Organized Continuous Learning: Learning from Peers, Not Just Formal Classes

Learning from peers (i.e.; organized continuous learning) does not replace formal training. It has different aims and satisfies different goals.

The central focus of continuous learning is to share best internal practices. Put differently, it’s all about learning from others within the organization, not formal classes.

Years ago, Peter F. Drucker wrote:

“Continuous learning satisfies the need of the employee to contribute what he/she has learned in improving her own performance to the improvement of fellow workers’ performance…"

We suggest you read this simple but incredibly powerful insight again. It will serve you well. Memorize it. Put it into action.

Today, knowledge management gurus call Drucker’s crisp observation “creating an informal learning organization"... “a community of practice"...“internal knowledge transfer"... “the teaching firm” and “sharing work experiences and best practices."

Said Drucker:

“The very fact that the knowledge worker, to be effective, has to be specialized creates a need for continuous exposure to the experiences, problems and needs of others…

…Whether the knowledge work be accounting or market research, or {AI-driven data management}, or chemical engineering, the work group has to be seen and has to see itself as a learning group…”

None of us have time for continuous trial and error learning. We must learn more and more from the experience of others.

Pay Attention!

To slightly paraphrase Harvard's Ted Levitt: "Unexpected things happen only to people who have been inattentive… That is why prophecy is less important than attentiveness and agility…"

Of late, many authoritative economists strongly believe Inflation will worsen in the years just ahead due to America's ever-widening annual deficits, the accumulated public debt (the sum total of past deficits), unbridled government spending, and supply chain-caused shortages.

If this increasingly likely possibility does occur, today's workforce will demand increases in wages to keep pace with inflation. But wages cannot increase faster than productivity increases without worsening inflation. 

AI To The Rescue

AI promises to enable organizations to achieve quantum leaps in productivity. 

Transformer CLOs are driving three types of AI training, relating to: (1) automating business/management processes; (2) gaining insight through data management & analysis and; (3), engaging with customers and employees.

Without doubt, many L&D organizations are busy at work in providing company-wide AI training programs to upskill their organization's workforce in the basic disciplines required for making the transition to an AI-driven enterprise.

This will require, in addition to well-organized formal AI learning programs, regularly scheduled meetings among peers to discuss what works, what doesn't, and why.

‘Organized' Is the Operative Word

Any number of executives, upon being asked why organized sessions for sharing best internal practices are not being done, typically respond (defensively) how they are doing the same sort of thing.

They may have done the same sort of things (in a random manner) related to sharing best practices, but it's not an organized activity.

The point? Sharing best internal practices must be an organized, fully-budgeted activity that continuously seeks specific ways to ensure that the worst performers learn from the best. Keep raising the standard!

Global L&D organizations must turn themselves into "global knowledge brokers" to spread best company practices – and enable knowledge gained in one part of the world to be applied to a related problem in company operations in other parts of the world.

Come to CLW 2024 Vegas and learn how other L&D organizations have transformed themselves into global knowledge brokers – and have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt learning from peers leads to sustaining a company's competitive advantages in the marketplace.

How Texas Instruments Benefited From the Organized Sharing of Best Internal Practices

An excellent illustration of increasing productivity and profits through internal benchmarking is provided by Lawrence Prusak and Thomas A. Davenport in their superb knowledge management book, Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know.

“At Texas Instruments, sharing best practices became a strong focus after the concept was strongly endorsed by Jerry Junkins, then the firm’s CEO…

… Junkins noted in a shareholder's address: "We cannot tolerate having world-class performance right next to mediocre performance simply because we don’t have a method to implement best practices…"

…In response to Junkins’ exhortation, the company developed a common set of terms and (measurement) methods around best practices sharing called the TI Business Excellence Standard (TI-BEST)…"

Much was discovered about what was making “the vital few” semiconductor plants significantly more productive. This became the new standard for all the other plants.

The result?… “the firm’s 13 semiconductor fabrication plants (known as “fabs”) had substantially reduced cycle time and performance variability, leading to capacity improvements equal to building a new fab…"

When Internal Benchmarking Leads to New Training Activities Because “Telling Ain't Enough”

Writing in the Wharton Magazine, Laurence Prusak, then Executive Director of the IBM Institute of Knowledge Management, told the following story about how British Petroleum identified and transferred best practices knowledge.

"Some years ago, executives at British Petroleum—now BP, a $250 billion oil giant —noticed an unusual fact...

…While studying the company’s performance, they discovered significant disparities in the productivity of oil wells in different parts of the world...

…Intrigued by the discrepancy, John Browne, then BP's CEO, asked his associates to find out what was going on. The team that investigated the phenomenon soon found the answer… 

…It turned out that tiny, seemingly insignificant innovations, that the workers practiced— for example, the method they used to remove barnacles from a ship’s hull—cumulatively made a huge difference in results and ultimately oil well productivity.…

…Enthused by this discovery, BP set about trying to introduce these high-yield work techniques at all of the company’s oil wells...

…The initiative should have led to a massive, across-the-board increase in productivity, right? Wrong!…

…BP learned, to its dismay, that productivity did not rise at all...

…The reason was simple… The oil workers, who saw these changes as dictates imposed from above, resisted them…

…BP had to spend large sums educating/training the oil workers and persuading them of the need for change. This time, the effort paid off. The company slashed drilling costs by $47 million per oil well…"

Like most stories, notes Prusak, “This one had a moral: companies that capture knowledge about best practices and share it across the organization can sharpen their competitive edge.”

A Neglected Success Factor: The Role of Training

Whether or not BP's corporate training group was involved with this project is not known, but they should have co-ventured with the group that identified the best practices.

As Prusak indicated, the first attempt to transfer best practices to underperforming units failed.

Once the best practices were converted into an organized learning program, productivity and profits soared.

Come to CLW 2024 Vegas, and learn from today's "movers & shakers" how their L&D organizations are successfully using organized benchmarking meetings to help workers achieve and work more productively.

Act now. Register yourself – and the team of key people – today!