Lessons in Learning 2: What does a learning culture look like?
I believe that one of the most important things leaders need to be able to do is to create environments where people learn, everyday and always. Environments where people feel empowered and enabled to take responsibility for their own learning and to try new ways of doing things. We shouldn’t expect leaders to instinctively know how to do this - we have to help them to learn how. That’s exactly what I’m exploring in my new bi-monthly blog series “Lessons in Learning”.
When we talk about organisational culture, it can feel a bit amorphous and hard to get hold of. The culture we work in can manifest itself in many ways - our behaviours, how we interact with one another, the mindsets that frame our thinking, as well as the physical things that are around us in our work environment. When I talk about creating learning environments or cultures as being one of the most important things leaders need to be able to do, it’s pretty meaningless if we’ve never experienced a learning environment and don’t know what one looks or feels like. So I’m going to try to describe one.
Let me start with a rider. There is no one ultimate learning environment, there is no template to follow. What works for one group of people, may not work for another and will be greatly influenced by the people working in it and their interactions, relationships and behaviours. What there is however are some common themes and elements that emerge, some great examples of what creates environments where people can learn and some simple, practical things that can help you get started. I’m drawing on some of my own experiences, not to give you a definitive view but rather to feed your imagination, hopefully help you to recognise some great stuff you’re already doing that you can build from and help you to paint your own picture of where you’d like to get to with your team or organisation.
workplace culture
Influenced by our interactions, relationships and behaviours
One of my early experiences of working in a “learning environment” goes back to the early 2000s. For 12 months, I worked for the organising committee of the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games on a secondment from my employer. I was hugely privileged to work for Frances Done, the Chief Executive who to this day is probably the best leader I ever worked for. Having successfully got through my interview I was asked to go back into the office the following day to meet some of the other senior leaders. I was on maternity leave at the time and had no childcare. “Don’t worry”, said Frances, “bring her in with you, there’s plenty of people here who would love to look after her for you.” Well that felt different. And to be honest it set the tone. Frances is awesome at people and relationships. As her Policy and Liaison Executive, I watched her have really challenging conversations in clear but non-threatening ways that helped people learn. I saw her create an environment that was absolutely focused on delivering the Games on target and on budget whilst creating freedom for people to work out the how. I witnessed her genius in playing to peoples’ strengths. Someone could be in a role and not doing great and she’d navigate a series of conversations that resulted in them moving to another role that played to their strengths and they would thrive.
The second place that springs to mind when I think about my own experiences of a learning environment is when I worked in the shadow organisation that went on to become Manchester’s Local Care Organisation (MLCO). Prior to its formation, a diverse group of passionate people who wanted to improve how health and social care is delivered in the city came together. The task was to create a tender submission setting out a response to invitations to bid to run the new integrated care organisation. Everyone was on loan from various health and social care organisations in the city, no one was in a formally constituted role, there was no formal organisational structure, we were in a makeshift office set up with minimal process and facilities around us. Whilst a few other places had set up LCOs nationally, no one had done it in a way that was required by Manchester commissioners. This meant that for everyone, it was a big learning journey.
What I loved about my time working there was the culture that I worked in. In a small open plan office, everyone talked to each other, joined in each other's conversations and had the opportunity to get involved in work that motivated and interested them. Because no one had a formal role or was part of a formal structure, we all accepted that we all had a contribution to make. I worked with some of the most hugely creative, diverse, intelligent, transformative minds and with people who truly cared about making a difference.
There were frequent conversations about podcasts listened to, books read and different approaches and experiences, regular opportunities to hear from different people about things they’d developed or tested and time booked out for collective creative thinking and development. All of this served to spark thinking, ideas and creativity. The makeshift office meant that meetings in coffee shops were a must - again adding to the informal, relationship-based approach to getting stuff done. When the tender was successful and things progressed towards implementation, almost inevitably the culture moved on with the introduction of more formal organisational arrangements and at that point a number of us moved on into other roles. I’m not close enough to MLCO now to know what the culture is like these days but when I look back, there was a moment in time that really captured what a learning environment could look like. And don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t perfect and there were times that things felt really frustrating but at its heart was a truly relational, visionary and learning culture.
Informal spaces
Environments that help build relationships and exchange of ideas.
I’m going to stick with health and social care for my next example of what a learning environment can look like. I’ve spoken to Carol Kavanagh in one of my previous blogs (insert link). Carol is a truly inspirational, passionate leader who people love and who makes change happen. I recently asked Carol if I could talk to her team because knowing Carol as I do, I thought that if anyone was successful in creating a learning environment, it would be Carol. And I wasn’t disappointed. I spoke to members of the North Manchester Community Health Service whose role it is to help people stay independent outside of hospital and when people do go into hospital, to return back to independence within the community as soon as possible. Social workers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, nurses, pharmacists, social care staff and administrators work together in an integrated team.
Straight away, I could feel the togetherness of the team. There was a clear sense of collective purpose and members of the team gave each other space to talk without feeling the need to jump in to make sure they got their point across. I heard about how from the get go, members of the team are encouraged to get to know each other and that everyone spends time with the different professional disciplines that make up the service. An approach that a new starter told me had been an “eye opener” that “helps us to know what’s out there and how to use it.”
Reflective practice is built into the DNA of the service whether that be through joint reflective learning sessions that focus on particular scenarios, reflective learning that takes place within team meetings or, crucially, reflecting on things that inevitably go wrong. Members of the team told me “it's all about relationships” and “you can only get the learning by spending time with other people”.
“What went well? What could we have done differently? What did we learn?”
The team takes a strengths based approach designing ways of working to maximise the impact of the strengths of individual team members, team members have the freedom and autonomy to be creative and develop. Putting it simply, they know, value and understand each other and the positive relationships that exist between team members mean they get things done to a high standard of quality.
What does this mean for leaders?
Three quite different examples and for me a number of important themes that emerge that are important features of a learning environment. I do sometimes hear people say that it wouldn’t be possible to emanate the learning from examples like these in their own organisations because there were/are “special circumstances” around them. I fundamentally disagree. For me, it’s all down to leadership. When leaders start from strengths, set clear expectations and then give people freedom to work out how best to achieve them, prioritise creating spaces and experiences where people learn and crucially ask questions that enable reflection and learning, that’s where learning cultures emerge. These are all skills that leaders can learn and approaches that all leaders can take responsibility for putting into practice.
Let us not forget, only 10% of what we learn is through formal learning like training programmes. That means leaders have a huge influence over what we learn for the other 90% of my time.
In my next blog of the series I’ll offer some practical steps for getting started with building a learning culture.
