Imagine for the last month you have been preparing for a pitch with your colleague. You spend days meticulously compiling data to win over your superiors. Despite working as a team, your colleague is more charismatic in the presentation: the audience hangs on her every word. Without intending to, she receives the bulk of the praise and recognition for the work.

The halo-effect is one example of the cognitive biases built into the human brain. Our overall impression of a person influences how we feel about his character, or what she says. We find it difficult to look at the cold, hard facts, and this can lead us astray. 

No matter how objective we try to be, we are all at the whim of our brain chemistry. A number of these biases exist and can wreak havoc with our ability to make level-headed decisions. Understanding what they are can help you significantly in the workplace - even help you to gain an advantage. 

A cognitive bias is an error in judgment or thinking that occurs as we make sense of the world around us. Our brains are powerful, but limited in the amount of processing they can do at any one time. Biases are generalizations created by our minds to deal with large amounts of information more quickly.  

Instead of taking the time to think logically and objectively, our brains will jump ahead to using this pre-programmed system. This flaw can lead us to make poor decisions or take action without considering all of the facts. This comprehensive list from VeryWellMind explains each of the biases in more detail. 

Knowing about the cognitive biases wired into our brains can be useful. We can use the information to influence our decisions and actions at work. Here are our top tips for stepping back and preventing your biases from taking over: 

1. Do your best to look at all the evidence

Confirmation bias is when we favor information that supports our existing beliefs. Rather than remaining open to new information that could change our point of view, we opt to stick with what we know and discard additional details.

When you find new evidence or data, try to look at the information with fresh eyes. We don’t advocate throwing all of your prior experience out of the window. Still, it can be helpful to keep an open mind when presented with an idea or piece of information that challenges what you already know. It could help you to develop your experience in a particular topic or make you more aware of the latest advances in your field. 

The availability heuristic is when we place higher value on information that comes to our minds quickly. If we have experienced an event or found out a piece of news recently, we tend to think it is more likely to be accurate, as we are more easily able to access the thought or memory.	

When you are brainstorming ideas for a new project, allow yourself enough time to come up with a range of possibilities. Perhaps speak with your colleagues and ask for their input. The first ideas you come up with won’t necessarily be the most effective. Ideally, you should draw on information from a variety of sources to know which plan is best before proceeding. 

The self-serving bias can be challenging to manage. Naturally, we want to tell positive stories about ourselves to stay hopeful and enthusiastic about the future. However, when something terrible happens, we tend to assume that it wasn’t our fault and that forces beyond our control are to blame. 

When good things happen, we are quick to give ourselves credit. This bias can cause all kinds of problems if we want to make progress in a particular skill or area at work. If we are unable to see our faults when learning something new, we are unlikely to make progress. If we blame external forces or others when things go wrong, not only will we annoy our colleagues, we will fail to understand the adjustments necessary to get better. 

Attentional bias is when we pay attention to certain things and ignore others. We tend to focus on topics we are interested in, have experience with, or think about regularly. When making important decisions, we might fail to consider essential criteria because they aren’t readily on our radar. 

When making a decision, it can be helpful to make a list of all the criteria that might affect your choice. Involve trusted colleagues in this process, as they will likely think of different approaches to you. You can then carefully evaluate each aspect of the decision you need to make, without missing vital information. 

We also tend to favor the first piece of information we hear when coming to a decision. While the anchoring bias can make it difficult for us to come to reasonable conclusions and evaluate all of the critical information, it can also be helpful. If we are the first to bring a piece of information to the table, we are far more likely to be heard and noticed. If possible, be careful not to rush and share the first idea that pops into your head! 

Go1 is your employee's gateway to professional development growth. With courses that cover numerous business functions, we help your staff grow into their role by unlocking their potential. Content is at all levels of difficulty and is suitable for any employee, in any department, in any region

Encourage your learners to own their personal development training, by giving them the flexibility to search and select courses that reflect their professional interests. This helps your employees take the learning outside of the workplace, so they can access it whenever and wherever they want.

