There’s no magic bullet to ensure that people apply what they learn. But there are steps you can take to create leadership programs, experiences, and support mechanisms that improve learning transfer and support lasting growth and behavior change. Over time, new skills, perspectives, or behaviors can be reinforced, until they become unconsciously and competently put to use.

As a professional interested in learning and development, you may be in a position to acknowledge and help overcome the challenges of learning in your organizations. You are likely in a position to influence supervisors and executives, as well as potential participants, in leadership development efforts. You may also have a role in creating and supporting a learning environment.

The Challenges of Improving Learning Transfer

Individuals — and organizations — face significant challenges in their efforts to apply and integrate learning and develop the leadership capacity they need. These challenges include the following:

• Formal training is just one aspect of learning.
• Leadership — and its development — is always dependent on the people involved and the context.
• Leaders are already overloaded.
• Learning isn’t always aligned with what matters most.
• The learning culture clashes with the operational culture.

Given these realities, though, you can still begin to help leaders and your organization overcome challenges to learning transfer — and earn greater benefit from leadership development investments.

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How to Improve Learning Transfer for Leadership Training

Learning is a process and works best when it’s viewed as more than merely a program. Leadership development can include formal or classroom-based training — but it’s just one piece of the learning puzzle that must have corresponding pieces back on the job.

Research supports the value of extending learning into the workplace and connecting the workplace into formal learning. Most executives cite on-the-job experiences as the key events that shaped them as leaders and taught them important skills, behaviors, or mindsets. In fact, research shows that senior executives distribute their sources of key developmental experiences as 70% on-the-job challenges, 20% other people, and 10% formal coursework and training. At CCL, we use the 70-20-10 “rule” as a guideline rather than a formula for creating learning experiences. Yet, we know that experiences that focus on creating learning in all 3 categories can boost learning transfer and accelerate development.

Learning transfer is also a social process. Learning — and the desired performance that comes from learning — doesn’t take place in isolation. The work context, including the level of support from role models, mentors, peers, coaches, and bosses, has a powerful impact on turning lessons learned into leadership in action.

Drawing on our understanding of and experience with adult learners, we produced a white paper on making learning stick and explaining our 3 x 3 x 3 model for learning transfer. This framework informs our leadership development work — and can be applied to development programs or initiatives within your organization.

Our 3 x 3 x 3 Model for Learning Transfer Helps Make Learning Stick in Development Initiatives

Our 3 x 3 x 3 model for learning transfer and making leadership learning stick is:

• Think in 3 Phases: Learning isn’t a one-time event, but rather it occurs over time, as explained more below.
  • Prepare
  • Engage, and
  • Apply.
• Use 3 Strategies: Use at least 3 different approaches to provide a chance to deepen and reinforce learning.
  • A key leadership challenge,
  • In-class accountability partners, and
  • At-work learning partners.
• Involve 3 Partners: They each have to take responsibility to ensure learning happens and isn’t a passive activity.
  • The learner or participant,
  • The organization, and
  • The training provider.

This 3 x 3 x 3 model for learning transfer helps organizations that need to look at organizational change and leadership development in large-scale and deeply-personalized ways. It also outlines the critical steps that are required of the leadership development sponsor in the organization.

Improve Learning Transfer by Designing Development in 3 Phases: Prepare, Engage & Apply

For making learning stick, what happens before and after the formal part of a program or development effort is just as important as the program content and delivery. This is true whether the initiative is long or short, in-person or virtual, ongoing or one-time.

At CCL, we design leadership development keeping the 3 phases of “Prepare, Engage, and Apply” in mind, to help both individual leaders and organizations get the most out of their investment in leadership development.

The Prepare Phase

As soon as a person is tapped for or has chosen to participate in a formal leadership training effort, the development process begins. Consider:

• How might you help participants start learning right away?
• How do you get them thinking about their leadership experiences, challenges, and needs?
• How do you help them connect to the purpose, content, and value of their development experience?

This is a time when boss support is crucial. The Prepare phase involves good communication about logistics and expectations — but also begins to build an emotional connection to personalize the learning experience. It’s a chance to engage and excite the learner — rather than approaching the process as another item on their to-do list. Research shows that participants begin to engage in a development experience when they’re able to make plans with a boss, mentor, or coach and discuss the support they’ll need and understand how the program will benefit them.

At CCL, we carefully prepare participants for their learning experiences in our leadership programs by providing guidelines for selecting raters and completing 360 leadership assessments, interviewing key stakeholders, selecting real-life challenges they’re facing to apply to course learning, and asking the learners and their colleagues to complete self-assessments and reflections on their leadership style and skills. Other activities during the Prepare phase could include asking participants to read material ahead of time or watch welcome videos from course faculty.

The Engage Phase

The content of a learning experience is important, but so is the way it’s presented. Listening to speakers and reading information is a passive learning process — and information is less likely to stick than processes that connect and engage each person through applied practice. So when designing leadership development initiatives, we always consider how we might create opportunities for guided practice and skill development throughout the program to help improve learning transfer.

At CCL, we ensure our learning experiences include a variety of ways to keep learners engaged, whether in a live, in-person setting or a virtual leadership program. We use a mix of activities such as skill-building, action learning, reflection, simulations, experiential activities, goal-setting, and coaching.

The Apply Phase

Reinforcement and support at work — away from the learning environment and over time — is also essential for learning transfer. How might you create opportunities for the participants to use and continue new learning at work and beyond? Most people need structures that foster the application of new concepts and practice of new skills to achieve lasting behavior change. To improve learning transfer, participants need support and encouragement to get past the initial awkward phase that accompanies the application of new skills.

At CCL, we often use tools such as action-learning projects tied to real work issues; conversations to help connect new learning to an existing business challenge; follow-up lessons through reading, discussion, toolkits, and job aids; and executive coaching focused on making progress on goals.

