Creating a Learning Organization 

Education can take on many forms and apply to a myriad of different professions and workspaces. In the following conversation, which took place in April, former CoDesign Collaborative Director of Learning and Interpretation Diana Navarrete-Rackauckas spoke over Zoom with three professionals—Josephine Holmboe, Leah Ben-Ami, and Ray Coderre—who each shared how education impacts their specific careers, and the unique challenges they faced as a result of the unprecedented events of the last year.

Illustration by Blacksneakers

Moderated by Diana Navarrete-Rackauckas

Diana: Especially in the past year, with how the pandemic has impacted education and restricted in-person learning, those working in education have been thinking a lot about how to teach adults in the workplace, and how to actually get people involved in their learning.
I would love to hear about the specific challenges that you faced in your positions over the past year, and what it means to work with adults in the workplace generally. The central question that we are trying to answer is: What are all of the different approaches that we can take to teach adults at work in the workplace? The first question that I will pose to find the answer to this larger question is: How would you define the difference in your mind between learning and education?

Josephine: I would say first that one is a verb and one is a noun. There’s the action of learning and how people learn, and then there’s the actual concepts, which comprise the education. Everyone learns at a different level, at a different rate, and at a different speed. As any kind of educator or teacher, understanding that is really critical to knowing how to offer the information or the education you’re giving students. When we talk about human-centered design and the way I teach said concepts across our organization and business, it is all dependent upon who’s participating in that particular session. I am constantly having an internal conversation about how I am relaying information and showing them how to think, work, and approach a problem, but I also have to make sure that they are comprehending it and that they are absorbing it so they can then go out and use it.

Ray: I agree with Josephine and would add that to me, within organizations, we often talk about creating a learning culture, or the conditions that enable learning. That’s distinct from the things that we teach people. I think a distinction that is lost in the learning space is that you have to focus on creating the right learning environment, with the recognition that that varies depending on the population, the circumstances, or what you are actually trying to teach. Some concepts are experiential, and some are much more technical, but if you focus on this distinction and are clear around learning objectives and the structure of what you are teaching students in this context, then you are more likely to have that effective interplay between active learning and education.

I think a distinction that is lost in the learning space is that you have to focus on creating the right learning environment, with the recognition that that varies depending on the population, the circumstances, or what you are actually trying to teach.

Leah: One of my favorite quotes that I feel applies to this question is, “I never learn when I feel like I’m being taught a lesson.” It ‘s important to keep in mind that you can have an education, but simultaneously have learned absolutely nothing. I think that with the STEM field especially, I’m learning a lot more about how they tinker and learn and fail and try again. Through this trial and error concept of learning, learners can gain an invaluable education that may not be the explicit lesson or “education” that was designed for them to obtain, but this is still a key notion for educators to keep in mind.

Diana: Creating a learning space definitely requires a certain amount of vulnerability from everyone involved, along with a commitment to trust in the process. So how do you set the stage for the adults that you’re working with, to get people on board for the journey they are about to go on with you?

Josephine: I love that you use the word journey, because when you’re talking about teaching adults, they all have learning biases that they have acquired during their lives. At the start they’re smart, they’re experienced, and they have a lot of perspective on life. As someone trying to teach a concept or process, you have to understand that some adults are going to come in with their guard up. I think the hardest thing that I have to encounter is how to help adult learners suspend the mentality that the way they’ve done things in the past is the only way to do things going forward. I find it helpful to approach learners early on in a pre-workshop, class, or session with the idea, “Let’s get an understanding of where you are.” Because if I can understand where they are, it’s very helpful in knowing how to structure the way they need to learn.

I think the hardest thing that I have to encounter is how to help adult learners suspend the mentality that the way they’ve done things in the past is the only way to do things going forward.

Leah: I’m so happy that you mentioned that, Josephine, because I have also been working through the concept of adaptability versus customization. This is a direction that we knew we would have to go in for Continuing Ed., because there are different personas of adult learners, whether they are career changers, career explorers or career starters. These are import-ant distinctions to help determine what’s the right learner journey for each individual, but these classifications are far from finite, so what I really love to get involved with is more mentorship and coaching—providing a network to support the learner through their entire journey and really understanding all the different touch points from the beginning. Considering learning during the pandemic last year, you have learners who are not in an ideal environment, and having to educate virtually has been a worry, because it is more difficult to determine if what you are teaching is truly resonating. You don’t have as much visibility, so coaching, being vulnerable, unlearning, and focusing on a grit and growth mindset are some pieces that we’ve been focusing on.

Considering learning during the pandemic last year, you have learners who are not in an ideal environment, and having to educate virtually has been a worry, because it is more difficult to determine if what you are teaching is truly resonating.

