The Difference Between Education, Training, and Learning
In our 30 years of consulting to organizations both big and small – it has become very apparent that most workplace training fails for one fundamental reason…
People don’t “get” the difference between education, training, and learning.
As an expert in the field, we often speak at industry conferences and always start with this distinction.
It is amazing to hear many people in the audience exclaim “ohhhh.”
Here is the distinction:
Education is something we’ve all experienced.
It is formal. It is typically done in large groups.
It is mostly a one-way flow of information.
It’s usually an expert imparting knowledge - which often takes the form of facts, rules, or underlying theories.
At the end of education we expect people to “know stuff.”
Training is more outcome based.
At the end of training you are expected to be able to do something or to behave in a certain way.
And training is dependent on education because you often cannot do new things without understanding certain facts or rules.
For instance, you can’t hit a golf ball with accuracy unless you understand how your body position changes the trajectory.
But above and beyond that – there are many different techniques for hitting a golf ball …which can be learned through training.
Finally, learning is achieved when you have internalized something.
It is the point where somebody says “how do you do that?” and you don’t even know.
You forget what it was like to be a beginner.
You forget what the steps are – you just do it.
So if we want to get to learning – which we do – how is that accomplished?
Three ways: experience, spaced learning, and reflection.
First Experience – not all learning is done in the classroom or in a formal, prescribed setting, right? Think of all the things you’ve learned in your life. A well-known example is teaching a child not to touch a hot stove. Rarely do any of us actually teach that. If we were to educate the child we’d say “don’t touch that stove, it’s hot!” or “be careful, you’ll get hurt” or the simple NO!
But none of those words mean anything.
Inevitably we all touch a hot stove and IMMEDIATELY learn what we’ve been “taught” but didn’t internalize.
So – if you truly want someone to learn something – they have to experience it.
Next, spaced learning or practice.
Think about when you learned to ride a bike or drive a car.
You didn’t take a class and then miraculously know how to do it.
You practiced over and over – repetition, yes, but also - you practiced over the course of many days or weeks - - spaced practice.
We simply do not learn something once, and change our behavior or our capabilities immediately.
And third: reflection.
Reflection is something only an adult human can do.
Have you ever punished your child by saying “go to your room and think about what you’ve done.” That is futile. They can’t do it.
But you know that internal monologue you have running in your head… as you drive or when you’re in the shower …where you’re constantly reflecting on what has happened and whether you were satisfied with the outcome or not? That’s reflection.
In order to learn - people need time to reflect.
Sadly, we rarely allow for that in the workplace.
We put people into 2 hour or 4 hour training classes and then release them back to their jobs where they get inundated with new and urgent things… and that’s the end of that.
And then we wonder why people don’t change their behavior … despite the fact that we provided them “training.”
So - to reiterate:
Education, training and learning are different.
When people get to the point of having learned – they have internalized the content.
They know what they are doing…
why they are doing it…
when they should do it…
and how their behavior might have to change based on changing circumstances.
You Need a Leadership Development Program that Starts at Day 1 - and here's why
We wait too long to start leadership development. A 2016 meta-analysis of leadership development programs determined that most leadership development begins at age 46 AND leadership development almost always begins after someone is appointed to a leadership role. That makes little sense. Wouldn't you rather have an employee that learns feedback skills or problem-solving or strategy at the start of their career, rather than at the end?
There are a number of other approaches to as-we-do-it-today leadership development that are illogical - here is a sampling, with the rationale for a "better way."
- Leadership development programs are generally short-term (one week, 10 months) and generic - leaving the individual to figure out how their new knowledge and skills apply to the work that they are doing.
- You want a development strategy that integrates work with learning and outputs.
- To be cost-effective, companies generally are selective about whom they will send through leadership development - sacrificing hundreds of capable individuals for the development of a few. Do you really want only a few people in your organization to be fully capable in their roles?
- When leadership skills are integrated with regular activities and duties – starting on day 1 – the costs are minimal and absorbed daily, you don't need a "special event."
- As leadership development is currently administered...ROI is iffy. If your organization has 15 individuals, in 10 different disciplines, who have gone through leadership development this year - how do you associate their output with the learning?
- When the learning process is integrated with every worker's role and responsibilities, you can easily connect output to increased knowledge and skill through various measure of productivity.
100% ROI
Whenever I ask business owners and managers this question they are always a bit dumbfounded at the logic of it: Would you rather increase the capabilities and competencies of 15% of your employees? Or raise 100% of your employee's skills by 15%?
If every employee made better decisions, took responsibility for problem-solving, communicated better with their colleagues and other departments, understood who their stakeholders were... and more "leadership skills"... the efficiency and productivity of your company would be boundless.
But that "training" needs to begin on the first day they walk in the door. Your company should have a 3- or 5- or 10-year plan for the development of every employee. It should include skills building in the role they were hired for as well as broader, more business-acumen topics like risk, finance, and strategy.
And most importantly - it should include exposure to all areas of the business. Too many poor decisions are made because HR doesn't understand Ops, or Marketing doesn't understand Finance. When individuals understand the "big picture" of how your company operates - and they make relationships with people in other functions - companies run more smoothly, efficiently, and profitably. But they need to develop those skills at the start of their career, not the end.
Where do Attorneys Come From?
If you work for a large enough organization, you undoubtedly have a law department.
Have you ever wondered where the attorneys come from? Not straight from law school, that's for sure. Your organization acquired them from somewhere else - usually from a law firm.
Law firms are in an unenviable situation. First, they must deploy employee training from day one - law school does not make one an attorney, it simply teaches one about the law. Second, the average tenure at a law firm is 5.4 years. And, most lawyers who leave their firms do not go to another firm - they usually go to corporate America.
