Don’t Make This Mistake When Designing Learning Journeys

Organisations invest billions of dollars each year on learning initiatives with the goal of fuelling growth and improving organisational vitality. However, learning programs won’t make a difference if participants don’t learn—and apply—their new or improved knowledge and skills.

“To be successful with learning journeys, you have to leverage what we know about the ways people learn best,” says Blanchard solutions architect April O’Malley. “That means creating a series of spaced, cohort-based, multimodal learning experiences to build the mindsets and skill sets necessary for measurable professional growth.

“For example, you need space—learning journeys need to be spaced over time. They also should be cohort-based to give participants the benefits of both social learning and peer networking. And they must be multimodal, blending synchronous and asynchronous content that includes a facilitator who is shepherding the experience.”

Find the Happy Middle Ground: Contextualise, Don’t Customise

O’Malley also stresses the need for organisations to contextualise the learning journey.

“The learning journey needs to look, feel, and sound like the organisation. This means taking existing content and infusing it with your organisation’s culture and goals.”

But you have to be careful you don’t overdo it. O’Malley likes to picture a continuum with off-the-shelf content on one end and fully customised content on the other end.

“If you design a learning journey relying only on off-the-shelf content, it can fall flat by failing to create relevance or align with the organisation. But if you move too much to the other side and fully customise, you run the risk of losing the benefits and effectiveness of tried-and-true, research-based content. So the challenge is, how do we efficiently and effectively make content feel specific to an organisation while also maintaining proven content and learning design?

“We think the answer is to become contextualisers, not customisers.”

Sometimes Halfway Is the Best Way

O’Malley shares some interesting insight about what to customise and what to leave alone when you are creating contextualised learning journeys.

“Blanchard has a long history with its SLII® leadership model, going back almost 40 years. People who come to Blanchard appreciate that. SLII® has been taught to millions of leaders and applied across a wide range of experiences. We don't want to tamper with that model, because we know it has a timeless, global application, which is critical in today’s organizations. It's academically rigorous, proven, and has the benefit of years upon years of client experience. From that standpoint, there is no reason to touch it.

“The challenge is to set the learning in the context of an organisation without interrupting or prohibiting the power of the content. We want it to feel like it's your organisation. In order to do that, we focus on how you can optimise and contextualise our proven content with your organisation’s personality.”

It’s about finding the right balance, says O’Malley.

“On one end of the spectrum, you can crack the content open and make it everything you want it to be for your organisation. On the other end, you can leave it alone in its original off-the-shelf format.”

O’Malley believes the best approach is the middle path.

“Let’s not mess with what we know works, but let’s still contextualise the spaces in between to create effective learning experiences using less time, fewer resources, less feedback, and less budget. It's just a much more efficient process.

“To me, the word is expediency. It's finding the quickest, most expedient route to the results you are looking for. We all know less time equals less money.”

Launch. Integrate. Activate.

O’Malley and her team target three areas for contextualising—launch, integration, andactivation.

“Launch is the beginning of the learning journey experience. A great learning journey starts off with getting learners prepared for what is expected of them. Why are they being invited to join this cohort? What purpose does it have for the organisation? What's going to be the benefit for them?

“We typically bring the participants and their managers together for a 60-minute launch to make those connections right at the start.”

Next, O’Malley highlights activation.

“Activation happens at the end of the learning journey. It’s the last session, and it’s where we synthesise what we've learned and then look to the future.

An Example of a Two-Step Activation Process

“Let's say we completed a content module on Building Trust, then went to Blanchard Management Essentials®, and concluded with Conversational Capacity®.

“Now we have an activation session at the end of this experience that reinforces what we've learned. Here’s what that might look like. 

“In the first half of the session, we divide the group into smaller subgroups. Each one is assigned a topic. One subgroup will do Building Trust. One subgroup will do Blanchard Management Essentials®. One subgroup will do Conversational Capacity®.

“Each subgroup is asked to present back three key insights they took away from the content. We know teaching back really helps to reinforce, distill, and synthesise what was learned.” 

“The second half of the session is focused on action planning to apply the new skill sets. We ask each participant to identify the commitments they are going to make in the next six months to keep developing the skills they’ve learned. We have a worksheet where they document their commitments.

“Additionally, we ask them to set a meeting with their immediate manager to review their commitments. This talk with their manager can be very informal or it can be a part of their regular one-on-ones. And because we have queued that up at launch, the managers know it's coming.”

Integration Flows Throughout the Journey

Integration is a consistent process that flows throughout the launch, activation, and content modules. O’Malley uses a visual map to remind everyone where they are on their learning journey.

“We use this map to constantly tie back to where we are in the learning journey and to the why behind it. So we are always connecting the dots about how those topics build upon each other.

“All throughout the learning experience, we say, ‘Here we are in the journey. The last time we met, we were there.  Now we are here.’

“At the end of that session, we'll pull up the visual again and say, ‘The next time we meet, we're going to talk about this next piece of content, where you're going to learn communication skills, how to set goals, and how to provide feedback.’

“We keep bringing them back to why the mindsets and skill sets are important to their effectiveness in their role and to the success of their organisation.” 

Focus on Context

“As L&D professionals, we must be very clear on the organisational goal we need to support.  Being clear about the goal is key to aligning your stakeholders before you start to engage in design.  Ask them, ‘What new or improved mindsets and skill sets are needed to accomplish our goals?  Where are we now versus where we need to be?’

“Once you have that, the whole path becomes a lot easier. If you know your end game, then you can reverse-architect the skills you need.”