Writing upfront (before you have the actual test results) your expectations in a very specific way (what metric will move, how much, why do you believe that) is a critical part of the learning loop. If you don't do it, there is a tendency to rationalize the results after the fact, which breaks the learning loop.

Promote Continuous Learning: Emphasize that learning is an ongoing process, not just a one-time event. Encourage your team members to continually expand their skill sets and knowledge. Provide learning opportunities in various forms such as workshops, seminars, online courses, and mentoring programs. Encourage Knowledge Sharing: Cultivate a culture where team members are encouraged to share their knowledge and insights. This could be in the form of team meetings, presentations, or an internal knowledge sharing platform. When people share their learning, it not only benefits others but also reinforces their own understanding.

Having someone give training on a topic they may struggle with. Have the senior personnel audit/give feedback one on one. Do this as a way for personnel get instant feedback soon as a training or task is completed. Instead of think they did bad or good, they know sooner than later. Ask the people under frequently what they are struggling with instead of waiting until their review. Constant process improvement in the long run is better, than waiting until the next review, audit or customer complaint to come in.

I advocate continuous learning and establishing a learning culture within an organization and within my own team. It is essential to define clear, SMART goals in fostering a learning culture. Transparency in communicating these goals helps build trust, encourages dialogues and risk-taking, and allows for constructive feedback. It is worth emphasizing that learning goals should not be seen as an endpoint but as a part of growth and development. Encourage individualized learning paths within the team. Celebrate not just achievements, but the progress made towards specific learning goals - it can help boost the overall team morale.

I think identifying and codifying a leadership development philosophy is critical for a learning culture as well. If you believe that any person, regardless of role, is a leader and that every person deserves time and opportunities to learn and develop leadership skills, then you those beliefs should drive the actual goals, processes, and decisions. Without aligning on what an organization believes about learning, you can set goals that in the end have no backing, incentives, or time given to accomplish them.

It's also very important to give your team the space to learn. In any environment, every team member has many demands on their time and even if they are encouraged to further themselves, they will feel some guilt unless given explicit permission in the form of time to spend taking courses, reading, or preparing information to share with their peers.

We have established a culture that fuels peer to peer learning. Having periodic knowledge sharing sessions, where team members share about the best practices on their projects, the niche they experienced and what sections can possibly be repeated for similar projects. This enables a culture of collective learning benefiting the entire team.

Spread the knowledge, don't just have one person that knows everything. Having multiple people to assist you/answer questions better. Allows people to discuss things with someone they may feel more comfortable with. Give personnel scenarios whether it's a question or hand's on situation to see how they would deal with the task step by step. During this you can also stop them at different points to give them different issues they could encounter allowing they way and how to deal/fix it.

In addition to providing resources, something else you can provide is some examples of "what good looks like." While resources are important, showing people how they can integrate this into their day to day work through examples and role modeling can make this real and applicable to your employees' work.

The number one resource I see employees needing for learning opportunities is time. Leaders can show they value learning and development by setting aside time themselves and encouraging employees to take time to develop, even when that means stepping away from the churn of pressing tasks. In the end, providing the opportunity to step out of a task-driven mindset and into a learning mindset will give employees incentive and the most valuable resource for learning.

+1 on the importance of reflection… I’ve also found that *publicly* reflecting is one of the highest leverage things I can do in my job. Every Monday morning, I send an email to 1.5K interested stakeholders in the company recapping what our team learned and debated over the last week. The email is helpful for the recipients to stay in-the-know on important topics, but more importantly it forces me to sit down and reflect: what did we *actually* learn as a team in the last week? Doing this reflection + sharing it publicly helps create a culture of reflection on the team: many of our best wins have come from a process of reflection → problem identification → iteration → impact.

In a world where comparisons are prevalent, it has been my experience it's better to focus on personal development instead of external benchmarks. I think it is not only important to encourage feedback and reflection, but also to encourage your team members to become the best version of themselves. You want your team members to take the effort to become the best THEY can become. I found it helps to encourage team members to find their strengths and provide personalized opportunities for them to improve. Then, encourage (seeking) feedback and reflect on past performance.

One of the things that my team used to do were these quarterly learning labs, where at the end of a quarter we would bring the team together and 2-3 people would present a project, the key outcomes, and the lessons they learned. Other team members could then ask questions and offer suggestions for the presenters. These started working so well, that other teams started asking us how to conduct these on their own, which in its own right created a culture of learning inside of our business unit

You learn faster when you learn from others, not just yourself. So ensuring what every member of the team learns is easily discovered and understood by anyone in the team (as well as adjacent teams) is a big factor to turn your organization in a learning organization.

As a leader, your words and actions mean a lot. I think when you can demonstrate to others that a learning culture is not only encouraged but rewarded, you give people the permission to take part in this. For example, if someone does a great job sharing their knowledge and insights to other team members, if you publicly share how this was a great behavior and valuable to the team, other people will understand that this is something that they too can do and take part of.

One of the best ways to create a supportive environment is to set aside time for one-on-one check ins with employees where you can ask what their biggest win was of the past week and what they need support on in the next week. Then, you can give them the rest of the check in time to talk to you about whatever they need to. This practice has helped me build trust and meet the unique needs of team members as they get to drive our time together based on their own needs.

I couldn't agree more with this insightful post! 💡 As a leader, it's crucial to model the behavior you want to see in your team. By demonstrating a genuine commitment to learning, seeking feedback, and embracing mistakes, you create a culture that values continuous growth. Supporting your team's learning is equally important. 🤝🔑

As a leader one the things you can do to make this a reality for your team is to constantly make "invitations" and encourage the behavior that you want to see. Reminding people to make time to do this, doing it yourself and then communicating to others encouraging them to do this, and creating the space so that they can make time to learn, share ideas, share knowledge, or share their mistakes starts with you creating the conditions for others to follow

100% agree. Create conversational spaces **specifically dedicated and tailor-made** to discussing failures and turning them into to learnings.

I believe creating a culture of learning starts with, no surprise here, the leaders. A leader that embraces learning themselves, isn't afraid to show and say they don't know everything. And that not knowing everything isn't a bad thing, it can be a really good thing, because it forces you to learn, grow, and adapt to new thinking, ideas concepts etc. I myself have a love of learning, and always acknowledge my coworkers when I see them pursuing some sort of professional development, especially if they choose to do so on their own behalf.

Create Personalized Learning Paths: Understand that each team member has different learning needs and preferences. Work with them to create personalized learning paths. This shows that you value their individual development and are willing to support them in their learning journey.