The Learning Loop

How HR professionals can improve the performance of their workforce

Many HR professionals today are re-thinking talent development, abandoning traditional classroom trainings for more experiential learning and individualized coaching. Yet these newer approaches are far from perfect. For one thing, they place too much of a burden on busy workers—LinkedIn’s 2018 Workplace Learning Report called “getting employees to make time for learning” the “#1 challenge for talent development in 2018.”
 

Experiential trainings and coaching also tend to occur episodically and away from the work itself, leaving employees without the quick feedback they need to improve in the moment. Further, coaching can be quite expensive and thus difficult to scale in many organizations.  
 
My study of 5,000 managers and employees points to a more effective and inspiring alternative: intensive, on-the-job skills practice. As I discovered, relatively few employees and managers practice skills as part of their work, even though 68 percent of employees report preferring on-the-job learning. That’s a shame, because on-the-job practice gets results. As we found, employees and managers who practiced their skills in the course of daily work placed 15 points higher in our performance ranking on average than those who didn’t. 

The Learning Loop 

 How do these employees and managers find time for on-the-job practice? Doesn’t it take endless hours to master a skill? Not at all. As Professor Anders Ericsson of Florida State University and his colleagues have shown, elite athletes and musicians master skills by engaging in what Ericsson calls “deliberate practice.” Rather than mindlessly practicing the same task over and over, individuals who progress the most meticulously assess outcomes, solicit feedback based on known standards of excellence, and strive to master tiny flaws that the feedback has uncovered. This purposeful and informed way of practicing—emphasizing the quality rather than quantity of practice—explains why some learn at a much faster rate than others.
 
The top-performing employees and managers in my study pursued a version of deliberate practice adapted to the workplace—what I call “the learning loop.” Whereas elite athletes and musicians usually rehearse before the real performance (a concert or competition), top employees and managers practice as they work, using actual work activities such as meetings or presentations as learning opportunities. When attempting to master a new skill (for instance, fostering constructive debate in meetings), they break the skill down into a number of bite-sized action items, or as I call them, “micro behaviors.” Employees working on fostering debates in meetings might practice micro-behaviors such as asking open-ended questions, playing devil’s advocate, asking a person who holds a minority view to present his or her viewpoint in the next meeting, and so on.  
 
Taking one micro-behavior at a time, top performers in my study try out a new approach to performing that micro-skill and measure the outcome. They then receive feedback from peers, direct reports, and bosses, not just coaches, and make small but significant adjustments to their approach. They proceed to try out this modified approach, running through the loop all over again. Skills development occurs over the course of dozens of loops, all undertaken in the course of normal work activity. These high-performing managers and employees spend just a few extra minutes each day learning, and they rely on informal, rapid feedback to help them improve. 

Brittany’s Story 

Brittany Gavin, a food supervisor at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, California, used the learning loop to practice running idea sessions with her team, where she would ask questions to solicit opportunities for improvements (OFIs) from team members reluctant or unable to speak up. “Running idea sessions” was the skill Brittany sought to improve, “asking better questions” a key micro-skill she decided to focus on.
 
Before beginning her skills training, Brittany would ask team members, “Do you have any ideas?” and received few if any OFIs from her team. Her coaches suggested that she tweak her opening question a bit, asking more directly: “What ideas do you have to improve patient food service?” When she did this, one team member piped up with an OFI, but the idea went nowhere. As her coaches pointed out, she needed to ask better follow-up questions—which she did in a subsequent loop.
 
Over dozens of such loops, Brittany dramatically improved her ability to run idea sessions. Prior to looping, her boss ranked her in the top 30 percent of her peer group; afterward, she ranked in the top 10 percent. During a thirteen-month period, her team suggested 104 ideas for improvement and implemented eighty-four. Food quality in her department soared, as did employee engagement.

Tech-Based Practice 

How can HR professionals implement the learning loop method at scale? Information Technology affords a cost-effective solution. My research team and I have piloted a smartphone app called “Coach in the Pocket” that helps people build skills on-the-job by applying the learning loop. Users choose a leadership competence or area of practice, and the app automatically sends them micro-behaviors on which to work. The app allows them to request quick, continuous feedback from peers, direct reports, and bosses. In less than a minute, these helpers can send a quick line or two of feedback (for instance, “ask a follow-up question about how to implement the suggestion”). Users themselves require about fifteen minutes per week to practice each micro-behavior.
 
This app helps employees translate abstract soft skills like “communication” or “listening” into specific daily actions. Further, it gives employees the real-time feedback they need to improve. To date, we’ve piloted the app with hundreds of people, and many of those who have used it actively have improved their effectiveness.
 
You can deploy a similar approach in your organization using resources already at your disposal. The HR organization can translate desired leadership competences into e-mail lists of daily actions, mass-customizing the approach by getting managers and employees to subscribe to only those lists they deem important. With these lists in hand, managers and employees can practice their daily actions and seek quick feedback from peers (for example, by using existing feedback apps or conducting quick hallway conversations). 

A Complement, Not a Substitute 

"HR professionals don’t need to jettison traditional training. Instead, they can incorporate the learning loop as a complement to their existing talent development efforts". What might your organization achieve if your people were treating meetings, business negotiations, presentations, and customer calls as an opportunity to buttress their skills? Elite athletes and musicians embrace high-quality practice to become superstar performers. Your people can, too.