By this point, frequent readers of our blogs are aware that we just released a landmark study on organizational learning culture.  For those of you who have not seen it yet, go check it out now.  It takes the nebulous concept of learning culture and makes it real and actionable.  We have isolated 40 distinct cultural behaviors and practices that have a significant connection to the bottom line (not just ‘nice-to-haves’).  And – we have collected proven, easy-to-follow tactics for improving every practice.

As I have had a chance to hit the road to share the results of this study, a frequent question from L&D and HR goes something like this:

“We know we need to improve our learning culture, but how do we talk about this topic with our executives? “

It is a critically important question – and an obvious challenge. 

As an answer, let me point to the underlying methodology of the study.  We could have started with the cultural practices first, attempting to define an ideal model of learning culture based our own perspective or the perspectives of the many leading learning organizations that we know well.  Odds are that ideal model would have resonated with our members and with you – the readers of this blog.  We would all look at it and wish that was how each of our organizations collectively behaved.

But, ideal or not, we would have no true basis for believing that such an ‘ideal’ model was either 1) actually possible or 2) of practical, bottom-line benefit to the organizations that we serve.

No, an ideal learning culture was not, and is not, our goal.

Our goal is a High Impact Learning Culture – a learning culture for which the identified practices bear a strong relationship to successful business outcomes.  They impact the business.
So, we started with business outcomes that all organizations care about to at least some degree, including:

• Innovation;
• Productivity;
• Customer Satisfaction;
• Cost Structure; and
• Market Share

These words matter to the business.

We then looked at many, possible cultural practices, but always through the lens of which ones separated the companies that performed well in these outcomes from the rest.  Along the way we dropped many practices that I know I would have included in my own ideal definition of learning culture.  While they seemed nice – and they might fit with my dream organization – the research showed no connection between these dropped practices and business performance.  Having narrowed our focus to just those cultural behaviors that mattered from a business perspective, we then collected repeatable strategies for cultivating and strengthening these practices.

How does this methodology help you talk ‘learning culture’ with the executive leadership in your organization?  Simple.  We advise you to follow the same path.  Start with the same business outcomes.  Start by focusing on a few specific ones – or perhaps just one – that truly have the attention of the leadership right now.  Then suggest ways that the learning organization or HR can assist with improvement.  Stick to business vocabulary.  No one says you have to use the words ‘learning’ or ‘culture.’

Let’s take Cost Structure for example.  All businesses are concerned about controlling costs (of course, some are more concerned than others). 

The conversation might begin with:

We want to get better are containing costs across the company.  Well, that means being able to learn from how we currently do things so that we can become both more effective and more efficient. We can only learn from the past if we are willing as an organization to take an honest look at both past success and past failure – to ask ourselves hard questions. 

Odds are these statements will resonate with leadership.  They understand that in most organizations the tendency is to avoid admitting mistakes or saying things that might offend.  In many cases, they reached their positions because they were good at these skills (or if not, they were at least unafraid of the consequences).  Once you have leadership’s attention, start to suggest how L&D and HR could be of help:

Let us get out there and help managers and professionals at all levels with healthy and productive evaluation of both wins and mistakes.

We in L&D and HR can help in a number of short term and long term ways.

• Go out into the business and provide support (training, coaching, and tools) to facilitators of project post mortems, after-action reviews, and customer feedback councils on effective dialogue, feedback, and reflection.
• Get managers used to effective dialogue, feedback, and reflection as skills sets by incorporating opportunities to practice both in all management and leadership development programs.
• Help businesses design work processes to incorporate more of such moments of reflection.

However, the best you can do in influence. Ultimately successful change in learning culture will require leadership to take ownership of these changes.  So end the conversation with a request for partnership:

We need you, leadership, to help by:
•    Talk about the value of “good mistakes” whenever possible.  Publically differentiate between “best effort, bad result” and “lack of effort.”
•    Support evaluating (and rewarding) “HOW” work is done, not just “WHAT” is accomplished, in performance management processes.

When they ask, let them know that you have access to hard evidence that an organization that “values mistakes and failures as learning opportunities, and provides structured opportunities for reflection” is likely to be better than its competitors at cost control.  In fact, the Bersin & Associates High Impact Learning Culture study shows that it’s the number one most influential learning culture practice for this business outcome.

And if your organization can master this practice, it will be a major source of competitive advantage.  Such an ability to reflect is very difficult.  Only 28% of organizations in the study reported any level of success in this practice.

Hopefully, by this stage, leadership will understand the importance of focusing on reflection – even if you never use that word.  And hopefully, you – leader in L&D or HR – will have the support of your leadership as you begin the critical work of strengthening your learning culture.

Want more help? Want more specific ideas for engaging leadership on any of the other business outcomes?  Check out the full report.

Comments and questions welcome.
-David