You Know What Happens When You Assume? Not Informal Learning
As a child I couldn’t get enough information about U.S. Presidents. It was a hobby that was completely self-driven. While my parents provided the tools for me to explore the lives of Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt, virtually all of the learning was on my own time. This instinct to latch onto facts and figures has fueled my desire for more information on a range of subjects from movies, to sports, to popular culture. My pursuit of eclectic knowledge has fused into a personality trait and shaped my life’s path and ambitions. This is never more evident than each January when I literally put my brain to the test as I take the online Jeopardy test with the ultimate goal of appearing on the iconic television trivia show (I’m confident the day will be mine).
The biggest factor in my continued learning is that I allow myself to be open to new experiences and ideas as I encounter them. I’m always seizing opportunities to Google a topic of conversation or to dig deeper into the wormhole of Wikipedia to expand my horizons.
That’s the beauty of the world of shared and easily accessible information – it’s never more than a few clicks away.
But as I hope my personal story illustrates, I’ve been more than open to informal learning opportunities, in fact I’d argue that I’ve sought them out as a function of my personality more than anything else. My readiness to learn allows me to capitalize on the countless avenues for informal learning that occur throughout my daily experiences. And I would go on to say that this sort of informal learning happens all the time in all manner of work environments.
But I would also say that perhaps organizations’ biggest false assumption about informal learning is that its occurrence in the day-to-day is assumed. Some organizations may lump informal learning with experiential learning which is something entirely different. Possibly because it’s so ingrained in the talent lifecycle; experiential learning feels assumed. Everyone’s had the experience of being new to a job; going through that first day or first week where it feels like you don’t know anything. New people, new jargon, new systems and processes are all required to be quickly learned in order to get the proper foundation during onboarding. Managers are there to either facilitate or delegate training and then eventually, in the form of individual tried and true methods of trial and error, the real experiential learning begins. Most organizations have the proper structure to guide employees to where experiential learning can be assumed. If it’s not happening as it should, performance suffers and becomes immediately apparent and immediately addressed.
So the real question is how can an organization capitalize on the inherent value and innate opportunities for informal learning? We’ve alluded to the fact that it’s all dependent on the learner’s readiness and willingness to take advantage of informal learning opportunities. But what can organizations do to enable everyone regardless of preparedness or eagerness to learn in an informal way?
At Turner Broadcasting Systems, they’ve asked one person to find this out. Devin Dreher, Informal Learning Consultant, was challenged, if you’ll pardon the irony, to formalize the organization's informal learning environment. This was obviously a tricky task which required careful consideration. Of the utmost importance was the core ideal that informal learning must not be thought of as part of the organization’s official learning program – this would go counter to the whole premise behind the value of informal learning; it’s spontaneity, it’s free-form feel. Secondly it had to feel accessible to all levels of the organization. While the goal was not to boost the overall level of learning readiness, it had to be something that wasn’t exclusive or reserved for high-potentials.
Join HCI and Oracle Human Capital Management as we tell the unique story of one organization’s attempts at implementing a structured informal learning program. The journey of Turner Broadcasting Systems is one of self-discovery and self-realization, not unlike the attributes of informal learning itself. I’m thrilled if you just stumbled onto this blog post. Or maybe on March 19th you’ll arrive serendipitously onto the webcast. How fitting it would be that without planning on it, we all learned something new.