“Learning-Experience” Design: An Oxymoron?
Organizations are under tight constraints. Budgets, time, and staff are often stretched thin. Phrases such as "Get the most bang for our buck" and "Fail cheap, fail fast" have become organizational cultural norms. Organization production cycles have widely adopted rapid prototyping and the fantastic world of AI to reduce resource consumption. Saving money and time is certainly okay for organizations. These ways of thinking about our work shed light on how we think about other aspects of our organization, such as learning.
Has Learning-Experience Design become an oxymoron in today's fail-fast, fail-cheap world? The process of building learning experiences can be a significant investment of both time and resources. Organizations often face high risks when they venture into creating unique learning experiences, especially if these solutions deviate from the norm.
Learning "shows up" in our daily work in our expectations through our language. We often present ourselves with questions, such as;
What did we learn from looking at last month's data?
What did you learn from talking to our clients?
What did you learn by experimenting with our new software?
What did the team learn from using our competitor's product?
More phrases like those above associate learning with work we're already doing than with targeted learning activities, courses, and training programs. I'd go so far as to say that talking about more formal learning can be arduous for organizations because it often takes the form of scheduled reflection and feedback sessions that cut into the average day and don't seemingly create organizational value.
Let's examine our thoughts on experiences. Here are some common phrases we use to engage others in conversations about their experiences.
Did you have fun?
Did you meet anyone new?
Did you see anything exciting?
Did you do something exhilarating?
Did you go somewhere you haven't been?
Did you collect any keepsakes?
Did you enjoy yourself?
Did you get to connect with old friends?
We speak about experiences similarly at work. While learning may creep into our conversations about a conference, summit, learning event, or retreat, we generally want to know if everyone enjoyed themselves.
If learning is something we do in the context of our work and experiences meant to be fun and memorable, is Learning-Experience Design an oxymoron? Does the effort to create high-impact learning align with our thinking about how we learn best, organizational budgets, time constraints, and what means most to us as we explore the world? Or, is there no better time to challenge our current approach to Learning-Experience Design and bring it to the forefront of our thinking in the L&D space?
Over the years, I've promoted a stronger focus on learning from day-to-day experiences. On the design side, this means harnessing purposeful learning-experience design to ENABLE intended learning outcomes. How?
Help learners (any age and level) to THINK.
Craft intentional opportunities to use THINKING to build knowledge from ongoing work.
Coach learners to share their THINKING.
Develop feedback from real situations (reality is awesome).
Enable re-THINKING.
Lead conversations on mental models (building, sharing, and adapting them).
Build transformative cultures guided by inspiring vision-mission.
Measure performance based on shared mental models aligned with organizational vision-mission.
Design systems to increase your capacity to do your daily work.
Tap learning to build better systems.
Celebrate your wins, raise those who contribute, enjoy the work, and recognize the change people have undertaken at a personal and professional level.
Go back to #1.
This approach is Learning-Experience Design 101 at MYNDDSET. Notice that "Content Development" is not mentioned in this model. Content is all around us. How we think about and build knowledge FROM that content is a vital part of Learning-Experience Design. In terms of costs in the world of L&D, organizations shifting to external sources for learning could primarily be doing so to lessen their costs for content development. Pushing content creation to a third party but paying for an experience is a sign that we value the experience more than the content. As we progress in the L&D space, I ask us to consider whether we are prepared to lead organizations into this transition. (See information below on spending trends in L&D).
Learning-Experience Design is only an oxymoron if we consider learning separate from our work and low-level experiences as our aim. Our collective goal should be building learning that focuses on thinking and transformative experiences.
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In 2023, large companies made the deepest cuts in learning expenditures and shifted more money to external solutions than in-house learning products. Are you interested in data on the training industry? Visit Training Magazine's 2023 Report. How do leaders of large organizations strive to maintain or create nimble systems to remain competitive? And, what does their thinking reveal about their thoughts in learning?