How might we foster a culture of learning within organizations?

We launched an in-depth exploration into how organizations can trigger, promote, and sustain learning behaviors. We began by immersing ourselves in mainstream as well as analogous “learning” environments: corporate workplaces, innovation consulting offices, coworking spaces, public libraries, and Montessori schools. Deepening our understanding through secondary research, we developed a Learning Dimensions framework to codify the four different ways in which learning occurs. From there, we surveyed 75 workers across design, education, healthcare, advertising, and chemical industries to understand how organizations deal with increasing problem complexity and deliver through multidisciplinary teaming.

Turning our attention to implementers or curators of learning, we held workshops and conversations with HR leaders, L&D representatives, business leaders, and managers to better understand how an organization sustains change, and how to navigate potential barriers to its implementation. Currently, we are in the process of exploring methods of prototyping learning models to understand what iterations and affordances an activation model needs to positively impact the workplace.