Breaking News: “I’m over learning transfer!”
Last week, I stood in the middle of my office, and declared to my team – “I really don’t care about the learning transfer for this group of learners – I’m so over learning transfer!”
As a transfer of learning advocate I’m sure you never expected to hear those words come out of my mouth! As you can imagine my team was speechless.
The learning initiative had been for my own team of contractors – whose growth I am fully committed to. So why did I come out of a learning environment with them and not give two stuffs about their learning transfer??
Fascinating! I had to reflect…
I had been co-facilitating a learning experience virtually, over a number of weeks. It took a huge amount of effort, with lots of learning along the way both for the facilitators and for the team – not unlike any other learning program!
I put my heart and soul into helping the team learn, but then by the time we got to the end of the ‘program’, with people just about ready to take action, I felt that actually, now it’s down to them. I can give nothing more to this process. There’s nothing left in my tank.
Is this what is happening for many facilitators when they get to the end of a workshop, or a virtual training?
We get to the point where we’ve absolutely given our all and can give no more, and then decide that it’s down to the learner to take action.
However! This is when the learning transfer advocate needs to step in. OR someone wearing the learning transfer hat, waving the banner! It’s at this point where the focus needs to shift to learning transfer to create a difference – before people leave the learning environment.
We partner with the fantastic leadership trainers LIW, who I have absolute admiration and respect for. I remember in the very early days of our work together one of the senior members of LIW said to me – “what I love about you guys is that you come in and take up the baton, offering support and follow up when we have given it our all”.
Bingo. That is that moment that I reached with my team, when I had nothing left after the co-facilitation.
That singular focus on learning transfer and responsibility being taken for this has made all the difference in the world to learning initiatives time and time again. We pick up the baton after a learning initiative and really give our all in the next phase of the process, to support individuals transfer their learning back to their workplace.
So I just wanted to share this with you as a fascinating observation. Would love to hear your thoughts and comments.
P.S. By the way – of course, I regrouped and the learning transfer process is now in place for the team. Phew!