False

How to handle cognitive bias in the workplace

Change is an inevitable part of growth for any business. As organizations take steps forward, certain aspects of what they do will improve, while others remain constant or slip back. 

Currently, we are experiencing a period of growth unprecedented in human history, labeled as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The World Economic Forum describes this time as “a new chapter for human development, enabled by extraordinary technology advances commensurate with those of the first, second, and third industrial revolutions.”  

In light of this shift, change management is becoming an increasingly popular area of research and is now recognized as a formal vocation. The discipline aims to help organizations successfully navigate current advancements in technology and knowledge.

Here, we present the main goals of change management and suggest how organization leaders can use the underpinning theories to guide their employees through times of change. We will also explore the role of learning and development in the process. 

According to online learning provider MindTools, change management is a structured approach for ensuring that management teams thoroughly and smoothly implement changes and that they achieve the lasting benefits of change.

From a simple change to an organization’s systems to alterations in policy or strategy, change management can help organizations maximize their potential and limit the damage change can inflict. 

McKinsey & Company found that “70 percent of change programs fail to achieve their goals, largely due to employee resistance and lack of management support.” Change managers aim to increase the chances of new initiatives sticking by ensuring employees are supportive of the process. Paying attention to the employee experience makes it 30% more likely for organizations to successfully implement new strategies.

Communicating changes to employees, no matter how small, can make a significant difference to how that change is received. If employees are kept in the loop and know what to expect, they are far more likely to support each other and those in leadership to make the changes necessary. 

Jay Tankersley at Vital Learning emphasizes that it is critical to communicate the following aspects of change to team members: 

The direct effect the change has on your team

The impact the change has on individuals’ daily work

With these pillars of communication in place, organization leaders are far more likely to see employees invested in the changes they make to strategy, with buy-in being a critical element to the success of any new initiative. 

When an organization goes through a period of change, employees will form expectations along the way. If their roles and responsibilities are going to alter, being as transparent as possible is vital. Elizabeth Baskin, CEO at Tribe, Inc., explains that while transparency is essential during times of change, it isn’t always appropriate to be completely open with employees and that they understand this. 

The best outcome is to be as honest as possible, without revealing sensitive information. Baskin adds that as long as management teams give employees an idea of what to expect and information they can and can’t have access to, they are far more likely to accept the difficult decisions. 

While productivity may slow initially during times of change, this will bounce back as employees grow accustomed to new situations and requirements. Research shows that re-organizing workplaces has a significant impact on productivity in the long term. If those in leadership accept this initial downturn, the rewards will come over time. Although progress may be slow at times, it is essential to avoid looking for individuals to blame or single out.

Uncertainty can also add to stress and tension, creating undue conflict between team members. While a certain level of anxiety is a necessary part of growth and development, if this reaches an unhealthy level, managers can support employees with stress management techniques. 

As an organization moves forward in a new direction, employees will likely have to adapt and learn new skills to contribute to the process.

An effective way to improve productivity during times of change is to engage employees through learning. Will they need to learn new skills as their roles and responsibilities change? 

From a management perspective, those in leadership can also use this time to identify skills gaps across the organization and seek to address these through learning initiatives. Are there gaps in employee knowledge that leadership teams need to cover? Will equipping employees with these new skills help the management team to execute on their new strategy? Asking these questions will help those in leadership to take full advantage of learning opportunities as they arise.

5. Support employees to become autonomous 

As a preventative measure, before a change occurs, it can be helpful to support employees in becoming more autonomous. Developing this quality requires trust on the part of management, which is built over time as teams get to know each other and learn how to work together. 

For example, in a strategy meeting, the management team might identify that the organization is falling short of their targets in a particular area. When those in leadership communicate this to employees, they are far more likely to reach solutions independently if they have the confidence to work autonomously. Offering professional development in skills such as creativity, problem-solving, and design thinking can all help employees to take the lead as their organization develops. 

Go1 is your employee's gateway to professional development growth. With courses that cover numerous business functions, we help your staff grow into their role by unlocking their potential. Content is at all levels of difficulty and is suitable for any employee, in any department, in any region.

