Learning at work: why? | The Padfield Partnership

Learning matters – but what learning approach is best for your organisation?

I don’t know of any leaders who would disagree with the importance of learning, at both an organisational and an individual level. It is key to gaining a competitive advantage and is seen as an imperative to keep pace with technological advances and to attracting and retaining the best talent. But not all leaders have stopped to think about the best way to lead learning in their organisation and about their philosophy regarding the outcomes of this knowledge. Why does learning matter and who benefits from it? In this newsletter, we explore and expand on research conducted by Gianpiero Petriglieri, associate professor of organisational behaviour at graduate business school INSEAD. I hope this will be of interest to you – do let me know what you think.

Rose Padfield

What is the purpose of your organisation?

If you reflect on the reason for your organisation’s existence, what would you say is its purpose? To make a profit? For social impact? To advance society? To generate employee wellbeing? The answer might be some or all of these and/or some others. To determine your approach to learning, knowing the purpose of your organisation will ensure your efforts are in synch and therefore increase the chances of the investment into learning paying off.

Whatever you decide, not investing in learning and the development of people is the opposite of a route to success – and this remains relevant in today’s economically-constrained environment.

CEO to CPO: “What if we spend all this money on upskilling employees and they leave?“

CPO to CEO: “What if we don’t, and they don’t?”

Three Ways to Lead Learning

Having researched 69 multinational firms across different industries and geographies, Gianpiero Petriglieri found there were three distinct ways to lead learning. He labels these (and the people who lead this responsibility for their organisation):

Custodian
Challenger
Connector

Custodians focus on aligning learning with the company strategy and culture using structured, boot-camp style programmes aimed at improving employee performance. For them, it is about business results, especially profit. While they understand the value for employees of their own upskilling, their main focus is to deliver a competitive advantage for the company. Learning (such as through training courses) is, for Custodians, closely tailored to address company challenges and they will avoid anything seen as too academic or conceptual.

So, for example, it is likely that the Custodian would create a structured model to which employees will conform, with a gap analysis to identify where they need to develop their skills. This model could cover a whole range of topics such as “micro skills”, including giving and receiving feedback, a competency framework and a leadership framework, to tie in with the organisation’s values. It is likely to be prescriptive and with clear descriptions. This approach could be seen as valuable where standardisation is desired and it is likely to be measured through the performance management system. The obvious disadvantage is it may become rigid – a cookie-cutter approach – and stifle creativity and freedom to think or act. It may not attract talented people who want to determine their own learning path.

Challengers prioritise individual growth and innovation, fostering a humanistic and self-directed “playground” approach to learning. Such learning could be lateral in nature – employees in this model have much more freedom than in the Custodian one to choose what they study and how, even if it doesn’t obviously seem connected to their role. They would be expected to have an adult conversation to show how the learning will be applied to their job.

Challengers believe that employees have an intrinsic right to grow, and that they themselves should be the ultimate beneficiary. The belief is that, by operating in this way, employees would develop the ability to “defy norms and break habits that hold the company back”. They will be able to adapt and create new ways of doing things, which is invaluable in organisations that have very embedded or established ways – this approach is more likely to disrupt the establishment through the agility and felt autonomy of employees.

“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over,” Benjamin Franklin

In my view, the key to learning at work being successful is for senior managers to believe in it when the going gets tough in terms of business results. This approach could be seen as lacking rigour (if employees choose learning interventions that don’t seem to have any relevance to work), so my advice would be to measure against metrics such as profit and performance, employee retention and engagement, and successful results through innovation. According to Petriglieri’s research, the leaders of companies embodying the Challenger approach found that talented employees preferred to stay with their company rather than move to a better paid job but with less freedom.

Connectors, meanwhile, integrate the business-focused approach of Custodians with the people-focused approach of Challengers. They emphasise collaboration and community-building through “town-hall” learning experiences, where a diverse set of employees come together to solve a company problem. This has the advantage of meeting the company’s need (a strategic challenge) as well as the individual’s need (growth and stimulation). It will also foster connections and relationships that could be useful in the future – for both the company and the individual.

Connectors are most effective in siloed organisations needing cross-functional collaboration. A company issue could be given to a team comprising individuals from diverse functions, on the basis that this will create a solution more likely to succeed (and be sustainable) rather than one function focusing on it and then missing key success criteria. This approach could be tested as to whether it is optimally efficient, because it takes longer to bring together communities to solve problems (and hold the inevitable tension that arises when different viewpoints are in the room). The leader responsible for the Connector approach will need to be experienced and adept at balancing both the organisation’s and the individual’s wants and needs.

What is the right approach for you?

As with everything in life, what works for one person does not necessarily work for another. So, as you reflect on these three suggested approaches and the needs of your organisation, consider these questions:

Can you recognise how your company currently approaches learning in one of these three philosophies?
As you review the company’s strategy and culture, what do you think works and what doesn’t? What would you do differently or what would you change?
What about your own wants and needs – which approach would work best for you personally?
Which approach is best for your employees?
How can you use this research to best serve all these different stakeholders?

Do get in touch if you would like to discuss any of the themes I have touched on in this article.

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Next month

We’ll be back next month with an article on the topic of human-AI collaboration.