So, you're welcome. Law firms are footing the bill for you to the tune of $200,000 per attorney according to our source.
What roles would you train for - from scratch - in your organization? What jobs does the organization prioritize? How does your company stay in business - who are you dependent on? How much is your company willing to invest to "grow" a stellar employee? See this related article for some ideas on how to training employees from the ground up.
Now You See It... Now You GET It - The Power of Visuals in Learning
First, some important factoids regarding our vision:
Vision is the hardest working process in our bodies
Vision takes up 30% of the brain's processing capabilities
Neuroscientists know more about our vison than any other sensory system in our body
We don't see with our eyes, we see with our brains
As important as vision is for survival (is that a saber toothed tiger I see charging toward me?) it also trumps all our other senses when it comes to learning, interpreting and understanding the world around us. Vision is probably the best single tool we have for learning anything, so says John Medina author of Brain Rules (check it out at www.brainrules.net).
One of the reasons that vision (and thereby the use of visuals) is so powerful is because something that we see is easy to label, identify, categorize and recall later. What's the circular thing with buckets that twirls at the carnival? Oh right. A Ferris Wheel.
Visual input is so important, neuroscience has given it a fancy title: Pictorial Superiority Effect (or PSE). In one experiment, test subjects were shown 2,500 pictures for 10 seconds each. Several days after the exposure to the pictures, the subjects were able to recall 90% of the pictures. The same type of experiment, utilizing words, fell to an abysmal 10% recall three-days after exposure. But the RIGHT words can help learners create visuals.
Words Create Pictures
The very tall man folded his body, in order to fit in to the sports car, then sped away.Did you "see" those words in your mind as you read them? Everyone did. And everyone saw a different picture. Very tall is relative. Sports car is generic. But you have a picture in your head related to what you just read. We don't see with our eyes - we see with our brains. You did not physically see the scenario that was described but you have a picture of it in your mind. Amazing.
Pictures Create Emotion
Additionally, pictures can evoke emotion, which helps with retention and recall. Think about the image of the Ferris Wheel a few paragraphs back. You pictured a Ferris Wheel in order to help you recall it's name, didn't you? Many of you also remembered experiencing a Ferris Wheel in some way - either the glee (or terror) of riding it, looking up at it all colorful and bright, or being at the carnival - with the smells and sounds - where you encountered it. You have a vivid memory of a Ferris Wheel. That memory is defined in a picture.
Important Ways to Incorporate Visuals in Learning
Because using visuals is so crucial to understanding and remembering, it is imperative that we give just as much thought to the visuals we use in training, as to the content we are creating. Here are some ways you can utilize visuals in your training:
Slides / Photos - include pictures - especially photos - especially photos of people - on your slides. Photos are more realistic than graphics or clip art and therefore more engaging to the brain. Photos of people are especially memorable. We like to see people "just like us."
Physical objects - whenever possible, include a real representation of the visual. Sometimes you'll have to stretch to make it work - but the stretch will be worth it because it will sear the message in to the learner's brain. More than 2 decades ago I attended a presentation given by a man. I have no idea who he was. I have no idea what his topic was. I DO remember that we were in a hotel meeting room (visual) and I DO remember that he said "Many years ago a computer would fill a room of this size, and now that same computing power can fit in something as small as this little pink packet." And he held up an artificial sugar packet. The room was large; the little pink packet was hard to see. It's a bit of a stretch from computer processing power to sugar packet... but the image (and the point he was making) has remained for decades. That's powerful.
Mental imagery - sometimes it's just impossible to find a photo or physical object to represent your message. Perhaps you are teaching virtually and there is no way to show the physical object (or the object is too big, or too small, or doesn't actually exist yet). Instead you can help learners to create a visual in their "mind's eye." (Definition: To see something in one's visual memory or imagination. Bet you always wondered what that phrase meant. Now you know. The first known use of the term dates back to Chaucer, in 1390. By the time Shakespeare used it in Hamlet, the phrase had been around for over 200 years! )
In Medina's book, Brain Rules (see link above), he talks about DNA and how long and complex it is. He says fitting a strand of DNA in to the nucleus of our cells is like trying to stuff 30 miles of fishing line in to a blueberry. IMPOSSIBLE! But memorable. I may not remember much about DNA in the future, but I will always remember that it is long and complex.
Here is a challenge for you: Go back through the courses you already have and re-evaluate the visuals you are using. Can you add visuals to slides? Can you associate the content with physical objects? Can you make an analogy or tell a story that causes the learner to create a mental image in his "mind's eye?" If you can - I guarantee - recall and comprehension will increase. You will also see test scores go up. Your learners will become brilliant - thanks to you (and visuals).
Updated May 15, 2017: Nelson Dellis, the USA Memory Champ, was recently a guest on Lewis Howes' podcast, discussing how he can easily remember things. One of his tricks is to make abstract things - such as numbers - in to visuals that are easier to remember. For instance, the number 32 is Charlie Brown and the number 95 is Tom Brady. Associating those images with others helps him to combine numbers more easily - so Homer Simpson fighting a sword battle becomes a 4 digit number . This type of visualization technique earned him the record for the longest string of numbers committed to memory - 201. If you have an hour, listen to the podcast and learn about the power of Mind Palaces as a visualization / memorization technique as well.
Quotable: Jay Titus
Millennials will account for close to 50 percent of the workforce within the next five years. Corporate learning leaders need to be the champion for making professional development an organizational priority. We need to be taking educational benefits out of the last page of the employee handbook and shining a spotlight on it. In the next five to 10 years it’s going to be a key differentiator for employers who do it well.
Jay Titus, EdAssist
Excerpted from: http://www.clomedia.com/blogs/1-ask-a-gen-y/post/6303-millennials-will-work-for-knowledge