Ray: Having now taught in-person, hybrid, and online classes, I think one challenge of working with adult learners is the necessary shift in delivery from instruction to facilitation. For adults, that distinction is really critical. We’re not trying to tell them what to learn. We’re trying to help them understand the concept at hand, relate it back to their own personal experiences, and then test it against their skepticism, through peer interaction and application.
I also think it is important to ask the question, “What are the constraints or barriers for people to enter into the learning space?” There are cultural, societal, or systemic constraints that certain populations may experience that an educator may not be in tune with, where students do not feel like they can take advantage of learning because of their work culture, boss, or manager, or because of their partner, personal life, society, or community. As educators, we have to be attentive to these unique circumstances, and try to create learning conditions that are informed by where people are coming from, just as much as what we’re trying to teach them.

Diana: I can see from your responses that a lot of the work that this group does is involved not only in instructional design, but also in the design of organizational systems within the education framework. Something that we touched on earlier was the idea of how to create a culture of learning in these spaces. Can you each share significant successes or insights gained from your experience in creating these learning cultures, and any challenges that you’ve come up against recently?

Leah: I think that knowledge management is a notable difficulty. This involves an organization’s efficiency when handling the movement of information and resources. If this knowledge management is not organized and transparent, then this added complication can cause a lapse in efficiency. My job has been to make more time for learners to become more confident in their knowledge of these components and also to adapt our model to make it easier for learners to access said content. Helping people to be successful and think before doing is a major goal that we are continuing to work through and evolve. Now we have a learning management system, and we have focused on organizational change and behavior as a united front, starting from the top to co-create the learning culture with all the employees.

Josephine: When I teach human-centered design workshops or sessions, they’re very experiential. That component has been difficult to maintain over the past year, since I’ve had to take these big, rambunctious, energetic, spirited workshops from an in-person presentation to a little tile on a laptop screen. It has been a challenge to recreate some of that experience for people when everyone isn’t interacting in person and in real time. Participants can’t hear all of the other teams ideating in the background, or see tons of Post-it notes going up on the wall and react to those collaborative experiences. I think that a big win for me this past year, though, was working to find ways to retrofit those in-life experiences online, and determining what I can replicate virtually. Fortunately, new tools became increasingly popular over the last year, like virtual mural boards, which can replicate the practice of working through problems using a communal note taking space. However, the thing that is still missing the most is that energy of interacting with people in person. What I’ve been trying to find are ways to utilize more interactive prompts or other activities to get people to participate even from behind their screen. It’s a constant challenge to keep people engaged in a virtual learning environment, when they may be tempted to look down at their phone or answer emails. You just can’t keep everyone’s attention online the same way you can in a room. But I have found that simply prompting spontaneous actions, like having participants do jumping jacks to get their blood flowing, helps to both eliminate the feeling of a standard lecture experience, and to help the participants stay engaged and combat the mental disconnect that can occur when staring at a screen for an extended period of time.

It’s a constant challenge to keep people engaged in a virtual learning environment, when they may be tempted to look down at their phone or answer emails. You just can’t keep everyone’s attention online the same way you can in a room. 

Ray: A major realization from my learning journey at Broad has been the criticality of enabling our people to engage with, teach, and learn from one another. We have become adept at helping our people connect with and learn from each other, and that has really helped shape some of our practices, especially over the past year. As an example, we just added roughly 400 people to work on COVID-19 diagnostics, so with that many people beginning a new job, how do we provide support for them at scale? We decided to use Slack to create an intentional community, with the idea of finding volunteer career ambassadors from within our scientific population, which we did. We also orchestrated conversations around career pathing and different areas of interests such as Broad science, bringing in our learning material or products in a regular cadence to provide directionality and guidance. Finding the advisors who would guide these new personnel was actually quite easy; we had nearly 40 people sign up in a week. Our biggest concern was: How do we make sure that the staff scientists that volunteered to be ambassadors, who we surmised might not be familiar with or as willing to engage with the platform, still get engaged in Slack? What we soon found out was this challenge was a non-issue. Those ambassadors who were previously unfamiliar with Slack jumped right in and were very enthusiastic about engaging with this digital community. However, we initially found the opposite to be true of the new hires targeted by the effort, most of whom were right out of school. They seemed less inclined to engage publicly on Slack. We didn’t anticipate the barrier of the power dynamic, and how we would need to effectively pull these younger staff members in, encouraging them to transcend any perceived hierarchies and participate more freely. We had to get more curious and creative about bringing them in slowly, and it’s working, but in the beginning it was a total miss. I think this example highlights the complexity of doing this type of work, including the importance of being attentive to the conditions that are fundamental to learner success.

A major realization from my learning journey at Broad has been the criticality of enabling our people to engage with, teach, and learn from one another. We have become adept at helping our people connect with and learn from each other, and that has really helped shape some of our practices, especially over the past year.

Josephine: I love that you said that Ray, because the assumption that individuals in a younger generation will be more engaged with digital platforms because they are more familiar with them is not always the case. We as educators need to be aware of these assumptions and biases, and make sure that we’re empathetic to the different levels, skill sets, and needs of the people participating in whatever our courses, classes, or workshops are, because that knowledge is critical to the success of any educational program. Adult education is not the same as, say, a sixth grade class, where the students all have pretty much the same level of maturity, back-ground, information, and education. We are working with people coming from all different levels of experience, and that is a big challenge. But empathy, I think, is the undercurrent that helps us be able to overcome this difficulty and teach appropriately.

