When you start thinking from a performance perspective, you also end up thinking about the resources needed for performers to succeed. This means that you need to think about more than meeting novice needs, or practitioner needs, but also the progression from novice, through practitioner, to expert.
Similarly, you want to be thinking about technology as an enabler. As we suggested earlier, technology is the complement to our brains. What it does well, and what we do well, aren’t the same. We’re good at meaning-making, while technology is good at rote. Put them together, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. So, we should be looking to augment our thinking for the optimum performance, not depending on just either what’s in our heads or in the world, but instead how to create the combination that leads to the best outcomes.
The Transition to Expertise
Courses make sense for novices; they don’t know what they need, nor why it’s important. However, once they start becoming familiar, with becoming a practitioner, they start knowing what they need and why it’s important, and they just need it. They need access to resources, not courses.
They also start needing to be communicating with others in ways that are more informal. They should be getting coaching to continue their development, someone who occasionally or regularly sees their work and can start giving more challenging assignments and, importantly, feedback.
Another component is exposure to ideas that aren’t just internal. There is a suite of activities that help learners develop. For one, they can go online and find information. They can join societies, attend conferences and webinars, read articles, newsletters, and books. They can even start presenting and writing. This may seem out of the actual task, but the time spent reflecting and improving demonstrably pays off in both more engaged learners and better outcomes.
Some will advance to become experts, through expanding their understanding about the task. At this point, they start providing support for others. However, they now need interaction with other experts. The creative friction generated when experts interact is what leads to new ideas.
Technology as Enabler
Technology is an enabler for much of this. Resources can be made available through a portal and the broader internet. Interactions can be facilitated through social media tools. Making an environment that facilitates learners at all stages of their development becomes an overarching focus from a performance perspective.
A caveat here: no one all-singing, all-dancing, platform is likely to be the best solution for all the ideals. Yes, if you’re in a small organization, you may not be able to integrate a suite of ‘best of’ tools. Yet, ideally, you work with your information technology (IT) group to create a coherent digital environment not just for working, but for learning as well.
Many times, L&D (and others) find working with IT to be difficult. Yet, they also get upset when the network goes down. That is what IT’s worried about. Yet they also know they have to make a successful digital ecosystem. Finding ways to work with them that respects their concerns about security and reliability, and also reflects your knowledge of what’s needed, should be the path to success.
There are numerous reasons, however, to not tie yourself to one platform. For one, the individual capabilities other than the core one are unlikely to be as good as what you could get with a separate solution. Also, being locked in makes it hard to switch when a better solution emerges. Even a small IT department should be able to tie together disparate tools. It’s also important to use the enterprise tools, not learning-specific ones. As learners progress, doing so through the platform infrastructure reduces redundancies and brings solutions to where the performers already are.
Culture
There’s a long-standing rubric that putting a social media platform into an organization that isn’t psychologically safe will result in an unused system. This suggests two things: one is that you can reliably use this as an indicator of your company culture. The other is that you should make it ‘safe’.
Garvin, Edmondson, & Gino wrote an article that documented the dimensions of a learning organization, in an evaluation checklist template. Those dimensions help document a target where organizations will continue to innovate and thrive because folks are feeling empowered to learn and improve. You won’t get the full benefit of an ecosystem approach without creating an environment where people freely contribute to one another’s and the organization’s success.
There’s a lot involved in switching to a performance ecosystem, but the potential benefits suggest it’s the right long-term goal.
Embracing a performance ecosystem requires more than just implementing new tools or strategies; it involves a holistic approach that integrates resources, technology, and culture to support the entire journey from novice to expert. By fostering an environment where learning and performance are seamlessly intertwined, organizations can achieve sustainable growth and innovation.
For a more comprehensive understanding of how to build and leverage a performance ecosystem, download our eBook, “Rethinking Learning: Focus on Performance.” This resource delves deeper into the principles and practices that drive effective learning and performance in today’s dynamic workplace.
