License to Learn

​TEXT ANNI MANSIKKAOJA & KIRSI MIKKONEN

Picture this.

You are a railway worker in the American Midwest in 1923. You stack the tracks from ladder to ladder, steel rod to steel rod. The work follows a strict process, and every day you have a certain goal to reach. The goal, standard to all, is based on the building phase of your most muscular co-worker. “It is reachable to him so it should be reachable to all”, they say. But how someone who is 20cm shorter and half as physically strong can possibly stand a chance?

While the example may be slightly exaggerated, the mindset behind this 100-year-old norm is still amazingly accurate. There is nothing wrong with having standards and processes but often the only reason they exist is to set boundaries. After all, people would only slack and avoid work without them.

Douglas McGregor theorized the unfortunate phenomenon already in the 1960s. Theory X is based on assumptions expecting the worst in humans. In practice, this means assuming that fundamentally everyone dislikes work. This leads to no one really wanting to do it or take responsibility. In such reality, external control and direction bring a sense of security that people desire. They want to be controlled and directed, threatened even if need be.

In order to reach the standard, you put together a little helping ladder to ease out the process. That day you reach the goal faster than ever. “This is not what you are here to do,” they say and ban the machine. You go back to the process, standard and being miserable.

This type of thinking creates a vicious circle where procedures and structures are hindering development rather that enabling it. While management want employees to embrace the organization as a whole, the actual structures with rewards and punishments are likely to have a completely opposite effect. In extreme cases, such a negative culture means that an organization and people creating it are put against each other. This serves no one. ​

Let’s take another example.

You are a specialist in a medium-sized organization and you’ve gained a set of skills that make you unique in the community. Now there are new people coming in, a group of interns maybe, with the excitement and capacity to take it all in. These URL-natives are equipped with fresh ideas and modern education to bring in the change the upper ladder has preached about the past years. They are put together to learn as a separate team which makes them even more frightening: they are an external threat inside the organization. On top of that, you should spend hours from your work just to share the knowledge you’ve spent years building with these newbies. You get frustrated and scared: you are not unique or important anymore.

Sounds more accurate? Identifying oneself through own skills and experience is natural to all of us. The challenge, however, occurs if this knowledge intensive identity is the only thing that gives us a sense of importance. The negative cycle is strengthened by an organization expecting the worst in its employees. It creates a blockage for knowledge flow which is a vital sign of a functioning, growing organization. Sooner rather than later, the organization finds itself gasping for breath – in vain.​

Before tuning on an organizational swansong, there is another way to do it: instead of dividing, mix. Ericsson is an example where this type of strategic choice has led to success. While the general norm is indeed to take in interns as a separate team, Ericsson has chosen to mix them with the existing ones. Instead of isolated learning and doing, the new ones are simultaneously learning by doing. Instead of trying to embrace the enormous big picture on a shallow level at once, they understand the big picture through their own role in it. Altogether, they end up feeling and being included instead of viewing everything from afar. It is a win-win situation as also their colleagues are happier. This way the knowledge flows organically and the new ones are productive from day one.

The question remains.

Ericsson’s example shows that there is a way to boost knowledge flow when it comes to orientation. But how to actually be a learning organization? While the whole process itself is rather far from fast and simple, implementing a set of clear steps and guidelines starts the movement. License to Learn includes three steps. ​

1. An organization should emphasize not knowing something is a chance to grow rather than a weakness. In other words, ditch the hell of Theory X and highlight positive assumptions as in Theory Y. This way an individual is more likely to be more open and curious. ​

2. The organizational structures should support proactively finding out what is yet to be learned. This can mean anything from arranged sessions to planned time for learning implemented in the official work schedule. ​

3. The new knowledge should be shared. This is the last phase in turning the learning silos and the key to opening the learning blockage. An organization can encourage sharing e.g. by valuing extra time in the work schedule specifically for knowledge sharing.

A real-life example of License to Learn can be seen in how the Great place to work winner in 2018 and 2019 Nitor supports organizational learning. All employees are given a set number of days per year to use for proactive learning. If the learning experiment benefits at least one co-worker, it is called core-time and there will be more hours dedicated for it. Currently, Nitor is viewed as one of the top employers in Europe.

As we can see, the turning process itself starts from the top. In order to change the mindset of the whole organization, the ones in charge of the silos need to be behind the wheel. Additionally, the building process of a new identity around togetherness needs support just as any other project. But, when people are encouraged to dare to look into the unknown, find out more and share the findings, the organization starts to live and breathe the process. As the silos turn, learning moves organically and the organization has the ability to remain relevant in the changing world.

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ABOUT WRITERS:

KIRSI MIKKONEN
​Senior Lean Agile Coach at Nitor on a mission to turn company by company into Agile

ANNI MANSIKKAOJA
​Head of Marketing & Communications at Dare to Learn