Learning at Work - The Fundamental Principles

John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach whose teams won championships and set records with regularity, introduced new players to his coaching philosophy with an important lesson in fundamentals. He would instruct the players how to properly tie their sneakers. In order to win, he argued, you had to score, pass and defend. In order to score, pass and defend, you had to run. In order to run, you had to prepare and care for your feet. And to do that, you had to tie your sneakers properly. The lesson: Basketball is a fast game, requiring a mastery of fundamentals to succeed.

The same might be said today of learning organizations. The pace of business has become exceedingly fast, and the stakes for learning organizations and the people who lead them have become increasingly high. There is more pressure to deliver results and more demand for meaningful impact.

In such an environment, it is often easy to overlook the fundamentals that ensure success. But doing so can have dire consequences. A program that ignores the fundamental principles of workplace learning can fail both the individual and the organization, making it unlikely to deliver the desired impact and results needed to help the organization and justify continued investment in learning.

At the same time, programs that pay appropriate attention to fundamentals can help individuals and organizations quickly learn the skills required to thrive in the emerging business climate. That's especially true for two areas that will be among the most critical for organizations in the fast-changing, quick-tempo world of business: leadership development and customer relationship competencies.

Why these two? Leadership and management competencies are the keys to creating alignment and focus around a new business direction, and to fostering innovation, flexibility and speed. Customer relationship competencies are critical in building and sustaining profitable relationships with clients, developing customer loyalty and creating strong ties across companies, from the executive suite to the front line.

Recently, The Forum Corp. surveyed 60 experts in workplace learning, each of whom has trained an average of more than 11,000 workers over his or her career. In addition, Forum interviewed 24 learning consultants and conducted panel discussions with professionals responsible for learning in a cross-section of companies and industries. The goal was to learn how leadership and customer service competencies can be learned most effectively.