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How People Learn · Humanity Working

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: That might be the wrong frame of mind to be in for learning.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Paul, you ready?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Ready to go?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, ready as I'll ever be.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: So in today's episode, we're going to look at how people learn what's different, what's the same, and what it means for people learning themselves and in learning and development programs.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, Paul, let's start with uh what people need to learn.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a lot.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And first of all, most people learn really, really suboptimally.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start with what people need to learn in a work context, I guess.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the key difference between work-based learning and what you learn from school say is that in most cases, work-based learning needs to be really practical.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be really hands-on.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I want to be really clear that there's nothing wrong with learning just for the joy of knowledge, but that type of learning is usually it's foundational and it doesn't apply directly what uh to what you do.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So in a work-based context, it really often does apply to the actions that you're performing on a day-to-day basis.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm guessing that's probably always been the case.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but what what's new?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: What's new about that?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think a I think a big difference is the the sort of stuff that needs to be learned and in what quantity.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So until pretty recently, in the world of work, we were in this phase that um some people would sometimes call something like the geeks shall inherit the earth or you know, their their specialized knowledge is taking over.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And basically it put a premium on specialized knowledge.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: So things like coding, deep tech, uh deep knowledge in a in a particular domain.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And everything else about sort of all the intangible stuff about just doing good work was important, but it wasn't as important as that deep specialized knowledge.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: But now, um particularly driven by AI and automation and robotics and things like that, um, we're seeing that flip.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So rather than needing strong technical skills supplemented by just enough durable skills, what you really need is amazing durable skills supplemented by just enough technical acumen to be like a fact-checker of the work that is being done by AI and things like that.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, just to be clear, when I say durable skills, that's kind of like an invogue term these days.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: You can think of it as a synonym for soft skills, but we're talking about all of those things that are the intangibles of great work.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it could be, for example, how you communicate, how you collaborate, um, how you work um well, how you perform processes, how you manage your work, all of that kind of stuff.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: So can you can you effectively learn those skills?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Those types of skills?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the bigger question is actually not can you learn them, but can you embed them?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's actually what it's what it's really about.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I mean by that is that this isn't this isn't just about learning what the skill is or being able to recite uh what one of these skills is.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's how you're behaving every day.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: So to give you an example, like if I can learn from I can learn what conflict resolution is, but if I can't resolve a conflict, that's that's no use.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So but to get into the details, yeah, absolutely it can, but it has to be done in very specific ways.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we know this because we work with people every day to uh to do exactly this.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: There are really two ways that are critical.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um the terms we use for them are learn, then do and learn from do.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll break that down into the two elements, right?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Learn, then do is when you're discovering a concept, generally like a single concept, and then you're doing a form of practice to embed that concept.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So uh ideally as part of your day job.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do it repeatedly, then it starts to become a behavior.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if I go back to that conflict resolution example, I might teach you a single concept about conflict resolution, like I don't know, active listening.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then you would practice doing active listen.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the learn-then do.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: The flip is the do-then learn.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the do-then-learn is you basically just doing your day job, but then there's a key addition that most people don't add in, which is consciously adding in reflection to modify or change your behaviors.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So what did you learn from that meeting?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: What have we learned from doing this podcast?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's turning that into that reflection, part of what you do to add the value from what you're doing every day.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: So do people just do this stuff anyway?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Most people don't.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um most people kind of just I hate to say it, but they kind of drift through they kind of drift through their experience.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um so our research actually has shown two specific things.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: One is that 80% of success in the workplace, I'm talking about what gets people hired, what gets people retained, what gets people promoted, is these specific durable skills.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: But most people spend less than 1% of their time actively working on those skills.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can get to just 2%, up that 1% to 2%, it can make a massive, massive difference in individuals' lives, but in the efficacy of teams, in the efficacy of organizations.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's amazing to think that, but it's true.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when that two percent, you know, that two percent is you know a very small part of your week.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: It might be depending on how long you work, it might be like 10 to 20 minutes a day we're talking about.
• 6:09
  unknown: Yeah.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's interesting when you say that too, because I think about the the the intangibles that a you know a really standout employee uh has versus people who are doing good, but maybe not like rock star where where you're just really uh seeing that difference.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it is an int, it's almost usually intangibles, it feels like, now that I'm thinking about it, right?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um so what should people so what should people do to acquire those skills?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: What should people do?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's like what you should do as an individual, I think, and then there's what companies should do.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, is probably gonna be a lot of uh that's a theme for a lot of the stuff that we're gonna be talking about here.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um as an individual, it is about finding that time, right?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's 10 minutes a day, probably at the start of the day, to consciously work on those durable skills.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm talking about the learn, the learn, then do piece here, right?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Carve out 10 minutes at the start of your day.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Use it to learn a concept and practice it.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do it at the start of the day because then as you go through the day, you'll see other opportunities and you go, oh yeah, I'm practicing that skill, I'm practicing that skill.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: But then also, after you've done that first piece, the learn, then do, you need to find the spots to do the do-then-learn.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that means the reflection periods.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: So also put in small reflection periods, say five minutes every couple of hours, and all you're doing in that period of time is reflecting on what you've done and what you can learn from it.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: That could be at the end of a at the end of every meeting, or it might just be in those uh in those periods of time.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so that work, if you do that with real discipline, will be staggeringly effective over time.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in learning and development, um, I think it's really about how you spend your time and your resources.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So the the lengthy offsites and stuff like that, just it's never worked, right?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So stop spending time and money on that stuff and instead focus it on creating a culture like the one I just described and give people programs focused on durable skills, specifically durable skills, broken down into these small chunks.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and make those programs easily structured, easily attainable, and done so in such a way that your users can easily consume it.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you do that, and you in and everything you do in terms of your culture and your process and so on is centered around the idea of this is a company that is has a culture of learning and where the people in that company are conscious, culturally and consciously learning and growing, it's gonna make a massive difference to your organization and be a great place to work.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's how much time we got?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have one minute and 17 seconds left.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it it I was reminded of like the idea of sport.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we talk, we've compared sports a lot and had sports uh metaphors a lot of times in this regard.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's almost like the idea of you know drilling some kind of thing in a sport to the point where it's muscle memory.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we've never had durable skills training as effective to turn them into muscle memory.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, some people do it by nature, some people are better at it than others, but as a learning, you got to drill it.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta do it all the time until it's just wrote and you just do it.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and it looks, you make it look easy, right?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: So uh you got it, man.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: I I could not agree more.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's very interesting.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: All right, we did it.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Next time.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: See ya.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Humanity Working is produced and edited for Billion Minds by Matt Neal.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you like this podcast, please subscribe, like, and recommend us to others.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: It helps us reach more people.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to learn more about how Billion Minds gets companies ready for the future of work by building adaptable, resilient employees, look for them on LinkedIn or visit their website at billionminds.com.