Learning Beyond the Walls

As you demand greater innovation and collaboration from your employees, you may be putting a lot of time and money into their professional development. That’s great; building up their functional knowledge and their “soft skills” can help you take full advantage of what they can offer.

But what if there was a place besides work where they could learn?

Your employees spend more time outside the office than in it, and they may be doing some pretty interesting things that offer valuable insights which could be useful in the workplace. They could be developing their strategic planning skills, improving their talent for managing logistics, building up their coaching and mentoring abilities, or simply gaining the self confidence that will allow them to bring new ideas out into the open. For some, they are enhancing their individual skills, while for others, they may be learning things that others could put into practice as well. Before you send them off to do more training, make sure you are getting the most out of what they are already doing.

What should you be looking for? One easy answer is their work with volunteer organizations. A recent grad who has just joined the workforce may already have substantial experience leading teams in a volunteer group, either managing individual projects or overseeing regular operations by others working with the group. Though there are situational differences between a volunteer group and a private-sector workplace, there are plenty of leadership fundamentals that transfer easily between the two.

Consider your employees’ athletic interests. Do they play on a sports team, where they can improve their collaborative skills? Do they engage in higher-risk activities, like mountain climbing, or scuba diving with sharks, which can teach them about risk-mitigation? Are they involved in sports that take a lot of persistence and planning, like running ultramarathons? What they do in their off-time can tell you a lot about not just their personalities but also about the lessons they may be learning along the way.

How about their travel habits? Are they on-the-go a lot? Do they lean toward big cities or small rural retreats? Have they developed a talent for finding the best airfare, hotel route, and scheduling? Have they figured out how to make the actual transportation part of travel more enjoyable (when it really isn’t)? Consider how your high-volume travellers may have improved their own travel experience, and what they can share with others.

It’s the “sharing” part that can be most valuable, because whatever they have learned on their own may be beneficial for others. How do you get people to share their external insights openly? It helps if you start with a structured method, like a bi-weekly “brownbag” session, where someone is asked to share their experiences from outside the workplace. As people get more used to the idea of sharing and discussing, you will find that informal conversations tend to pop up — it helps to have a place where people can hang out and chat, whether it’s a simple pantry with a couple tables or a workspace designed with little cubbyholes here and there designed for people to step aside and talk. You might include “external sharing” in people’s knowledge-management or collaboration KPIs, so they know you are serious about it and really want people to contribute their insights to each other.

I am coming at this idea with some personal experience. Last year I ran the North Pole Marathon, which for me represented the last race in The Marathon Grand Slam. The Grand Slam was a multi-year journey that took me all over the world, running in different climates and terrains. Managing not just my resources but also my time for training and races sharply improved my strategic planning skills. I learned about my own need to have not only a goal but also transparency of that goal so I am accountable to others for completing it. My travel experiences helped improve all the business travel I have to do. Most importantly, I can remember flying back from the 2014 Antarctic Ice Marathon just as I was starting a new business, and telling myself “I just ran a marathon in Antarctica; running a business is definitely something I can handle;” the enhanced self-confidence allowed me to hit the ground running.

As your organization evolves your learning needs will grow. The conventional wisdom is that 70% of learning comes on-the-job, but you will increase the value of that 70% if you expand your definition of “on-the-job” to include off-the-job activities, too.