How often do we actually
stop and think of a specific person on the receiving end of our corporate
enterprise learning efforts?
It's tempting when we think of strategy, technology and the measurement of large learning engagements across a company to focus on “groups” or “teams” - chunks of an organization requiring our strategic focus. Our customers (both internal and external) come to us with training needs with an end in mind for their teams, and we do our very best to support them.
But it's all too easy for strategic enterprise learning leaders to forget that our ultimate goal, and indeed our mission, “is to engage one person at a time with top-quality, accessible, motivating, and transformational content.”
When we do that, our learners change for the better, group performances skyrocket and ultimately our company surges forward with measurable learning ROI (return on investment). Corporate success in any market is ultimately derived from a clear enterprise focus on that single person receiving the delivery of our learning process and content.
The best way to design and optimize a learning strategy for an enterprise starts with the individual learner in mind. Back in 1991, as a brand-new First Assignment Instructor Pilot in the U.S. Air Force, I was struck during my early jet instructor days how frequently our fellow instructors spoke of the students we were teaching as a monolithic “group.” Due to the nature of the dangerous flying we were conducting, and the time elements associated with operating high-performance jets in a condensed syllabus, hard lessons had been gleaned over time that were designed to help us fly safely while simplifying instruction. I learned quickly, however, (despite a few harrowing experiences!) that our very best instructors thought quite differently about these learners. They didn't think of them as a “group.”
Our top instructors treated and respected each student like an individual, and during the course of a week of flying with many different people, they re-oriented their instructional techniques and teaching approaches to match each person they were flying with on every single flight. Heeding a baseline of caution within a standardized syllabus, our very best instructors saw our class of students not as a “group,” but as a collection of individual learners who each needed a personalized approach to instruction. These were the instructors who were delighted when young pilots had the “light bulb” come on during a flight - when they “got it.” Sure, they were part of a large class, but they received the best developmental progress on each flight when they were engaged as unique individuals.
Because of this key initial instructional observation early in my career and throughout many years of learning and instructional leadership since, I have been frequently reminded of an enduring fundamental truth: Learning strategy, technology, content and delivery methods are always secondary to identifying with the learner. This is obvious, of course, from an academic standpoint, but it's much too easy to forget this important truth. And it happens much more often the farther we are distanced from the learners themselves.
Corporately, enterprise learning strategies are most successful when they are deliberately considered from the perspective of the individual learner – from the beginning through their lifecycle of learning. We don’t train ‘groups.’ We train individuals, and these individuals care significantly about the experiences we provide for them.
As a lifelong learner, instructor and enterprise learning leader, I always have noticed and appreciated the unique skills of great learning strategists, course designers or instructors when they have found creative ways to view and accommodate the learner who is receiving and experiencing the benefits of their efforts. I have found that when we imagine that single learner as we think strategically about learning, everything else between strategy and learning falls into place.
The best learning teams find ways to do this organically and intentionally. Accordingly, in my current role within our enterprise learning team at PPD, we strive each day to focus all our training efforts, keenly, on being the very best at delivering critical, individually focused instruction. We work to ensure life-changing therapies are tested safely in a way that brings important patient treatments quickly to market, and we support a large, global enterprise with critical training for approximately 24,000 professionals. We help many important customers around the world, but first and foremost, we strive to design and deliver our training programs with the individual experience in mind from the very beginning. We deliver, for the individual, in the most effective way possible, to achieve the most positive outcomes for our company and for our patients.
The best senior leaders are constantly learning, and never lose touch with their students. Whether your team is designing an enterprise learning strategy, a large training course, a syllabus, a specific lesson plan - or you are personally engaging a group of students directly, learning leaders lead best when we think of that single individual learner and how he or she is ultimately receiving our message. Our laser focus on the learner experience is always the key to our instructional learning success, our organizational engagement and, ultimately, our corporate learning performance.
Is your learning team focused on the learner experience?
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