Informal Learning: mission critical

When Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan return from patrol, they spend time relaxing together in small, tightly-knit groups and tell stories about the mission. There is no form to these sessions, just soldiers hanging out with each other. The conversations include jokes and insults, but the act of sharing helps to make the group more cohesive. Military leaders see this time as essential, and no one interferes with these small groups.

This is an excellent example of the importance of informal learning. It’s a fact that every soldier had been formally trained before arriving in Afghanistan. However, the unit cannot be effective unless all individuals work together. Informal learning is the glue that keeps groups together during tough times. The actual "Return on Investment" of these storytelling sessions cannot be determined as a percentage of effectiveness, but their value is obvious.

Doing our best is a normal human desire and most organizations want people to work their best. Klaus Wittkuhn, a performance improvement practitioner, wrote in Performance Improvement magazine (2004), "It is not an intelligent strategy to train people to overcome system deficiencies. Instead, we should design the system properly to make sure that the performers can leverage all their capabilities."

A key difference between formal training and informal learning is that the former is designed (push) while the latter is enabled (pull). As far as formal training goes, we have several models and many examples of good practices. But training alone is not enough. The best training programs can only address a maximum of 20% of the work performance issues in an organization. Training can only help to develop skills and knowledge if we know in advance what these are. In many cases, we don't know what our future performance needs will be.

My interest in informal learning has grown with my experiences online. We now have a wide array of cheap and plentiful platforms for informal learning - blogs, wikis, social bookmarks, podcasts, social networks, micro-blogs. Digital networks mean that we are no longer limited to reading what has been formally published or talking only to our limited social circle. We can now engage in much larger conversations, as an individual, a member of a group, or within an organization. Ignoring, or blocking, ways to learn informally online would be like handicapping every employee's cognitive abilities.

Supporting informal learning is similar to raising a child. You cannot train for all possible circumstances in life, but you can be a good example, accept failure, encourage learning  and provide a caring environment. Let’s take a similar, but much less dangerous situation, than that of the soldiers in Afghanistan. Imagine a project team that has had a difficult client with tight deadlines and then managed to pull it off. Immediately after the last deliverable, the team is redistributed across the company to get to the next project, because “time is money”. There has been no time to talk or to swap stories or to find out what Bob was doing while Mary was dealing with a certain crisis.

An enterprise may not be able to devote official down time for informal learning, but it can ease the way for other kinds of communication that support informal learning. Storytelling through blogs is possible for those who want to write. Sharing pictures on the Intranet can evoke memories and encourage people to revisit an event and learn from it. The key is to create environments that support informal communication; just as a dozen soldiers in a tent are going to tell stories, bond and learn.

We have growing evidence that blogs, wikis, online fora, or knowledge-sharing are effective in increasing organizational performance. The military storytelling example clearly shows why unstructured, informal learning is so important to the unit’s effectiveness, even though every soldier is already highly trained. Not all learning has to be directed and in many cases we learn more with less outside direction.