Coping with change from a leadership perspective

In the age of widespread access to digital content, the way we consume media is becoming far more individualized. Instead of watching a show on TV with family or friends, we can now watch a series of our choice. We can do this on our own or with others, and we can select what we want to watch when we want to. 

Similarly, the way we engage with learning content is changing. We no longer want to learn in large groups, nor do we want to be taught the same information as thirty other participants. We can find the answers we need for ourselves at our own pace. 

Research shows that when organizations focus on the quality of L&D, they can boost productivity and employee satisfaction. A large-scale analysis of employee surveys also revealed that career development is the second most important driver of employee satisfaction and ongoing engagement. 

In light of this research, we are going to look at how organizations can better support employees through L&D practices, and make suggestions for how to make improvements. 

While each employee has a role to play in their professional development, it is the responsibility of the organization to create a culture focused on L&D. 

Towards Maturity, an organization assessing the effective implementation of learning innovation found that in an unparalleled era of change for organizations, there is an excellent opportunity for L&D to deliver strategic value.  

Organizations can achieve this using their “Transformation Curve” roadmap, which describes how they can develop their learning culture. They summarise the journey into four stages: Optimizing Training, Taking Control, Letting Go, and Sharing Responsibility. 

Researchers also identified six dimensions that impact upon an organization’s capacity to transform:

Governance and decision making: aligning of learning strategy to business goals and objectives, with the smart use of evidence to support decision making.

Formal learning: building an efficient, active portfolio of learning resources to address skills gaps and support learners’ career development.

Informal and social learning: encouraging the interchange of ideas and mutual support to support personal and business goals, collaborative problem solving, and innovation.

The role of the learning professional: adopting business-focused and tech-savvy facilitation of L&D through blending performance support, training, and expert advice and guidance. 

The role of the manager: driving the achievement of organizational goals and championing transformation and committed to individual and business advancement through learning.

The final dimension is directly related to employees being accountable and responsible for their learning:

The role of the individual: ensuring that self-directed learners are purposeful, curious, confident, social, connected, adaptable, and take ownership of their L&D.

Bringing the research together, here are our top tips to help employees in your organization reap greater rewards from your L&D strategy:

1. Make learning and development a priority

When organizations prioritize learning and development, employees can become more agile and adaptive, meaning they have an improved ability to cope with and respond to the rapid rates of change expected of them in the digital age. 

One way to shift the focus to L&D in an organization is to build it into your organization's values. 

Values underpin every decision and action in your organization. It is important to mention them often, so employees know precisely what their team aims to achieve. Clearly defined values also make it easier to attract employees who share your organization's beliefs.

When these values include the importance of learning and development, this will filter down to every aspect of operations. Employees will be far more likely to understand how learning fits in with the broader purpose of the organization. They will also want to develop skills that help them contribute to the organization's mission.  

2. Give employees access to high-quality learning content

Employees also need to have engaging content and access to a wide range of materials to suit their learning needs. A great way to cover all the bases is to provide them with access to a well-stocked content library. The Go1 Premium platform is home to a growing collection containing thousands of learning resources. 

In the current workplace environment, employees want to direct their learning. Deloitte Insights explains that corporate learning departments are changing from education providers to content curators and experience facilitators. Their task is to develop innovative platforms that turn employee learning and development into a self-driven pursuit.

Organizations are moving away from facilitator-led programs and opting to develop tools for employees to curate their own learning experiences. Relinquishing control and empowering learners is a difficult step to take, but a rewarding one. When learners can take ownership of their learning, this increases engagement. They can also address gaps in their knowledge independently.

4. Encourage employees to share knowledge

When working in a team, knowledge is only useful when it is shared with others and communicated. Employees should be encouraged to share information. Teams could even build knowledge sharing into team meetings, where employees and those in leadership share interesting articles, books, videos, or podcasts they have come across recently. 

