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Published in Winter 2024
Learning and development (L&D) aims to change behavior — eliminate old, unwanted habits and apply newly taught knowledge, skills and abilities. This is a tall order for learning programs challenged to deliver results with limited instructional time. Learning and mastering a skill takes time, dedication and deliberate practice in a supportive learning environment. As a result, learning programs must extend outside of the formal learning event to facilitate effective knowledge, skills and abilities attainment and transfer.
A successful learning program creates a rich environment with clear performance standards and ample time to practice, boosting confidence in learners’ ability to perform, planning implementation, opportunities for feedback and reflection, robust resources and tools to continue learning and applying skills and a system for accountability. This learning ecosystem is focused on driving learners’ successful skills transfer and behavior change. Through this framework, the timeframe to attain the desired performance levels is extended beyond the formal learning event.
Setting Clear Performance Standards
It is essential for all stakeholders to have a common vision of what successful performance looks like. Stakeholders encompass all impacted groups, including learners, facilitators, managers and organizational leaders. This alignment should take place during the needs assessment and learning development phases.
Through this lens, learning objectives and outcomes define successful performance and build a roadmap for skills transfer. Further, the program will focus on transferring skills learned in one context to real-world application. Leveraging these targets and timetables, learners can have a clear path to grow their skills from practice to application and execution. Defining a clear timeline for new performance standards, breaking it down into manageable steps and tying performance back to organizational expectations will ensure the success of the program.
Continuous Improvement Through Practice and Application
Practice and application should be elevated to become cornerstones of the learning program. Learners need opportunities to deliberately focus on specific aspects of the skill and — and they should have extensive chances to apply the skill in different environments. Proficiency is achieved through consistent practice. Simulations, games, case studies and role-plays are excellent methods to begin exposing learners to focused practice. Programs can increase exposure through gradually progressing skills practice and application to the real-world environment by leveraging projects and capstone assignments.
Communities of practice are valuable resources to consider adopting into learning programs. Fostering a community of practice not only drives adoption, it also holds learners accountable and on track. Similarly, strategically creating cohorts can embed a robust support system into the learning experience. These social learning experiences allow learners to grow their skills, brainstorm with one another and find solutions to challenges they may be experiencing. These experiences offer an invaluable resource for learners to leverage as they adopt new skills.
Learning environments should embrace collaboration and peer learning, offering opportunities for learners to work together on projects, share their knowledge and expertise and encourage one another. This fosters a collaborative and supportive learning environment rich with opportunities for continued discussion and exploration, compelling learners to grow.
Reflection, Self-Assessment and Feedback
Early on, learners need opportunities to assess their current knowledge, skill and ability level against the new performance standards. Self-assessment not only allows learners to identify areas for improvement, when provided at regular intervals, it also becomes a tool to measure progress, target areas in need of additional practice and encourage continued growth.
Reflection activities, interlocked with self-assessments, enable time to process past performance and explore opportunities for behavior change. Reflection exercises aid learners in charting their path toward effective skills transfer. While some learners are intrinsically motivated to reflect as part of their routine, incorporating it explicitly prompts all learners to reflect.
Feedback touchpoints enrich learning programs by facilitating performance awareness. This could be achieved through leveraging instructors, experts, managers, mentors or peers to provide guidance, support and feedback as learners begin to perform the skill. In addition, others offer an outside, constructive perspective, help ideate to drive performance improvement and encourage learners to stay motivated. An important aspect of reflection, self-assessment and feedback is the ability to incorporate recognition for accomplishments and achievements. Having a structured mechanism to reflect and continue to chart a path toward skills adoption will enable learners to hold themselves accountable and continue growing.
Building Learner Confidence
Change takes place because we believe we can accomplish the goal we have set. This “can do” mindset is heavily influenced by the learning environment. Starting at the learning event, the program must encourage learners and build their confidence to continue applying the skill outside the classroom.
Skills transfer takes time, and it can be easy to lose motivation along the way. The learning experience must strategically build the learner’s confidence by balancing learning, practice and assessment efforts to facilitate behavior change instead of discouraging learners. Focus on maintaining motivation and building confidence by setting rewards for achieving milestones and fostering a community of learners who are working toward the same objective.
Building confidence in a learner’s ability to perform the skills is critical in ensuring they devote time to apply it. The instructional content should focus on building confidence, preparing learners to apply the skill and leverage available resources outside of the classroom.
Recall and Continued Learning
There needs to be opportunities to gradually build skill mastery and retrieve the knowledge recently gained. A successful program will encourage learners to adopt a growth mindset, prioritize their L&D and view challenges as opportunities for growth and improvement. Classroom time is limited, driving the need to continue learning and reinforcing the concepts outside of the classroom. Guiding the post-course experience ensures that learners have direction and relevant pathways to progress.
Readily accessible tools, job aids and guides help learners retrieve concepts and review in preparation for performing new skills. Similarly, developing brief modules to refresh concepts will assist learners in growing their knowledge and skills over time. The objective after the learning event is to assist learners in remembering key concepts and continuing to consider new opportunities to apply the skills.
Planning How to Implement Change
Identifying the skills to develop and planning to integrate these into day-to-day performance is just as critical as preparing to eliminate bad habits. Action planning helps participants set clear and specific personal goals and helps track progress toward desired performance. This exercise should guide learners to break the skill down into smaller, more manageable components, following SMART goal principles.
It can be overwhelming to begin performing to a new standard overnight. Instead, the program should build a timeline to meet critical points at an adequate pace. This directs your focus toward practicing and incorporating specific aspects of the skill and makes it easier to track progress. At times, learners should be encouraged to set challenging goals that enable them to stretch themselves and develop new skills. Setting goals that are achievable but require effort and commitment ensures learners stay motivated and engaged throughout their learning journey. Facilitators must manage expectations and define checkpoints and timelines that encourage consistent application, aligned to the organization.
A critical role of the facilitator at this stage is to effectively prepare learners for possible challenges and roadblocks. The program should guide learners to develop a plan to overcome these and offer tools and resources to leverage in the event the learner faces challenges in applying the skill.
Embedding a System of Accountability
It takes time to incorporate a new behavior into an established routine or process. First, through conscious practice and adoption, and later consistent performance. Learning professionals face the challenge of creating an environment that is rich with continued opportunities for skills transfer. Embedding reminders, communication campaigns and checkpoints ensures the skills remain top-of-mind. The program should focus on creating learner commitment to continue adopting new skills and practicing outside of the classroom.
To drive adoption, the program must leverage partnerships and incorporate additional stakeholders invested in reaching the new performance expectations. These stakeholders can aid in facilitating communications, sending reminders and setting expectations for learners aligned to organizational timelines.
Building a strong post-learning program ensures learners successfully transfer the skills they learned to their roles. Learning programs benefit from focusing on skills transfer and tracking performance outcomes to produce results.
Our focus is to support learners’ growth over time and design a learning environment that accommodates their needs as they attain the desired performance levels. The aim is to create opportunities for incremental practice and application, helping learners acquire new skills, expand their knowledge and stay engaged and motivated. Learning programs must enable an environment geared toward behavior change.
Learners need to incorporate newly gained skills into their practice in a consistent and deliberate way. With time and practice, those skills can become effortless to apply. Allow learners to gain insight into their current performance and progress by incorporating feedback from others into the learning experience.
A robust post-learning strategy prepares learners to master a new skill and change. It’s important to remember that mastery takes time and dedication — but with patience and persistence, learners can achieve their goals and perform effectively. This shift in focus will ensure successful learning transfer and skill mastery, guarantee programs meet their intended objectives and deliver organizational results.