The stubborn persistence of the 'one and done'
We know learning takes time. So why do we pretend otherwise?
Guys, I’ve got to tell you about this amazing course I just finished!
It only took an hour, and I’ve pretty much mastered the topic. I’ve already started applying what I learned, and my productivity has gone through the roof!
Said no one, ever.
Clearly, the idea that a 60-minute course is all that’s required for skills-development and behavior-change is ludicrous.
Nobody in L&D actually thinks that’s what learning looks like. We don’t yet live in a Matrix-like reality, where people can instantaneously learn how to pilot a helicopter by mainlining information into their brains.
So, why do we pretend otherwise? Why do we so often treat learning as a one-off event? Why is the default to take a bunch of content on a topic, cram it into a single e-learning module or workshop, then wonder why nothing has changed?
A few possible reasons spring to mind:
🥱 Everyone outside of L&D sees ‘training’ as a hassle
Unless you work in L&D, the news that you’ve been assigned training probably doesn’t fill you with delight. You’re busy, you’ve got an important deadline looming, and now you also have to find time to take the same ‘Code of Conduct’ course you completed last year… And the year before… And the year before that.
While this isn’t universally true, L&D’s interventions generally don’t support learning in the flow of work. Often, in fact, they break the flow of work, distracting learners from the things they view as more urgent and more important.
So, when a business unit engages L&D to develop training, the project sponsors might not be that interested in learning science. They might not want to hear about spaced repetition. Instead, they may just want you to take their slides, work some magic, and design an experience that colleagues can ‘get through’ in 60 minutes, so they can get back to work.
😓 Spaced repetition takes work
Once the business has made their request, there’s a strong incentive for you to accept the order and build the 60-minute course. You want to appear supportive, of course. But the ‘one and done’ is also just much less work.
With the ‘one and done’, there’s no need to create multi-step pathways, or set up automations. There’s no need to think about the cadence of the program. And there’s no need to sell your stakeholders on spaced repetition. You simply take the content you’re given, build the course, and launch it. Job done, on to the next.
When the business orders a nothing burger, we too often ask ‘Do you want fries with that?', rather than questioning, ‘Are you sure this is what you need?’. (Props to Ross Stevenson for inspiring that analogy.)
🤫 Learning is not always the real goal
Thirdly, and perhaps most cynically, one reason that a lot of organizational ‘learning’ content isn’t actually designed to support learning is because this isn’t its primary goal. Or, to be more charitable, it isn’t its only goal.
To illustrate this point, consider the case of my friend Bob (not his actual name). Bob works in a research lab, where there are various health-and-safety risks. Every year, Bob is required to take health-and-safety training, which is specifically designed for people who work in laboratory environments.
The fact that Bob’s training is tailored to his context is undoubtedly a good thing. But it’s still just an annual event.
If the goal of the training is for Bob and his colleagues to learn and remember safety procedures, a one-off event is unlikely to be sufficient. If the goal is for the laboratory to protect itself in the event of an incident, a one-off event may be all that’s required.
So what’s the solution? To end on a less cynical note, here are a few ideas:
Continually advocate for science-backed approaches to learning design, even when it’s difficult. (This is literally our job.)
If the business insists on a ‘one and done’ approach, recommend complementing this with performance-support resources that colleagues can access at the point of need.
Where possible, design materials in a way that enables learning in the flow of work. (A good starting point here is to speak to learners to understand their context.)
Lastly, while I’ve been giving one-off courses and learning events a good kicking in this article, I want to emphasize that there is absolutely a time and a place for these. But if you’re trying to tackle gnarly organizational problems that require significant behavior change, you should view these as part of a much bigger picture. This isn’t 8 Mile. You don’t only get one shot.
Editorial note: Dedicated readers might have noticed that there was no Dispatch last week. We’ll be publishing this newsletter bi-weekly until the 25th, but normal service will resume thereafter. 😊
Want to share your thoughts on this week’s issue? Or request a topic you’d like us to cover? Get in touch by emailing custom@mindtools.com or reply to this newsletter from your inbox.
🎧 On the podcast
Donald Taylor describes this year’s Global Sentiment Survey as the ‘unsurprising survey’. Predictably, artificial intelligence topped the table by some margin. But the results of this year’s survey still tell us a lot about how L&D perceives itself and the challenges we face as a profession.
In last week’s episode of the podcast, Don joined Ross and Owen to parse the results of the Global Sentiment Survey 2024.
Check out the episode below. 👇
You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify or the podcast page of our website. Want to share your thoughts? Get in touch @RossDickieMT, @RossGarnerMT or #MindToolsPodcast
📖 Deep dive
As regular readers know, I’m a big fan of Cal Newport’s Deep Work.
In an article adapted from his new book, Slow Productivity, Newport explores one of the reasons employees often struggle with hybrid work — what he calls the ‘overhead tax’.
He writes:
‘Since well before the pandemic, we’ve lived in a world of low-friction digital communication, where passing an obligation to someone else is extremely easy. I send you an email with a simple question—“Hey, can you handle the Johnson contract?”—and a few moments of my effort have suddenly been alchemized into hours of your own. Faced with a growing number of chores, you push what you can onto other people’s plate, and they respond in kind. The result is an onslaught of ad hoc assignments, whipsawing across inboxes and chat channels, that culminates in a shared state of permanent overload.’
As was the case when I read Deep Work, which led me to realize that a lot of what we call ‘knowledge work’ involves moving information from one place to another, I have been seeing examples of the overhead tax everywhere since reading this article.
I’m adding Slow Productivity to my reading list for the year.
Newport, C. (2024). ‘One Reason Hybrid Work Makes Employees Miserable’. The Atlantic.
👹 Missing links
🛸 Captain’s log: the irreducible weirdness of prompting AIs
What kind of prompt would you write if you wanted Meta’s Llama 2 to solve mathematical problems? Apparently, your best bet would be to pretend you were in an episode of Star Trek or a political thriller. In this edition of his One Useful Thing newsletter, Ethan Mollick describes the weirdness of prompting different LLMs, and explains three prompting techniques that work fairly consistently across the board.
🍫 The less-than-magical Willy Wonka event, briefly explained
In case you missed it last week, an event called ‘Willy’s Chocolate Experience’ recently went viral on social media. While the website for the Glasgow-based event promised an ‘immersive experience’ that would transport fans to a ‘magical realm’, what visitors actually got was a sparsely decorated warehouse, half a cup of lemonade, and two jelly beans. Reporting from Business Insider suggests that AI was used to create advertising for the event.
In a recent podcast recording with JD Dillon (look out for the episode in your feed this week!), JD mentioned Jess Almlie’s newsletter, L&D Must Change. One of Jess’s recent articles offers a positive take on my theme this week. In her view, L&D needs to be willing to take orders. In fact, we should welcome them graciously! But as we do this, Jess recommends, we should ‘…slowly add in little pieces of awesome. Pieces that they didn't know they could expect or even ask of us.’ By doing this, she argues L&D can gradually reposition itself as a strategic partner, not just an order-taker.
👋 And finally…
To wrap up this week’s edition, here’s a visual representation of my colleagues’ response when I ask if they’ve read the latest Dispatch.
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👍 Thanks!
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