Peer-to-peer learning also needs to be high on the agenda. Across an organization, employees will have a wide range of skills and knowledge, and staff members should be encouraged to share what they know. Social learning is one of the most effective ways to acquire new information and expertise. 

5. Create a safe haven for open communication

It is essential that employees feel safe talking to each other and those in senior management about areas they need to focus on for professional development.  

Admitting when we don’t understand a concept or process can be difficult and makes us feel vulnerable. When those in leadership positions model positive learning behaviors, employees will feel more confident speaking up. Helpful behaviors include asking questions, seeking out opportunities for feedback, and sharing examples of great work.

When employees see those in management modeling this behavior, they are far more likely to feel comfortable with it themselves.

Five top L&D tips to help employees get ahead in 2021

Human beings have been making New Year’s resolutions for some 4,000 years. The ancient Babylonians held celebrations in honor of the new year and made promises to the gods to return any objects they had borrowed. 

The start of a new year and a new decade is an opportune time to reaffirm broken promises to ourselves and create new goals for the year ahead. Most of us are coming back refreshed from a break, with a renewed energy to make changes.

Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project and other books on personal development, explains that we need to set up goals to suit our nature. For example, if you find you work best in the morning, your resolution might be to complete more challenging projects at the start of the day.

In a recent Go1 article, we talked about reflection as a way to move forward professionally. Looking inwards can also serve as an excellent basis for goal setting, as you spend time carefully identifying the areas in which you need to improve. 

Realistic goals are all about setting yourself up for success. Once you gain momentum and start to see tangible progress, you can continue with a new cycle of goal setting.  

Research and thinking behind goal setting 

To get started, let’s look at some of the research behind setting successful goals. Interestingly, evidence shows that looking to your underlying values, rather than trying to hit superficial targets, is more likely to lead to success.     

Kelly McGonigal, psychologist at Stanford University, explains that understanding what is meaningful to you is the key to setting achievable goals. “Give yourself permission and time to think about what it is you want to experience in your life or what’s getting in the way,” says McGonigal. She suggests to think about what you want, and then ask yourself why you want it three times in a row. 

New York Times best-selling author and life enthusiast, Mark Manson, warns that we need to be realistic in our expectations when we set goals. As an example, he explains that, “people want to be rich without the risk, without the sacrifice, without the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.” We need to be prepared to make sacrifices to push towards a target. For example, if you want to improve your communication skills at work, you need to devote time and energy to it. You will also need to be prepared to take risks and make mistakes to learn. 

Once you have set your goals, James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, explains that we need oars and rudders to meander in the right direction. Setting the goal is like the rudder. You point it in one direction and move more or less directly towards it. If you turn the rudder too much, you end up going in circles. The oars are your processes or systems for achieving that goal. He explains further using the following example: “If you’re a writer, your goal is to write a book. Your system is the writing schedule that you follow each week.”

Using these ideas and evidence-based suggestions, here is our guide to getting started with goal setting this year:

1. Identify your strengths and weaknesses

You may already have a good understanding of what your strengths are, or need to do a little more work to uncover them. When you reflect, think of three ways you have made the most of your talents in the past year. What conditions were present to enable you to do this? Did you behave any differently? Is there any way you could make more of your strengths in the coming year?  

It isn’t easy to accept what our weaknesses are or to know where our blind spots lie. It can make us defensive and irritable to think that we are imperfect, but we all are, and there is comfort in that. Understanding our weaknesses is key to making real progress, both in our personal and professional lives. 

Once you have identified areas you might like to improve in, think about one thing you would like to get better at within this framework. Consider why you want to get better. This way, you can connect with the process, and you’ll feel more motivated to keep going. 

3. Be authentic, consider your personality

There are certain traits in our personalities that remain fixed throughout life. If you are introverted and work best in quiet environments, set yourself a goal that is conducive to this. A goal that involves a lot of communication with others could be overwhelming, and you could quickly lose momentum. However, it is advisable to keep a balance. Sometimes, we need to step out of our comfort zone to grow. 

What sacrifices will you have to make to reach this goal? Are you willing to make them? If not, you might need to look elsewhere to set a realistic target.  

