but also that
they retain what they learn.
And as Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, says,
“The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.”
This has never been truer than it is today.

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