5 Reasons Why Learning in the Workplace Is Important to Me and Should Be to You

Leadership guru Simon Sinek rakes in the big bucks speaking to executives at Fortune 100 companies about one simple idea: Start with Why. Simon makes a lot of money and appears to have his act together, so I figure his advice is sound. Also, he is handsome (see below). Before I dive into a semester of exploring the what and the how of Adult Learning, allow me to do what Simon says and start with why.

Why does learning in the context of work matter so much to me? Why have I chosen to focus my entire career in this space? And why do I think it should matter to you, too?

1. Learning makes people happy. As much as I care about business results and successful outcomes, my most gut-level motivation will always be the people who are doing the work that leads to business results. The average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime, and I’d like people to enjoy those 90,000 hours as much as possible.

In my own life, I hit a career dead end after several years of providing client services in the non-profit sector. I didn’t burn out because my clients were difficult, or because I was overworked, or even because I was surrounded by depressing blue carpet in my office building. I burned out because I stopped learning.

Fast-forward 4 years to my present day. I now work for a fast-paced, ever-changing corporation. I am often stressed and stretched thin (that’s another blog post), but I am generally happy as a clam because my brain gets fired up for new challenges every day.

And I’m not alone. The need to learn is a human phenomenon. The field of Positive Psychology points to the concept of mastery – our natural human desire to learn and progress – as a key factor in how happy we are.

2. I don’t want to die. And people who learn live longer. See?

3. Learning produces better outcomes. If you are a person who cares about business outcomes more than people, or if you just care about business outcomes a healthy amount, then read on for good news. A recent study from Bersin & Associates showed that companies with high-impact learning functions average 3 times the revenue growth of their competition. Bottom line? Learning contributes to the bottom line.

4.  Learning cultures unleash innovation. I see it time and time again in the leaders and teams I encounter. Without permission to fail, there is no learning. When someone is working in a culture that punishes failure and rewards perfection on the first try, work products rarely go beyond “good enough”.

Here’s how this played out for me recently. I built a brand new leadership development program for my organization this year, and I got creative, building out a program that was pretty different than anything we’d done before. It felt risky, and I wasn’t sure how much of it would actually work in practice, but I was curious what we might learn from trying something out of the box. Our leaders have been encouraging us to “test and learn”, so I decided to take them up on it. And honestly, some elements of my program have succeeded, and other elements have fallen flat. Right now, I’m in the midst of making some pretty major changes to the program based on my learnings.

I definitely have to quiet my inner critic sometimes over my lack of a home run on the first try. What makes all the difference is that my leaders and my team have been cheering me on for testing, learning, and iterating. The end product will be a home run, and because of the learning culture on my team, I will be much more likely to innovate and take risks in the future.

And did I mention that testing and learning has been a ton of fun?

Does your organization value learning and failure? How can you help build a learning culture in your work context?

      

      5. Learning is cool. All the hipsters are doing it.