One of the areas I find many clients, locally and globally, struggling to solve in this moment is organizational learning and staff development. What do staff need to know as we enter the unknown? How can we keep developing our staff in this virtual environment? What skills/supports are our staff needing to succeed in 2021 and beyond?
With all this change and confusion we are seeing increased turnover, increasing management challenges (e.g. creating cohesion among remote teams), new hurdles to effective coordination/communication and the realities of staff burnout, fatigue and toxic stress.
The good news is that we are all experiencing these challenges together. Yes, our settings and situations are distinct, and we can learn a lot from one another as we are all innovating and iterating to find out effective ways to move our efforts forward with clarity, speed and efficiency.
Much like we are being pushed to re-imagine the roles and responsibilities of our institutions, positions, processes and protocols, we must also rethink how we learn and develop (individually and organizationally) amidst such turbulence.
In times of rapid change, organizational learning and development support must look different. In such dynamic environments, static training, “best-practice” interventions, and “expert” advising are not moving the needle - neither individually nor organizationally.
Humans learn best when they are connected; when the content is contextualized and when experiences are sequenced and sustained nimbly, and strategically. These are the types of organizational learning and development experiences that can support staff in meeting the moment, keep employees engaged during times of increased uncertainty and challenge, advancing industry knowledge and creating and scaling that knowledge more organically.
How might such a flexible and nuanced approach to organizational, professional and personal development look for organizations?
Peer learning, within an industry, organization, and/or team, has proven a rich source of learning, support and innovation. In the peer learning circles I run, we create a participatory, thought-provoking and reflective space where participants encourage one another to increase their potential, share knowledge, explore novel practices, and give feedback and support. By convening peers with similar roles and missions, we can improve personal, professional, organizational and industry performance, and stay on top of emerging trends.
Many of us find ourselves at the same meetings and events, but we do not have many places for us to more organically connect around the issues we want/need support around. A peer group/leadership circle is a venue where peers can delve into the niche areas and topics that they are curious about and/or challenged by. This bi-annual, lightly facilitated, highly focused open space allows participants to learn by doing - teaching and discussing; exploring and excavating; innovating and iterating.
Through a simple twist of fate, it has come to my attention that I have been developing, testing and refining this concept with leaders of the largest philanthropies in the world for the last seven year. As I peer into our uncertain future, one thing is clear to me: These experiences need to grow if my clients, communities and causes of concern are to sustain and scale their impact in the months and years to come.
If you are interested in discovering how we could customize a peer learning program for your industry, organization and/or team, please let me know. The world is calling us to be more innovative, connected and coordinated and one way we can do this in such an emergent environment is convening peers to share how they are navigating these seas of challenge and potential, together.
