This week was such a whirlwind. It was the first week in a new role, and my week was just a nonstop week of things to do. I wonder about the Ohno quote "motion is not work" as I reflect back on my week and wonder if I was in motion or at work. As I think about this I realize a lot of my week I was either learning or helping others learn. In a learning organization, being involved in learning is work right? I'd like to think so, considering at certain parts of the organization the purpose becomes that of creating a culture. In my role then the purpose is to create the culture of learning. So why did I title this thing "Training vs. Learning?" Well, I think there's a key difference between the two - who owns it.
I remember back to my time working as a Quality Engineer during the Shuttle Program. There were many problem reports that were written during vehicle operations. Some examples to this might be a mis-torqued bolt, a dropped tool, or some sort of other problem. Each of these would be categorized and analyzed to see if there was a cause for it to have happened. Reading through the root cause analysis, often written was "personnel not properly trained." The corrective action was to provide training to that person. When creating a learning organization, there is a need for teaching, but a much greater need for learning. If we were to have asked the person who was working when the problem occurred would they say "I just need more training"? If only we taught our people more maybe then they would finally do what we want them to do. Is that respect? Is that a learning organization? What's the difference between a training and learning organization?
I think the difference is in the ownership. Think about training. When a person is trained, think about what that means. Let's do a quick definition search of it.
train
verb
teach (a person or animal) a particular skill or type of behavior through practice and instruction over a period of time.
What about learning?
learn
verb
gain or acquire knowledge of or skill in (something) by study, experience, or being taught.
Who owns training? The one who teaches. Who owns learning? The one who seeks to gain knowledge. While it may seem the same in practice, the intent behind it is completely different. In a culture of training, we constantly try to make others do things in a particular way. In a culture of learning, we develop the environment where people are seeking out knowledge. Trainers are teaching people in either case, but in the learning organization the trainers are sought out. People are more willing to reach out for feedback on how they are doing their work, and bringing up better ways to do the work. The trainers (who aren't necessarily a separate position or job) are also learning from the people doing the work. We are all learning how to do the work better, to create value for the Customer.
What type of organization handles change best? An organization that trains well is only as good as there is not much change. We train and train, making sure the worker does something the "right" way to some standard work. An organization that learns really well, surely have standard work, but the standard work simply defines what is happening "at this moment." We are all learning how to do things to improve safety, quality, and productivity. We standardize our work because we know it is needed to ensure consistent quality at a consistent performance. As we try new things, we share, standardize, and seek re-training for the safer, higher quality, simpler, and/or faster way. Change is constantly happening, if it is change for worse, we stop and get back to standard. If the change is better, we have created kaizen and create a new standard. It's just how things go in learning organizations.
In my week this week, I spent a lot of time helping others learn. I was involved in a hiring committee and provided general feedback to all of those that did not receive interviews. Out of respect and creating a learning organization, feedback is needed, but each individual may learn from it if they so choose. Many decided to schedule some one-on-one feedback with me, and we created the environment for learning. So now instead of me telling them to make things better, we walked through the thought process of reviewing an application. While I did tell them where things could be better, it wasn't with the preconception that a person is "lacking" something. Instead we learned that we all demonstrate the required skills, it's learning how to explain that in an application. Respect and learning is the theme from my week.