As James Clear explains, you need to think about what your oars are. What daily, weekly or monthly systems do you need to put in place to achieve the goal you have set? Identify a system that works for you, and then find the discipline to stick with it. 

An introspective approach to goal setting for 2021

Giving feedback on a piece of work or observing a colleague's performance seems like a simple enough task. Skilled employees review the quality of an employee’s contributions against a set of principles they have formulated through experience or a framework that their organization uses. 

While the process isn’t complicated, effectively delivering feedback involves an understanding of human psychology. Naturally, we find it challenging to know that we’ve fallen short in some way. We also have an inherent negativity bias, which means we ‘feel the sting of a rebuke more powerfully than we feel the joy of praise.” Indeed, sometimes what needs to be said can be difficult to hear.

With this in mind, it is important for senior employees to be mindful of their body language, tone, and words they use when giving feedback. Delivery can mean the difference between a colleague walking out feeling ready to take their learning forward or having their confidence knocked.

Science also reveals ways in which organizations can make hearing feedback a less emotionally-charged experience. Structured responses will ensure employees understand how to apply what they hear to their work. Leaders can also strive to make the feedback experience a positive and reciprocal process. Let’s look at this research in more detail. 

Practitioners in the medical profession are consistently in a cycle of observation, reflection, and improvement. This research from the field looks at the use of effective feedback to facilitate adult learning. The findings include useful insights that are applicable across many industries. 

Below, we outline ten suggestions the author gives for improving the way your organization delivers feedback to employees. While a formal mentor/mentee relationship might not always be in place, we will use these words to clarify the position of each person in the discussion: 

While leaders need to deliver feedback in a formal context at regular intervals (usually through performance reviews), there are many opportunities to give employees guidance throughout the working day.  

If you spot somebody on your team struggling with a new concept, take five minutes to guide them through the learning process. This one-to-one time will make all the difference, and make the employee feel valued at the same time. 

2. For maximum impact, the source of feedback must be considered credible and trustworthy by the recipient

It is crucial that those receiving feedback feel that their mentor is both knowledgable and experienced in the subject. If this isn't the case, you run the risk of employees feeling patronized and unmotivated to improve. Ensure that those delivering feedback are respected and of a high enough caliber to do so.  

3. Provide clear information about performance standards and the performance of the employee to elucidate any differences

For feedback to be useful, learners need to have a clear understanding of the parameters within which they are trying to improve. For example, if an employee is focusing on developing a new technical skill, how to make progress should be clear to them from the outset. This step-by-step guide can form the basis of feedback comments.  

If employees are using online learning tools to progress, the learning objectives set out in lessons can be used as a foundation for comments. A high-quality course will outline how participants can make progress. Your organization or industry might also have prescribed standards that employees are expected to meet. 

4. Share the positive information before the negative 

This idea might seem like an unnecessary detail, but it is only human to focus on the negative information we hear about ourselves. As soon as an employee hears negative feedback, they will focus on this and probably struggle to concentrate on the other information you share with them. 

A great approach is a "positive feedback sandwich," where you begin and end a feedback session with positive points. This tactic helps the attention to be focused equally on the positive and those areas which need more attention. But be aware of making this too obvious, as it can seem rehearsed and insincere if you don’t adapt it to the person you are sitting with. 

5. Feedback should be specific, objective, consistent, and timely

Ensuring that feedback is specific and objective comes back to providing employees with a clear pathway to success. If learners understand where they have come from and what they need to do to progress, the feedback you deliver will be consistent and clear. 

A clear framework will also enable those delivering feedback to remain objective. Of course, this isn't entirely possible because forming opinions is natural for human beings. However, structuring discussion will help mentors to minimize any bias in their judgments. 

6. Provide a supportive environment for feedback and encourage an open dialogue 	

Creating a supportive environment for feedback is a crucial part of the process. At its best, feedback becomes a discussion between mentor and mentee, and a collaborative learning curve for both participants.  

However, this balance can be difficult to achieve when the mentor is in a position of experience and power within the organization. It requires a level of humility from the mentor and self-confidence in the mentee. 

