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How to design learning for behavioural change
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Transfer of learning… Retention… Embedding… Sustaining… Reinforcement… Effectiveness. We all use many different terms to describe the transition of new skills and knowledge from a learning event back to the workplace. But what are we really trying to achieve? The Holy Grail that lies beneath all of these pursuits is behavioural change.
Last year I went to an ATD workshop in the USA called “Designing for Behavioural Change” with Julie Dirksen and Dustin DiTommaso. One of the learning nuggets that I loved was the concept of how to define a “behaviour”. After all, if we are designing for behavioural change then we need to be able to clarify what a behaviour is.
I loved Julie’s idea of asking yourself “can you take a photo or video of this behaviour?”
When designing any learning initiative, I always recommend that we ask ourselves “what do I want to see or observe people doing differently as a result of this initiative back in their day to day role?”
If it can be observed, it’s a behaviour. Don’t fall into the trap of getting confused between “behaviours”, “mindset” and “attitudes”. Often mindsets need to shift to change behaviours – but that’s a whole other topic!!
Check out the ATD website to see what other workshops they have coming up, or download a free chapter from my book Turning Learning into Action, which provides a step by step process to create behavioural change after learning.