Leah: I would echo what you both are saying. I think empathy is very important especially when you’re bringing in new hires, and making sure you are responsive to their needs, asking, “Where do you want to start?” At C Space we have a Pal Program, which is focused on buddying up each new hire with someone that can help guide them through our culture, how we complete tasks, and who to go to with different questions. Now more than ever, with everyone being forced to transition to a technology-first work environment over the last year, we are seeing more and more the vulnerability that’s required to be able to be bad at stuff. Luckily, before the pandemic we already had about 10% of our workforce remote, so the fact that we were already thinking in this way helped us adapt a lot faster to 100% online learning and onboarding.

I think empathy is very important especially when you’re bringing in new hires, and making sure you are responsive to their needs, asking, “Where do you want to start?”

Ray: When I reflect on what Leah and Josephine said, one of the things that becomes really clear is that to lead this type of work, you have to be at your heart naturally curious, and also vulnerable and self-aware enough to know what you know, and what you don’t know, and be able to check your own assumptions. As educators, we all know what works for us, and I think sometimes getting too comfortable in doing what works can cause us to get in our own way. My experience at Broad has been incredibly humbling, because it really forces me to constantly step outside of my comfort zone, as someone responsible for training and developing others. You have to make sure that you are constantly reassessing, deconstructing, and reconstructing yourself. To do this, it is essential to work in a culture or go to a culture where that’s okay. I know that’s not always the case, and I think that’s something that we need to talk more about—to provide effective learning for adults in a culture that is not supportive of it—that’s a very, very difficult thing to do.

Diana: You have all noted that the environment that is necessary for people to feel comfortable and to learn well in can be very different from the environment that they’re actually working in. And so how do you bridge that gap? What are some of the things that you do to make it so that people understand that those two things can’t be separate anymore?

Leah: I think that it is important to remember that in many industries, with individuals who may not be directly involved with the learning components of an organization, they’re not super interested in the details all the time, or understanding why fostering an empathetic learning environment is so crucial. So it’s really important to make sure you’re aware of your audience, and how to convey the message and the need for optimal learning conditions in a way that resonates with the audience. There is also the element of helping people unlearn and then relearn where they need to be, how to show up, how to lead, and how to set a constructive example. I’m lucky to have a team that’s also doing that with me. Together, we can actually be the example of how we’re changing as an organization. We have an initiative focused on the workplace of the future. And in looking to the future, that has really required us to take a step back and re-examine how we have been operating up until this point. An example of a facet of our organization that I think benefited from this method of careful consideration and reevaluation is our work to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. We leveraged the allies we already had in the organization to really figure out our strategic priorities, and we focused internally first before saying anything publicly, which I know a lot of brands did not do, and I think that was a mistake, because they’re paying for it now. I believe that the work that we have done on the DEI front has been so successful and has been received so well by our clients because we know and feel confident in what we’re doing. We’re a united front, we can deploy as needed, and our cohesiveness and open lines of communication are future skills that we have ready to go.

Ray: I think a critical component of bridging this gap is signaling. Signaling by man-agers and leadership that they’re engaged in this work. That they’re modeling this work. That they’re highlighting the value of it and encouraging people to take part in it, but then also making reference to it. The learning environment needs to be a part of the culture of the organization. Feedback and continuous engagement are critical. An organization that prioritizes these two components will have a better chance of succeeding. To me, it is a problem when education and performance become too close. In theater, when a character breaks the fourth wall, it is impactful because they are breaking from the status quo and actually involving the audience in the conversation. In education, however, the fourth wall should never be up to begin with, because this disconnect between educator and learner, which can be exacerbated by online communication platforms, can be detrimental to the fostering of a cohesive learning environment. I am an old-school theater attendee, but there is no space for performative, disassociated educating in the workplace.

The learning environment needs to be a part of the culture of the organization. Feedback and continuous engagement are critical.

Josephine: I would say that in the past, when we’ve done training sessions, especially ones that were in person, where there’s a lot of activity, a lot of energy, and a lot of artifacts getting generated, people get very excited. Then they leave, they go back to their business units, and they forget a lot of what they learned. To combat this disconnect, both in the in-person and virtual sessions, my team and I have really focused on asking participants, “All right, now that this is done and you’ve got some artifacts and ideas that you’re going to carry forward, what are you going to do next?” We generate activities that prompt participants to answer the questions, “What did you like? What are you still wondering about, and what are you going to do next?” With some teams I’ve even gone on to work with them to incorporate that into their roadmaps for incorporating what they’ve learned into their organizations in the future. I posit, “So these are the things that you’ve said are really important. These are the ideas that you surfaced, now how are you going to make them a reality?” So within the learning environment, it’s about not only making sure the information sunk in, but that it’s also got some value that is going to continue to be applicable to the learners. Something that I think is a recent development for teams that I’ve been working with is making sure that what they take away is actionable outside of the context of a training session, so that an environment conducive to learning can continue to thrive within the organization, whether they are interacting through screens or face-to-face.