Support for social learning

In last weeks blog I argued that social media was there to support social learning rather than be what social learning is all about. Support is a key word that I want to discuss a bit further in this blog, because support is required for any learning to be effective. This includes e-learning, social learning, and more traditional methods of learning such as workshops and assessments.

Social learning, from what I can gather so far, requires more intrinsic motivation than ‘regular’ forms of learning. Social learning requires an individual to seek out information on his or her own accord and engage in social media tools. There is no sitting in a classroom here, you’ve got to get your own bum off your own seat.

Because social learning is a lot more organic (and potentially more delicate) than traditional forms of learning it requires more support. The business culture is crucial to provide this. What I mean by support is a business culture that supports learning.

It doesn’t matter so much what is written down as the businesses learning strategy. The business could come up with all the most new fangled, fancy, cutting edge strategies and write them all down but they are worth nothing if those strategies are not being displayed in the culture.

In Leading through Values Thompson, Thompson and Henderson (2006) are argue that business culture, including shared beliefs, values and customs contribute at least 17% to performance variability, written strategy only contributes 2%.

Culture is important and it will stifle or support learning and development. The line managers and how they perceive and enact the learning strategy, for the most part, creates this culture.

I attended an interesting seminar yesterday on the ‘Black Box’ of HR strategy implementation by Professor Peter Boxall. And yes, I am slightly biased, it was an awesome seminar, because it happened to include references to some of my research. The main point was that managers have a significant influence on the motivation and opportunity for people to learn.

Motivation and opportunity to learn are created by the culture that managers demonstrate in their own behaviour. Furthermore, a support for learning must be ingrained in the business culture, particularly where social learning is concerned. Managers are the first place to start with this. Any learning strategy requires managers to be onboard in terms of their abilities, priorities and motivations in order for support to be provided.