There are some parts you’ll need to have some parts in place if you want your company to be a high-impact learning organization. Since the post title references anatomy, we’ll explain the concept in - you guessed it - body parts. Starting with:
The Head - A high-impact learning organization is only possible from the top down. If your executives aren’t on board, if they don’t hold learning as the bedrock of the company, you won’t ever be the type of curious, knowledge-seeking company that you want to be.
The Heart - While The Head leads the way, you also must have internal representation supporting the company in its mission as a learning organization. The champions within the company are the front lines. This starts with your Learning & Development department, making sure that employees understand that inquisitiveness and the pursuit of knowledge are encouraged. Everyone must understand that their interest in expanding their knowledge and skills will help the company in the long run as employees look for fresh answers to challenges.
The Arms & Legs - The next part you need in place is a group of people who will be doing the work of teaching, coaching, and encouraging. They will need to be enthusiastic about their mission and have open communication with the executives and departments that are leading the L&D efforts, so they can send information upstream about changes that need to be made to the learning system. The Arms & Legs will keep the learning culture aligned with the business strategy, maintaining the “high impact” on the bottom line.
The Guts - As you might expect, in our example the final part is the system itself. If you have an outdated Learning Management System (LMS) - one that isn’t available on mobile devices, that doesn’t allow for user-generated content, that can’t take advantage of microlearning modules delivered at the point of need - then your L&D efforts are likely fated to fail. Just like our own guts, your LMS needs to function properly to support your learning efforts.
Fostering a high-impact learning culture in your organization is not easy, but the returns on the investment of time, money, and personnel are worth it in the long run. If you’re not already implementing a company-wide learning initiative, talk to fellow organizations who are so you can get an idea of the effort and requirements needed. Once you have all the parts in place, you’ll be ready to cultivate your own culture of curiosity, searching for innovative business solutions.
