Question:

How do I make Learning Transfer a reality for our participants? Many of them come with the idea of “learn and leave” vs. “learn and achieve.” What can I do to help make my priority a priority for them?
Answer:

I like the way you posed the question of getting your participants to move from an attitude of “learn and leave” to “learn and achieve.” This is in line with our definition of Learning Transfer, which is “the process of putting learning to work in a way that improves performance.” Your employees need to understand that “the real work begins when the training ends.” That is, their training is not finished until they have used what they have learned to improve their work.

To help make Learning Transfer a reality for your participants, let me give you a checklist and then some ideas on how to execute what’s listed.

Participant Learning Transfer Checklist
1. ___ I can immediately apply what I learned in my work.
2. ___ What I learned provides a clearly better approach.
3. ___ What I learned will solve a problem or create an opportunity.
4. ___ I will get visible credit for achievement.

Immediate Applicability

Imagine that you are a participant in your program and that you have just returned to your work. From such a participant’s perspective, can you clearly articulate how and where you would apply what you have just learned?

Immediate applicability is a key lever to make Learning Transfer a priority. We see this every time in our 6Ds® Workshops when we ask, “What makes it the easiest for you to apply what you learned?“ The most common answer is, “I have an immediate opportunity to use it in my work.”

Here’s a quick test you can do to see if you have applicability nailed. Can you identify several examples to share with your participants about where this learning can be applied in the kind of work they do day to day? Then share it with them to get their feedback on whether your examples ring true and will be valuable enough that what they just learned will translate into priority actions they can immediately apply.

Clearly Better Approach

This next test is a step higher. Is the solution your participants will learn significantly better than their current best practice? To do something in a different way requires time and energy, so the only way to make Learning Transfer a priority is for participants to be able to see that the new learning will help them create visibly improved results. Otherwise, your participants will not make the effort.

To see if you passed this test from the participants’ point of view, ask them if what they learn will merit priority action compared to everything else they have on their plate.

Bring a Problem to Solve

This serves as both a final test and first step for Learning Transfer to become a reality. Given the work your participants are doing, what is a problem or opportunity you could ask them to bring? I learned this approach from Pete Cage of Agilent Technologies, because Agilent always has participants in their Manager Programs bring a real world challenge that what they learn during the program can solve. The easy way to think about this is how can you help your participants bring “work to learning” and then “learning to work.”

For example, when I teach the 6Ds Virtual Workshop, I ask each participant to bring a course they are responsible for to apply the 6Ds to. This helps me set-up the question of applicability and value because by the end of our workshops, each person has to give a presentation about where they have created the greatest value using the 6Ds.

Visible Credit for Achievement

If your participants know that others will give them credit for their efforts and improvements, they are much more likely to make Learning Transfer a priority. Here are three ways you can ensure that your participants get the credit they deserve:

1. Cue your participants about how to cue their colleagues to look for the improvements they are making. This does several things. By going public with others, your participants are much more likely to continue to take action and make progress.
2. Another way to do this is to automate the communication process. For example in ResultsEngine®, the managers of participants typically get a copy of their final update. Because participants know this will happen, they most often take advantage of it so that their managers will know what they have accomplished.
3. Finally, suggest to your participants that they take their workplace learning achievement stories to their annual performance review. If your participants discuss how they are doing their work better or differently because of what you taught them, they will give themselves a competitive advantage. Imagine the power of going into a performance review with a brief description of how you have applied what you learned and the improved results this new approach is having.

I invite you to share with me your best practices to make learning transfer a priority for your participants. My email is wick@forthillcompany.com. I would also like to invite you and your colleagues to join me for a complimentary webinar, “How to Make Learning Transfer a Priority for Training Participants,” on Tuesday, April 5 at 11:00am EST.

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One Response to “Learning Alert #48: Making Learning Transfer a Participant Priority”

1. Jamshed Chhor says:

   April 14, 2011 at 3:33 pm

   I have had some pilot courses use results engine. we have participants working in public health (TB/HIV etc) who attend our courses from around 15 different low income developing countries. Learning transfer is a challange – most work in government with limited resources and low salary but their motivation is high. However when they go back to their countries they dont want to be seen as having more education or to stand out hence they are very discreet in putting in practice their action plans (at times they avoid too). wonder if country culture has to do with transfer of learning