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    • Are we mixing enough with those outside of our bubble?
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    Are we mixing enough with those outside of our bubble?

    Pabio Posted on

    At a recent conference, I was struck by the context of the audience. The Learning and Performance Institute event was billed as a Learning Impact Summit. There were participants from the education sector, in-person and online trainers as well as L&D professionals. There were sellers, buyers, planners, thinkers, writers, EDI experts, university professors and business professionals. This enormous mix led to extremely interesting discussions and the sharing of many multi-faceted points of view. This mix brought new perspectives to old problems. The event was the perfect time to hear new ideas and find new inspiration – it became a rich and fertile ground for idea sharing and inspiring creativity.

    This got me thinking about whether L&D practitioners receive enough information about their work. Can we ensure that our learning products or programs actually meet what people need? Do they speak our learning language or the right language for our business? How do we know? If we only interact with learners, will our offer only be suitable for learning professionals? If we only interact with managers, will we forget what it means not to be a manager in an organization? If we only mix within our organization, will we have enough external factors influencing our work?

    All these questions got me thinking. What about neurodivergent people? When it comes to mingling outside of the bubble, our colleagues living with neurodivergence often do this on a daily basis in their everyday lives. Professionals from different cultural backgrounds try to make sense of work cultures foreign to their own. The list of examples could go on and on. Societal norms and non-inclusive work cultures make it difficult for some people, while others blindly ignore the benefits of diversity of thought and experience. It is widely reported that diversity in teams leads to better results, and so we all need to make sure we step outside our bubble to think better. When we stay in our bubble, it becomes an echo chamber, a self-contained agreement on all sides. Healthy challenge is essential for good discernment and self-checking of our own thoughts and approaches, whatever our line of work.

    Developing the skills to tackle effective challenges, being a critical friend and insightful thinker, as well as collaboration, adaptability and conflict resolution all come from working with people who are not like us. Skills are currently in short supply around the world. Setting yourself up to improve skills development opportunities and achieve diversity of thought is a win-win situation. Learning and Development can drive this change by inviting these conversations, especially during our live learning events such as in-person training.

    When thinking more broadly about how we can influence our way out of our bubble, adopting a systems thinking approach ensures we look at the work as a whole and with multiple perspectives. It’s easier to spot the holes when we zoom out and focus on everything, not just one part. Yet in our work in L&D, we are often in the micro, not macro, spaces of our organizations. We are sensitive to what is in front of us, rather than the context in which it is located. If we also consider our context, we have a much stronger force at work within our learning programs. Additionally, our programs are more likely to succeed because we will have considered diverse voices during initial design, setting ourselves up for success. Being clear about the problem we are solving, and then ensuring opportunities to give voice to those who have problems and those who have a variety of ideas, helps solve problems.

    How we contract and undertake the design and delivery of new learning is a key part of better training and consultative development. It’s not enough to just hear from the manager who ordered the work – often asking for a lesson. We need to make sure to invite “end users”, customers and other stakeholders into the contract so that they give their ideal success criteria, as this will help us focus our end result.

    As a solo L&Der in an organization, it can seem like a big task to step outside your sphere of influence and actively seek out different voices to inform learning solutions. I encourage you not to be intimidated and not to use your fear of the unknown as an excuse. Start with simple ways: a curious coffee with people in your organization who you don’t usually talk to is a great way to do this. Meet people and find out what they do and what their thoughts are. Reading the industry press or attending industry events related to adjacent or related industries, but not your industry, can also bring a new perspective of appreciation. Inviting focus groups from across the company to participate in learning design is a great way to get a variety of voices to develop solutions. Make networking useful for them – by offering good coffee and cake (for those who don’t like cake) you ensure that everyone benefits.

    I am extremely grateful for the event I attended because of the thoughts around diversity of thought, mingling with those I don’t usually hang out with, and encouraging others to do the same. Without a doubt, the benefits of meeting new people and hearing their different ideas last much longer than spending time in the same echo chamber over and over again. Creating such a resounding impact in an organization through work in the L&D sector can only be a positive thing. Who can you have a curious coffee with this week?


    Michelle Parry-Slater is the author of The Learning and Development Handbook

    Pabio
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