Unlocking Organizational Potential through Human-Led-Learning: A Framework for the Future of Work

Introduction

The Covid-19 pandemic and the rise of remote and hybrid work environments have significantly transformed how individuals in organizations collaborate, learn, and support one another. The permanently disrupted workplace environment has created new challenges for people leaders.

To address these challenges, it is essential to adopt innovative approaches to employee engagement, learning and development that can help organizations retain top talent, foster a culture of sharing and learning, and fully leverage the collective wisdom of their workforce. This fresh perspective requires us to examine the fundamental aspects of human behavior and how we have evolved as a species.

As a species, we have thrived primarily through human-to-human connections, forming tribes, and sharing knowledge. We naturally shared interesting insights or new learnings that could benefit others. Learning was predominantly experiential—rooted in doing and observing—long before the advent of print media, books, libraries, schools, or digital platforms like the internet and YouTube.

This form of learning—human-to-human (H2H)—is the most effective and accelerated way to acquire knowledge. I firmly believe its time has come to be reintegrated into workplaces of today.

It’s time to unleash the power of Human-Led-Learning (HLL) Programs at scale, to foster genuine and deeper connections among employees, promote knowledge sharing, and cultivate a high-performance human network within organizations.

Five Reasons Why Human-Led-Learning (HLL) Programs are essential now?

1. Access to Unwritten Tacit Knowledge: We possess far more knowledge than we can articulate. Without proper triggers, we often lack the motivation to express everything we know. Engaging in conversations with others allows real wisdom to emerge. Our brains store vast amounts of information from experiences and interactions, which can be activated through dialogue. Human-Led-Learning taps into this unwritten tacit knowledge, providing invaluable insights for those facing similar challenges or projects.
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2. Learning in Context: Online courses or YouTube videos may offer rich content but often lack contextual relevance to our current situations. In contrast, conversations between individuals create a highly contextual learning experience that is more applicable to real-life scenarios.
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3. Catalyzing Actionable Learning: Digital learning media will add to accumulation of knowledge but may not always lead to immediate actionable outcomes. Sometimes, it can take many years before that gained knowledge translates into practical applications to address a problem at hand. On the other hand, learning from an experienced individual i.e. Human-Led, increases the likelihood that insights learned during that conversation can be readily implemented in your current situation.
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4. Fostering Deeper Relationships: Conversations are the best way to understand others—how they think, the challenges they’ve faced, and their unique experiences. These interactions reveal non-verbal and non-obvious aspects of individuals’ lives and values, enhancing interpersonal connections.
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5. Complementing Existing Learning Systems: While digital platforms offer vast content libraries, determining what is most relevant can be overwhelming. When engaging with an experienced human i.e. a mentor who recommends specific resources, that content becomes more valuable and is more likely to be utilized effectively. Organizations investing in sophisticated Learning Management Systems can significantly boost engagement and course completion rates by incorporating Human-Led-Learning into their learning stacks.

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Expanding on the power of Human-Led-Learning for People Leaders

Leaders often focus on what employees are doing—tasks or projects aimed at achieving corporate goals and create hyper efficiency.

However, it’s crucial for leaders to look beyond what employees do, especially in today's workplace environment where people are longing for recognition and connection. Employees want to feel included in the organization's progress and goals.

This is where “Ravi’s Hierarchy of People”, inspired by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, comes into play. I first introduced "Ravi’s Hierarchy of People™ or RHoP" in a 2018 seminal article titled "Engaging the human behind the employee" after listening to a musician's keynote.

Little did I know that the pandemic will arrive and the eventual transformation of workplaces into remote/hybrid environments will make the RHoP framework a necessity now.

RHoP is a 4-level hierarchy in a reverse-pyramid fashion where each level builds on the previous level (unlike Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs):

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1. Employees Do: Employees perform tasks related to their projects.
2. Employees Know: Employees possess more knowledge than what they are able to utilize in their current tasks; therefore much of their knowledge remains untapped.
3. Employees Are: Employees play various roles beyond being workers, as parents, spouses, friends, colleagues, and more; these roles shape their identities beyond their professional duties and have a huge influence on what they know and do.
4. Employees Dream: Majority of employees have aspirations that extend beyond their current roles e.g. desire to pursue graduate education or get new certifications or travel around the world or start a family or experience new roles.

The primary takeaways from RHoP™ framework are

• when leaders focus on what employees do, productivity increases;
• when leaders also heed to what employees know, engagement rises;
• when leaders take time and recognize who employees are, happiness flourishes;
• when leaders take active interest and support employees’ dreams, commitment deepens.

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Imagine workplaces where employees are

• totally committed to their work with a deep spirit of organizational citizenship
• thriving vs just working and are happier coming to work
• building meaningful human connections, and fully engaged during their work
• intentionally sharing and learning from each other, become hyper-productive.

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This is not some utopian thinking. All of these benefits can be realized by Integrating Human-Led-Learning Programs built on Ravi’s Hierarchy of People™ framework. HLL will significantly enhance organizational culture and create psychological safety for employees.

Here is one visual of how MentorCloud catalyzed Human-Led-Learning at scale for a global hospitality company.

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Mentoring and Coaching are both such Human-Led-Learning programs that organizations must embrace to

• Catalyze human connections
• Build a thriving culture of connectedness and collaboration
• Grow employee engagement and commitment,

and in the process fully tap into the collective human wisdom of the organization, to propel both employee growth and organizational growth.

What kind of learning programs do you have that are Human-Led?

How has human-led-learning such as mentoring and coaching shaped your own professional development?