Performance conversations: the way to learn

A thought has been congealing in my mind lately that performance conversations and learning are interrelated. By performance conversations, I don’t just mean those ‘pain in the bum’ formal processes. I’ll term those ‘performance reviews’ from here on in. By performance conversations, I mean continual and regular conversations between a manager and an employee about their progress and ongoing development. I can’t stress enough that these conversations are often glossed over for ‘more important’ operational concerns. But these conversations are integral to ongoing employee development and ultimately performance. Therefore managers play a crucial role in ongoing learning and development.

Much of the reading I have been doing recently points to trends in learning and development towards more ‘on the job’ learning, as opposed to workshop/classroom training. Case in point, the approach of Charles Jennings who discusses the 70/20/10 reference model. To summarize, the 70/20/10 model refers to 70% of learning occurring through experience, 20% through other people and 10% through structured courses and programmes.

I enjoyed the articles I read by Charles Jennings, firstly, because of his writing style. He uses Alice in Wonderland quotes to help explain key concepts. My hen’s party recently involved a mad hatter’s tea party, so I found the reference to Alice in an L&D context amusing and engaging. However, at the same time, his writing is professional and well justified. My little blog is put to shame, but I want to keep practicing so that one day my writing is as eloquent. Secondly, Much of Charles’s approach centers on leadership (I tend to use the terms ‘leadership’ and ‘management’ interchangeably sometimes and that’s because I believe management should contain an element of leadership) as integral participants and facilitators of learning and development. If you’d like to read the full articles you can find them at www.internettimealliance.com

Of course, if you’ve read my blog before, you’ll already know that I’m a big supporter of the ownership of HR functions (and that includes L&D) being held by management.  Their role is to facilitate opportunities for learning and development, either through their contribution to the company culture or providing opportunities for self-directed learning.

I love the concept of the 70/20/10 model. Experiential learning is how skills are applied in the work place, skills that ultimately lead to performance improvements. To be quite blunt, training sessions, classroom sessions, and workshops don’t achieve much aside from time out of the office, unless they are backed up by robust opportunities for application.

But how do you change or influence ingrained leadership styles that are still holding on to traditional models of learning and development? Those that pass it over to the L&D specialist to come up with a quick fix that requires the leader/manager to be hands off. One way is to leverage off performance conversations and this is not just the realm of the formal ‘performance review’.