8. Develop a plan for follow‐up and ongoing reinforcement 

Feedback will only be useful when mentors deliver it as part of a more comprehensive, ongoing process. The aim is for the mentor and mentee to set goals together at the end of a feedback session. After this, it is essential to support the mentee in reaching those goals and to hold them to account.

9. In addition to oral and written feedback, use other tools, such as computers, audio recordings, and videos

Formal discussions are not the only method for delivering feedback. It may be appropriate, and in some cases, more helpful to guide your mentee using video footage. In the case of an observation of practice, video can be particularly useful as the mentee can see exactly the action you are referring to in your comments. This clarity helps the mentee to know what the expectations are. 

10. Enhance the skills of senior employees through professional development programs and self-study modules

As part of a pathway to success, direct employees to any workplace learning material appropriate to their needs. With online learning modules, mentees can make progress independently, and at their own pace. They may also wish to conduct their own more extensive research on a topic. 

How to maximize opportunities for feedback using research

As the year draws to a close, and we embark upon a new decade, staying focused at work can be a real challenge. Most of us are too excited about having time off to concentrate. And those who don't have the luxury of resting over the Christmas break? They have the task of staying motivated while everyone else is enjoying themselves.

Regardless of how much work you have to do over the next month, December can be a great opportunity to look inwards. Self-reflection at this time of year can also form an excellent foundation for goal setting in the new year. 

Reflection is also fundamental to personal growth, and an important part of the experiential learning cycle. After living through an experience, the next step is to reflect on what happened and any new knowledge gained in the process. 

Monash University defines reflection as a metacognitive process, which involves thinking about thinking. For example, we might reflect on a task, process, or practice, focusing on our thinking, behavior, and actions.  

Their guidance adds that "reflecting on a practice may involve consideration of what happened, why, how you felt, or how it impacted you, and how you may respond or adapt in the future." Fundamentally, reflection involves describing the event, interpreting it, and reviewing how the outcome may help you to make changes. 

Our cognitive biases can also limit our ability to think critically, but awareness of them can enhance the reflective process. For example, confirmation bias involves favoring information that conforms to your existing beliefs and discounting evidence that does not. If you have a fixed opinion of yourself, you will look for information to support this claim rather than remaining open to the possibility of change and development.

While everybody’s reflective process is personal, there are strategies you can use as a guide to get started. We outline some of these below, although there are many different ways to tackle it.

Everyone has personality traits that help them to shine, and others that are less than perfect! A useful place to begin with reflection is to know your personality better and to use this understanding as a foundation for growth. While there is always room to improve, there are certain parts of our characters that remain more or less fixed throughout life. 

Understand where your strengths and weaknesses lie 

To make the most of your personality type, and any fixed traits you may be stuck with, it is helpful to get to know yourself better. Where does the potential in your personality lie? If you aren't sure, one of these tests can give you a summary. This self-knowledge test from The School of Life also uses an intriguing approach. 

Think about whether you have played to your strengths

Think about when you have mitigated your weaknesses

It isn't easy to accept what our weaknesses are or to know where our blind spots lie. It can make us defensive and irritable to think that we are imperfect, but we all are and there is comfort in that. Understanding our weaknesses is key to making real progress, both in our personal and professional lives. 

For example, if you are terrible at time management, what did you do to ensure this flaw didn't get the better of you? Maybe you timed yourself doing activities, or set alarms to remind yourself when you needed to move on to the next task.  

Whatever you did, congratulate yourself on the times you were able to minimize the effects of your weaknesses and reflect on the times when this didn't go so well. How could you improve this next year? 

At this time of year, it can be helpful to remind yourself of why you are doing your work. If your job isn't right for you, it will be apparent that your goal next year is to find a new one! Perhaps you like your job but would benefit from more of a challenge? 

You might also want to think about your higher purpose. What is it that you are doing in your role? How are you contributing to your organization, community, or society as a whole? What is most important to you? If you have a clear purpose in your mind and feel connected to it, your best work and motivation will follow. 

