Bridging the gap between learning and performance

When people come to me and ask me about creating a course to get people “good” at something (most recently it has been Teaching Online or Converting Courses from Live to Digital but in the past it has been Negotiating, Leadership, or just “Digital”), I ask them to tell me something they are good at.  Each of us is good at something; hopefully a few things. 
Go ahead, think of something you are good at…….Got it?  Ok now, describe the course that you took that made you good at that thing.
That’s right, I usually get a laugh or a frown.  There is no single course you took to get good at that thing.  For all of us, there was a set of various experiences over time that allowed us to do that thing well.  I can’t design a course to get you good at something, but together, we CAN use systems thinking, human-centered design and technology to design and develop a set of experiences to accelerate, enhance and scale the process.
Getting good at something typically includes the elements below:

1. Knowledge is a resource. Technology can be used to store it and access it quickly so that humans no longer have to.  If you are spending time on memorizing something you can ask Siri or Alexa, please stop. New knowledge is very important but storing it in our heads is not scalable or efficient.
2. Learning is the process of acquiring the knowledge necessary to perform a new skill or capability.  Technology can help enhance and accelerate this process through personalization and LX design.
3. Practice is the act of trying to improve these skills or capabilities.  Technology can be a key differentiator here giving opportunities to practice, take risks, fail and improve in a safe place. 
4. Feedback is the data that can be used to refine the practice and improve.  Technology can scale feedback to a large audience and refine the skill or capability for a large group of people, vs 1 on 1 (not enough coaches) or classroom training (can’t provide specific feedback).
5. Performance is the application of the new skill or capability.  This can and should be supported using technology whenever possible.
6. Outcomes are the value gained through good performance.  Here technology can be used to help us measure these outcomes.

Most organizations do 1 and 2 fairly well.  They have whole functions based on just the knowledge resources and the learning processes.  They leverage the knowledge and market learning content then pat themselves on the back for a job well done and assume 3-6 will eventually happen as a result.  They might be right in some small cases but if it does happen, it’s sporadic and inconsistent.  
Some will Practice on the job and some may get feedback from their stakeholders and clients, but the feedback is typically sporadic and usually not specific enough to act on. Some may be Performing, but they may not be doing it correctly and they may get a performance review from their manager every few months, or even worse, once a year, but the feedback is typically not specific enough for them to improve.  So you may end up with some outcomes, but it won’t be consistent and it is not a direct result of 1 and 2. This is why many L&D organizations are afraid to measure. Knowledge and Learning are essential but NOT ENOUGH to provide ROI on their own.
.B performance solutions is changing the way things are done.  We start and end with Performance and Outcomes.  Our framework combines system thinking, human-centered design and technology to develop performance solutions that are more efficient, more cost effective and more responsible for your organization.  Tell us what you want to be good at.