- Steal These Thoughts!
- Posts
- The Simple Skill-Building Blueprint
The Simple Skill-Building Blueprint
Ross Stevenson
October 27th, 2023
Today’s Thoughts ☠️
Hey there 👋,
It’s the spookiest time of the year.
It doesn't need to be that way for your L&D work though. I’m dedicating the next month to a deep focus on the world of skills.
I’m kicking it off today with a little prequel on a simple skill-building blueprint.
I hope it serves you just as well as it serves me.
Get your tea 🍵 or beverage of choice ready. We've got lots to discuss!
In today’s chat 👇
The simple skill-building blueprint
Great managers by Google
Death to training needs analysis
The Big Thought
The Simple Skill-Building Blueprint
Knowing how to build the right skills is hard.
In a world of bloated centralised content catalogues that mostly promote decision fatigue. The aspiration of the self-led learning movement at scale is quite difficult to achieve.
Why so?
Simple really. Many of us don’t know what we need to learn.
And, even when we do, knowing what resources (digital and human) will actually help us in the quest to build a skill is not so clear-cut.
The promise of technology
This is where the promise of most learning technology falls apart.
Often marketed as the solution to any organisation’s skill-building problems by providing on-demand content.
This one-size-fits-all approach is still relatively standard in the education industry today. As users, we’re peppered with limitless amounts of content on thousands of topics.
But, how does one know what is worth our time and what is not?
This isn’t limited to content either, you can use these same principles with human experiences.
The choice of content and, with that, the quality of skill-building is all driven by the user who often doesn’t know what they should focus on.
It doesn’t really work, does it? 🤔
More stuff vs the right stuff
What we need is the right content at the right time to support the desired outcome.
→ Not more content with more choices that we often don’t have the expertise to correctly select.
We know that a lot of skill-building takes place in the day-to-day.
That can’t be disputed.
We learn every day through what we experience, but this doesn’t always mean we acquire the right level of knowledge or behaviours for long-term growth.
We might learn something in the moment to solve a problem right there and then, but that’s often just one piece of the puzzle.
To scale that skill and work towards mastery, one must intentionally seek out more knowledge and practice in that area.
This is where I find many L&D teams get lost.
The last 5 – 7 years have seen such a focus on just-in-time solutions and building self-led learning, that we’ve forgotten that this is a tool in the wider toolkit, not a cure-all silver bullet or the only approach on which to build your organisational capability strategy.
Intentional + just in time together
To enable continued growth and strengthen our skills, we need a combination of both intentional learning and in-the-moment learning experiences.
In the moment experiences do what they say in the title.
They help us absorb new know-how quickly and apply it to solve a problem in the moment.
We store this in the hard drive known as our brain to call upon in similar future scenarios. This will give us part of that puzzle I mentioned, but not all of it.
This is where intentional learning comes into the picture.
We can take those lessons learnt from our in-the-moment experiences and scale them in a structured experience with the right guidance to the most relevant resources, tools and experiences to deepen the expertise in those skills which allow a greater command of it.
This is often missed when talking about learning strategies.
It’s not choosing one over the other, it’s making them co-exist to deliver an outcome. Just like with digital content and human experiences. Together and not divided is the way.
In the moment, on the job, just in time or whatever you want to call it, is great.
It will help solve problems in the moments that matter most but it’s not as great with deepening expertise in an area long term.
Blending intentional practices and in-the-moment experiences can improve our own growth but all in organisations today too.
Again, just my 2 cents as I sip some delicious warm white tea.
→ What’s your take on this? Hit reply to let me know.
Enjoy the newsletter? Please forward to a friend. It only takes 10 seconds.
🥋 The Dojo
Avoid Lurking in The Shadows of Outdated Skills
What!?
Get 25% off the ChatGPT For L&D Crash Course this Halloween! 👻
I love Halloween. I was a strange child.
To celebrate the spooky season, I’m slashing 25% off the price (see what I did there?) of my ChatGPT For L&D Pros course for 48 hours only.
→ This will be the only discount I share this year.
Use code: Spook25 at checkout 🛒
If you need evidence of the power of ChatGPT. Check out this data ↓
A recent Boston Consulting Group and Harvard report discovered people working with ChatGPT:
Completed 12.2% more tasks
25.1% faster task completion
Over 40% higher quality work
If you want to work smarter and future-proof your skills - I’ve got you covered.
I like to say the Crash Course is much more than a course.
That’s because you get:
Monthly course updates
Free monthly course newsletter with actionable tips and tools
Access to the private L&D ChatGPT community with over 60 students
It’s a continuous learning experience, not a one-time event.
Smart Thought
Great Managers by Google
How would you rate today's edition? |
How I can help you👇
1/ My L&D toolkit stack with 20 zero-cost tools.
2/ Work smarter with AI in HR and L&D in my ChatGPT Crash Course.
3/ Work with me on your projects and L&D challenges.
Please share your thoughts with me on these pieces or anything I share on LinkedIn or hit 'reply'. Chat to you soon.
Reply