Staying focused at the end of the year through self-reflection

In modern times, lifelong learning has become essential to both professional and personal development. As technology advances, we need to be adaptable and able to acquire new knowledge and skills quickly. 

In this environment, engaging people in learning is crucial, but equally important is encouraging members of a community to share knowledge. In the workplace, knowledge sharing is essential for organizations to remain up-to-date and ready to tackle the challenges of the future. 

While people are often inclined to collaborate and share expertise, organization leaders need to create an environment conducive to teams working together to promote the flow of knowledge. 

Here, we look at how organizations can go about developing a workplace culture to facilitate collaboration and the benefits of doing so.  

Why knowledge sharing is essential to learning culture

In a recent Go1 article, we reviewed research conducted by Towards Maturity, an organization assessing the effective implementation of learning innovation. They found that in an unparalleled era of change for organizations, there is an excellent opportunity for L&D to deliver strategic value.  

Their “Transformation Curve” roadmap describes how organizations can develop their learning culture. As an organization develops an L&D strategy, it can expect to go through four stages: Optimizing Training, Taking Control, Letting Go, and Sharing Responsibility. 

They also identify six dimensions that impact an organization’s capacity to transform, one of which is informal and social learning. Here, they explain why sharing knowledge is so fundamental to creating a positive learning culture:  

“Informal and social learning [is] encouraging the interchange of ideas and mutual support to support personal and business goals, collaborative problem solving, and innovation.”

According to the 70:20:10 model, social and informal learning also accounts for 20 percent of knowledge acquisition. 

While knowledge sharing is crucial to developing the learning culture in an organization, it is first essential to lay the foundations for this to happen. 

The goal is for communication around learning to become an organic, everyday interaction between staff members. As the “Transformation Curve” sets out, to facilitate these interactions, certain elements need to be in place first.

Next, we’re going to look at these elements, and how organizations can create favorable circumstances for an organic interchange of ideas.

According to the “Transformation Curve”, organizations need to focus on developing their learning culture in two ways before knowledge sharing becomes the norm: 

1. Governance and decision making: aligning of learning strategy to business goals and objectives, with the smart use of evidence to support decision making.

Creating an environment suitable for learning and collaboration begins with those in leadership. For knowledge sharing to become the norm, management teams are required to think strategically about professional development and give it a high priority. 

Employees in leadership positions can also model positive learning behaviors, like showing their openness to learning new information and asking questions.

2. Formal learning: building an efficient, active portfolio of formal learning resources to address skills gaps and support learners’ career development.

When those at the top of the organization have firmly placed learning as a priority, the next step is to provide employees with a range of engaging learning content. 

Whether learning takes place through access to online platforms, face-to-face classes, or in a blended environment, learners’ engagement should remain a focus. 

It is also crucial that learners have access to content to address gaps in their collective knowledge. Where possible, activities should be personalized to their needs.

In the future, we will likely embed learning opportunities to flow seamlessly into the working day, and there are already examples of this happening.

After a focus on the two initial stages of learning and development strategy, organizations may find that knowledge sharing becomes an organic process. To be rigorous, those responsible for L&D can speak with employees and collect data to assess whether they are interacting with each other in this way. 

Organizations can also generate discussion amongst staff members in several ways:

Build time for learning-based discussion into formal meetings.

Ask staff members to share anything interesting they have come across with others.

Use Slack channels or other communication platforms for employees to share knowledge. 

Make the learning process explicit. Ask staff members to think of something new they have learned this week and to tell two other people who might be interested in what they found. Encourage them to speak with each other face-to-face.

Encourage team members to ask questions of each other whenever the need arises. They shouldn’t be ashamed when they don’t understand how to do something or if they need clarification. To make employees more comfortable with this type of thinking, teams can support each other to develop a growth mindset.

With Go1 Premium, you’ll have unlimited access to a growing library containing thousands of learning resources, from top training providers around the world - all in one easy subscription.

