The Science of Learning

Uncovering Your most Powerful Business Tool

Understanding the science of learning is an integral piece to the success of your business. How we learn informs our ability to acquire new skills and to process information. It is also a key factor in how we make decisions. Most importantly, however, is that the way in which we learn as adults, is very different from how we learned as children. If we truly desire growth and longevity for our businesses, we must also desire that growth and longevity for our people by providing ongoing opportunities to learn.

Becoming a Learning Organization

As a leader, it is important to embed a culture of learning within your business. In order to scale and succeed with longevity, you must shift from being a business, to being a learning organization. This means that your training and development approach focuses on educating all stakeholders from the inside out. For your customer, learning is also an integral part of your sales success. When you understand how your customer learns, you will understand what drives their confidence in your products or services. Which, in turn, will dictate what drives their motivations to buy.

The Science of Learning

Learning is based on our genetics, our psychology and our mental and physical capacity. One very key feature of learning in business is understanding the science of MOTIVATION. Business leaders must understand not only how to grow their business, but how to invest in the growth of themselves as a leader and the growth of their people.

How Adults Learn:

They are Self-Directed:

Self-Directed learners are independent, driven by the opportunity to self-select their options. They thrive in one-on-one interactions with their superiors. They feel motivated when they have control over topics and opportunities. The self-directed learner may be complacent, so it is important to let them know that learning isn’t optional. However, what they choose to learn can be a collaborative process. Adult learners should contribute to their learning plan….hiring a consultant to come in and “do consulting to you” will not make for meaningful change. Blue Door Group’s approach to consulting is that it MUST be people and learning centered. By empowering your people, you will transform your organizational culture. This enables you to reach  your goals from the INSIDE of the organization out.

They have Experience:

The experienced learner is keen to draw on their prior experiences to inform next steps. We use our existing expertise, what we know, in order to build on what it is we WANT to know or discover. Experience provides the basis for all learning. Part of transforming from the inside out means testing theories and learning from what doesn’t work. Opportunities to try new things will fire up the experienced learner.

They are Problem Solvers:

Solving practical problems is their drive to learn. Fedex made this famous by giving their employees free time to work on other projects. People are natural helpers and they want to improve processes, help systems work, and support their colleagues through innovative thinking. Positioning learning around a goal or problem to solve helps to ensure your learners engage in the process of improvement, growth, and change.

They are Intrinsically Motivated:

Adult learners are driven to learn based on their own satisfaction: learning for learnings sake. Fears of providing learning opportunities resulting in staff turn over are actually somewhat unfounded. Employees are more likely to stay on board if you VALUE their personal interests in their learning decisions.

Learning for adults must be meaningful.

Keeping these factors in mind is what has enabled so many of our clients to not only survive, but thrive. The culture within a learning organization fosters the ability to pivot or innovate naturally in any circumstance. It empowers the team to bring changes from within. These types of shifts typically take hold more effectively than top down directives. The ability to teach team members to identify problems and take them through various decision making models, has allowed them to make informed decisions and, as a result, has had an extreme impact.

Most importantly, in order for adults to want to learn they need to be free to FAIL SAFELY.

Are you ready to graduate to a Learning Organization?

Blue Door group works with organizations to build corporate cultures that encourage innovative through practices, policies, and systems that engage and empower their people; entrenching the practices that will set it apart from the competition through a culture of learning.