A Closing Word on Making Learning Stick

We know that leadership development can create competitive advantage, but organizations rightfully want to ensure that their investments pay off through sustained behavior change. With a better understanding of the 3x3x3 model for learning transfer, you can help your organization improve learning transfer and realize multiple benefits, including a greater impact from investments in development, more effective leaders, and a stronger organizational culture.

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The post Make Learning Stick: Improve Learning Transfer to Get the Most Out of Leadership Development appeared first on CCL.

3 Reasons Open Leadership Programs Are Valuable

3 Keys to Their ROI

1. Open-enrollment leadership training is flexible.

A key value of open-enrollment leadership programs is that they provide proven development that can flex to accommodate the ever-changing needs of the organization.

HR teams can use such programs to address specific issues in target leader populations and shift their investments from year to year, as needs emerge, shift, and evolve.

For example, some of our clients routinely provide all mid- to senior-level leaders at their organization with the opportunity to attend our flagship Leadership Development Program (LDP)®, which focuses specifically on the challenges of leading from the middle. They might send a handful of employees one year and dozens the next, depending upon their needs at the time.

With many open dates and locations, the program is readily available for their leaders all over the globe, making it easy for our clients to provide access to reliable leadership development for all their leaders at that level, regardless of where they’re based.

2. Open-enrollment leadership development is complementary.

Another key benefit of open leadership programs is that they can fit together like puzzle pieces into a larger development plan to support large-scale training and retention initiatives.

For example, many of our clients use our externally delivered leadership programs, in combination with virtual coaching, action learning, and peer mentoring, to create a robust training program for their leaders at every level. Off-the-shelf programs from outside providers can be used in tandem with the internal leadership development initiatives run by their in-house teams.

Other organizations establish multi-year initiatives to develop certain leader populations. For example, many of our clients opt to prepare their individual contributors and frontline managers for leadership using our new manager courses, while at the same time offering their senior leaders the chance to take executive leadership programs aimed specifically at the challenges of leading at the top — particularly since the effectiveness of senior executives ties directly to the organization’s future success.

These are just some examples of how open leadership development programs can contribute to the overall structure of your organization’s development and retention strategy.

3. Open-enrollment leadership development is budget-friendly.

Another key value of open-enrollment leadership programs is that they enable companies to fill gaps in their development initiatives with proven programs where they don’t have large budgets or in-house training resources.

Many companies can’t dedicate resources to major development initiatives for all leader levels. Or they are doing in-depth custom work for just a select group of leaders. They need a way to provide access to development for everyone else.

Open leadership training can help with this. Our virtual leadership programs — for example, our fundamental leadership skills online training — offer a way to develop basic leadership competencies across large, but key, populations like professional staff and leaders on the front lines.

In a more general sense, investing in your workforce also helps the budget by improving an organization’s bottom line, which is of course key among the reasons to invest in leadership development. Perhaps that’s why our market research found that organizations are continuing to invest in leadership development, even during downturns and recessions — because they know leadership development provides a competitive advantage.

What to Look For in an Open-Enrollment Leadership Training Provider

What Sets Our Programs Apart

The best open leadership development programs include even more value than just the 3 keys outlined above. At CCL, we’re proud that our leadership programs also offer the following additional features.

Broad Scope, Clear Focus

We understand that leadership skills need to evolve and expand to meet changing conditions and to prepare for future challenges. At the same time, we’ve identified the core leadership skills critical for success at each level, so that individuals — and organizations — can see faster results.

Just match up the right learning at the right time for each leader, and ensure that learning is tailored to the top leadership challenges and competences needed at each level. Almost all leaders (99%) who participate in our open-enrollment leadership programs report that the experience was worth the time and effort required.

Content That’s Research-Based, Proven & Cutting-Edge

We update our programs in response to changes in the workplace and as new research findings and new best practices emerge. For example, our open-enrollment Leadership Development Program (LDP)® is rigorously evidence-based and consistently ranked as one of the best leadership development programs in the world, reflecting a balance of consistent quality and ongoing relevance.

Participant evaluations of the program find that LDP is clearly moving the needle in the 6 leadership skills most critical for the success of middle managers and that 8 weeks later, 99% of participants report they are applying what they learned in the course.

A Dedicated Space to Learn

Whether delivered in-person or virtually, our open leadership programs enable participants to try new behaviors and techniques in a safe and confidential learning environment. They also have a chance to network and learn from others around the world, enabling interactions with a variety of leaders facing similar challenges and experiences across different industry sectors.

Many client organizations tell us that this “protected” time and space is essential for personal reflection and transformation. This dedicated space for learning is present in both our online and in-person programs, and satisfaction with our virtual programs is virtually the same as in-person programs.

Global Reach & Client Focus

Our open-enrollment leadership programs are offered frequently with many date options, online and at various locations around the world — providing many choices to meet busy schedules and a range of client needs.

Programs are typically delivered in English, but often the included assessments and the personalized leadership coaching are offered in additional languages. All include our award-winning content, are facilitated by our highly educated faculty, and leverage our world-class coaches from business, academia, and the nonprofit world.

Highly Personalized Experience

Finally, in all our work, we provide highly personalized learning experiences, grounded in individualized assessments and research-based frameworks and methods. That’s why our clients say the value of our open-enrollment programs is clear — and why taking them is a powerful learning experience that participants often describe as life-changing, career-making events. It makes sense, then, that 99% of our open leadership training participants report being able to apply the skills they learned in the program.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Learn more about our open-enrollment leadership training programs, including our virtual leadership programs, to select the right one for your leaders.

The post The Value of Open Leadership Training Programs appeared first on CCL.