How do you develop a culture of continuous learning?

I love this as a first step! In my experience too many organizations are quick to pivot to the "next thing" without ever measuring if the "next thing" is a gap truly holding their program back from making a real impact to the business or developing their employees. Measure twice cut once..Right?

Continuous learning requires intentional and self-reflective work to understand our biases and overcome our fears. As inclusive leaders, it is crucial to have a growth mindset in order to bring about meaningful change and foster a sense of belonging among our team. By regularly examining our internal biases, we can become better equipped to lead with authenticity and inclusivity. Without this introspection, we risk remaining stuck in a fixed mindset and limiting our potential for growth.

Continuous learning is only the half of the marathon. What matters most: 🌈Continuous Unlearning for new and fresh learning 🌈Say yes only to Relevant Learning 🌈Conversion of learning into action 🌈On time Learning One most important point, neither organisation nor any university is responsible for your learning, they can facilitate only, we are owner of our own learning. So take charge of it!!!

I would also add, setting expectations. Team members need to know the parameters in which they are expected to embrace the vision and values of continuous learning.

When I was managing a remote team of about 10, a couple years ago, I ensured I fostered a culture of enjoyable continuous learning by incorporating it into our daily team meetings and making it fun. Every Tuesday, our team meeting was themed "Training Tuesday". It was all about sharing best practices and tips that improved our service, with an implementable action at the end. On the first day of piloting this initiative, I delivered the 10-minute training. After that, I got everyone on the team involved, no matter how shy or new they were, to create and deliver the training to the rest of the team. They always looked forward to their turn and later boasted to the other teams that this experience was one of their highlights of the week!

Leaders need to create an environment of trust and psychological safety in the organisation, which allows team members to voice their opinions without fear of being judged or reprimanded. They also need to show a willingness to learn and embrace new ideas from their team, in order to foster an environment of continuous learning and growth. Leadership should be comfortable if their best assumption or best way of working is challenged in the organisation.

One of the most important ways to create and foster a culture of learning is to invest in it. Ensuring that your company has the best possible learning resources, not just the ones that are most budget-friendly is a good first step. The second and probably even more important is giving your employees the most valuable resource that can be applied to learning, time. Time spent growing and developing is not an interruption of their work, it is the means for them to get better at it. If you are seeking a learning culture and declaring it a priority is one thing, investing it is evidence of that commitment. As James Frick says, “Don’t tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are."

This is my favorite step because it also creates accountability. If expectations have been set to participate in continuous learning and the fact that there will be recognition or rewards has been communicated, then team members will know that whether they participate or not will be noticed.

A culture of continuous learning can be achieved when the leadership is deeply invested in crossing each and every milestone in the learning roadmap of an organization. The leadership has to ability to make or break the project and their influence impacts the motivation of the employees to take part in the learning process. Successful learning organizations with this continuous learning culture will always have one thing in common and that is, a C-suite invested in learning and adapting.