Chances are your industry has experienced some dramatic shifts in innovation over the past five to 10 years. And not simply because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Advancing technology and market dynamics are pushing businesses to adapt more rapidly than ever before. The result is a strong need to invest in developing your organization’s talent pool. Creating a continuous learning culture has become a strategic necessity for businesses to succeed, stay competitive, and become industry leaders. In this article, I discuss how businesses can create a continuous learning culture to get and stay ahead of the curve.
“Our industry stays the same.” – no one, ever.
Why a Continuous Learning Culture is Important
Your world is evolving more quickly today than ever before. The products, services, and use of technology are changing how you interact with clients, colleagues, and vendors.
Today, success isn’t simply about solving your client’s problem. Success is about solving your client’s problem with the greatest added value. Increasingly, it is your staff’s knowledge about technological innovations that differentiates and personalizes your products and services to your clients.
To become an industry leader, it’s not just important, it’s absolutely necessary, that your staff stays current on the latest technology and market trends. And that, my friend, takes a continuous learning culture. It’s not a luxury, it’s a strategic imperative.
“In an era of rapid change, standing still is the most dangerous course of action.” – Brian Tracy
Embracing the Power of “I Don’t Know”
Being honest about what you know is a core requirement of a continuous learning culture. After all, if people won’t admit what they know and don’t know, they’ll never be honest about what they need to learn.
You want to create a safe space for staff to admit knowledge gaps, and to encourage finding answers. Encourage everyone to adopt the perspective, “I may not know, but I’ll find out.”
This perspective encourages honesty and vulnerability, which are necessary for a trusting workplace environment. Additionally, it commits the speaker to learning and problem-solving.
Fostering this mindset pushes employees out of their comfort zones and into personal growth. Over time, “I may not know, but I’ll find out” can transform your team into action-oriented individuals focused on personal growth and overcoming the fear of failure.
Knowing When to Seek Help
If you have team members who have not bought into the power of “I don’t know,” they may struggle to balance independent problem-solving and seeking guidance.
While it is important for staff to develop independent problem-solving skills, it is equally important for them to understand when to seek guidance from others.
I used to give my staff timelines that included checkpoints for seeking help. If they failed to achieve specific milestones on time, they were to seek help from more experienced colleagues.
This approach proved useful for allowing time to exercise problem-solving skills while preventing unnecessary time lost to spinning wheels. Additionally, setting guidelines on when to ask for help normalized collaboration across the team rather than it being the exception.
Learning as a Pathway to Advancement
A particular challenge for young analysts is that they do not want to appear incompetent. This fear is another reason they may not admit to knowledge gaps and attempt to learn everything on their own. It also creates significant barriers to learning in the workplace.
To combat this problem, remind your team that they are past the interview. They have the job.
Let them know that current knowledge gaps are not indicative of a staff member’s potential for growth and advancement. Instead, what they choose to learn and how they apply that knowledge to achieve organizational goals determines future success.
Using this approach, you encourage staff to be open about their learning needs and pursue the support necessary to meet them. You also clarify the organizational commitment to a continuous learning culture.
The Importance of Questioning
I used to tell my team they were expected to ask lots of questions. I would tell them, “The day you stop asking questions is the day I start worrying.”
Curiosity is the most powerful engine for building a continuous learning culture. By encouraging staff to ask questions, you help increase their depth of understanding of a topic. You also foster innovation by encouraging staff to question the status quo.
As a leader in your organization, I recommend you actively prompt staff to voice their questions and concerns. By setting the tone that questions are welcome, you help create a dynamic and continuous learning culture.
In keeping with my statement to my staff about worrying, a lack of questioning indicates your team is unengaged. If they stop asking questions, you must dig in to find out why and resolve any problems.
Striving for Proficiency, Not Just Success
Another saying my staff is very familiar with is, “Completing a task once makes you successful but not proficient.” In other words, while achieving your goal one time makes you successful, replicating that success many times in different situations makes you proficient.
You should encourage your staff to seek mastery over their responsibilities and emphasize the value of deep learning and skill acquisition over one-off achievements. This is especially true in the domain of analytics, where staff might be successful at tasks but may not fully understand why they were successful.
If you encourage your staff to become proficient in their responsibilities, they will also become more capable and adaptable to new challenges. Ultimately, this is a key element for a continuous learning culture.
Learning with Purpose
If you’re like me, then learning can be fun all on its own. However, if I have a specific goal, it is often easier to acquire and retain a new skill.
Additionally, if my learning goals align with business objectives, learning a new skill set becomes an integral part of strategic success.
I recommend that you begin by identifying a business problem first, then work backward to determine the learning needs of your staff. By starting with the problem, you can help overcome the tendency for analysts to seek out the latest high-end skills, regardless of whether they are needed.
Employees should be encouraged to identify how each learning opportunity can be applied to improve processes, innovate solutions, or enhance service delivery.
Leading by Example
As with many other cultural development approaches, leadership by example is one of the most powerful tools in fostering a continuous learning culture.
Leaders who are transparent about their learning journey, their approach to problem-solving, and their successes and failures send a clear message to the team. Staff witness the idea in action that growth is a lifelong process welcomed at all levels of the organization.
Your transparency humanizes leadership with staff throughout the organization while simultaneously demonstrating a commitment to creating a continuous improvement culture.
Conclusion
Creating a continuous learning culture is critical for organizational success and competitiveness. The seven (7) approaches described in this article will help you cultivate a continuous learning culture throughout your organization.
It takes time to create a continuous learning environment where one does not already exist. Don’t expect dramatic transformations overnight.
Fortunately, you can choose to implement these suggestions in any order that works best for your organization. The most important factor in creating your continuous learning culture is that you begin as soon as possible.
This culture not only positions businesses to navigate the challenges of today but also to lead the innovations of tomorrow.