Shape your learning culture through knowledge sharing

Today marks International Day of People with Disability (IDPwD) - a United Nations-sanctioned day that is celebrated internationally on the 3rd of December. It seeks to increase awareness of gains to be derived from inclusion of people with disability in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life. It also represents a significant opportunity for organisations to share their commitment, campaigns, leadership and stories of empowerment related to inclusion of people with disability in the workforce. 

In Australia alone, over 4 million people have registered disabilities - that's 1 in 5 people. So you are likely to have a work colleague with disability.

Fostering an equitable work environment starts with raising awareness, and so our objective is to highlight visible and invisible disability, barriers that individuals in the workplace face, focusing on capability and ultimately, shifting ‘how we discuss disability.’

To raise awareness and provide insights into how we can achieve a more equitable workplace, Go1 content partner, ViaUp, have teamed up with Help Employment and Training to create the Disability and Inclusion in the Workplace course. A course of which you will now find available in Go1 premium. 

For a sneak peek of the course, check out this short excerpt below:

Disability and inclusion in the workplace

If you're wondering how to get started in creating an inclusive working environment for all, we ask you to make time to complete this new Disability and Inclusion in the Workplace course to find out how. 

International Day of People with Disability (IDPwD) - fostering an equitable work environment for all

“We are, each of us, a product of the stories we tell ourselves” - Derren Brown

British illusionist, mentalist, and author, Derren Brown, is famous for having an incredible memory. Give him twenty minutes, and he can memorize the entire contents of a book chosen at random from a library. 

One of the techniques he uses to recall information quickly draws upon the storytelling processes in our brains. To memorize a shopping list, you make a mental image of each object at various locations in your home. When you go out shopping, you visualize walking through your home, remembering the position of each object on the list when you need to recall it. 

Attaching the objects to a familiar place or journey, such as your walk to work, makes the information far more accessible as we have placed them in an everyday context. Helping your brain to create a narrative around otherwise dull information dramatically increases its ability to recall the information. 

Stories are our most vital means of communication. We have been telling them for 27,000 years since the first cave paintings. They are not only crucial to memorizing facts but hugely beneficial for developing the spectrum of skills required to learn new skills.  

So why have our brains developed in this way? And how can storytelling help with learning at work?

Why our brains are wired for storytelling

At its core, storytelling has an evolutionary purpose. When somebody tells us a story, through empathy, we can feel whatever emotions that story conjures. This connection gives us an insight into a different world, which has a significant biological advantage. 

We also think in narratives. No matter which type of activity we are completing, we are commentators on our daily activities. Even when we speak to each other, researcher Jeremy Hsu found that “personal stories and gossip make up 65% of our conversations.” 

In a post for the Harvard Corporate Learning Blog, Vanessa and Lani Peterson, Psy.D., a psychologist and professional storyteller, explain that storytelling is a vital method of communication: 

“Storytelling forges connections among people, and between people and ideas. Stories convey the culture, history, and values that unite people. When it comes to our countries, our communities, and our families, we understand intuitively that the stories we hold in common are an important part of the ties that bind.”

They add that stories build a sense of connection and trust. They allow the listener to enter the story based on their context, which makes them more open to learning. Stories are also a simple way to communicate complex ideas and are far more engaging than having to listen to a list of points being read out from a PowerPoint - a typical feature of team meetings or traditional corporate training classrooms.  

How learners can benefit from storytelling

Research shows that when teachers incorporate storytelling into learning, they help learners to retain information, no matter what their learning style is. 

“In any group, approximately 40 percent will be predominantly visual learners who learn best from videos, diagrams, or illustrations. Another 40 percent will be auditory, learning best through lectures and discussions. The remaining 20 percent are kinesthetic learners, who learn best by doing, experiencing, or feeling.”

2. Liven up compliance training or dry topics

Creating a story out of otherwise dull information helps learners to connect the information to other parts of the brain. For example, weaving workplace health and safety requirements into a series of stories would activate the empathy processing centers in the brain, meaning learners can better connect with the importance of staying safe at work.

3. Learning through stories increases engagement