The learning matrix

Given the diversity of learning contexts and objectives, how can we chart out a valid learning strategy adapted to our professional needs and challenges? The relative failure of a myriad of books, articles and conferences to provide time proven answers over the years demonstrates the difficulty of the task at hand. Several factors need to be taken into consideration. What skills and competencies need to be learned? To what extent can technology support the learning process? Should learning be embedded in the workplace, dispensed in the classroom, or assimilated from the comfort of your home?

In dealing with the complexity of the management education, a learning matrix can help you discover strategies that are appropriate for you at any one point in your career.

In the next three contributions to this blog we will explore the three continuums of this cube. The first concerns what we need to learn: is the subject matter more a question of mastering process or more closely tied to the individual talent. The second continuum concerns learning content: to what extent can there be a precise answer to our business challenges. Finally, a third continuum explores learning as a social process: to what extent can we alone versus the extent to which learning is embedded in a team or a market? In analyzing a specific business challenge along each these three continuums, we can make reasonable assumptions about what we need to learn, in what context learning can be optimized, and to what extent technology can assist the learning process.

We are continually presented with opportunities to learn from our managers, our colleagues and our clients to about business value. Let’s use the example of the incident following the announcement that my flight would several hours at the airport in Lyon.  What could the airline attendant learn about adding value in her clients’ eyes n dealing with explicit cynicism expressed by the passengers over the excuses given over the airport’s loudspeakers?  One potential avenue to understanding this challenge derives from the extent to which the answer can be considered a process, and to what extent it is a question of competencies or talent. Can the process of resolving customer complaints be broken down into discrete activities and tasks that can be optimized? Is handling customer complaints more a question of the quality of human interaction between the airline representative and the customer? Does “better” mean reducing the time and cost of customer service or improving the quality of human contact?

On one hand, we could consider that the answer to this customer challenge lies in exploring the underlying business process. We could analyse this challenge as a result of a breakdown in the activities and tasks associated with the process customer service.  Ideally, we would assume that this process was predicable, and that process improvements can be measured empirically. Moreover, we could expect that there are examples of best practice in this area that can be documented, analyzed and adapted to our own work. From this point of view, solving this business problem can be seen as identifying the facts, benchmarking them against prior experience, and methodologically applying best practices in the future.

On the other, we could suggest that the answer to this customer challenge can be found in understanding the human interaction between the airline representative and her clients. Rather than seeing this problem as a process waiting to be optimized, this challenge can thought of as is a result of competing visions, objectives and competencies. Improving the system would involve understanding the motivations, resources, and perceived pain of clients (and the airline representative) in a given situation. Concretely, we would dismiss predicable models of the process of customer service in favour of understanding the potential scenarios of interaction based on our observations, intuitions, and talent. We would assume that there isn’t any one best practice in this area, but better practices based upon the competencies and talent of those involved.  From this point of view, we can best learn from this business challenge by focusing on human interaction rather than facts, reading between the lines rather than from a manual on customer services, and searching for the better practice in this particular situation.

Rarely is learning a question of a simple question of either mastering process or implying that “deep” learning is tied to individual talent. The distinction between levels of learning (first or adaptive, second level or generative) isn’t an either/or proposition, the validity of either depends upon a manager’s particular skill set, how they qualify the learning opportunity, and the extent to which the problem can be solved.  In building one continuum of the learning matrix from process to talent we suggest that managers need to actively seek the best trade-off between the two at any given point in time. Optimizing learning requires recognizing the necessity to personalize both the challenge and the opportunity at hand.

What do you think? Do you have a comment or suggestion that can add value to our efforts? Share it with us here.