Grow Your Team’s Skills—Without Adding More Work to Your Plate
Many years ago, my team and I watched Amy Cuddy’s TED Talk on power and confidence, and then discussed the implications for our work as fundraisers. Our dialogue moved into the gender dynamics present in the development profession, both in the workplace and with donors. This discussion stands out to me as one of the most important moments in my leadership journey. Women shared about their challenges in consistently being seen as an equal partner in the donor relationship. I shared about going from peer to leader in a male-dominated workplace. Men talked about their own experiences with confidence and better understood their women colleagues’ different lived experiences in doing the same work. The team discussion developed new perspectives, increased compassion, and built trust—all of which started with a 20-minute TED talk and group discussion. It is a reminder of the power of learning together as a team.
With the many deadlines and demands in the workplace, learning and professional development are often left unchecked on the daily to-do list. Building learning into your workplace isn’t just a “nice to have.” Organizations with a strong learning culture have 30-50% higher engagement and retention rates. The good news is that there are ways to grow your team’s skills without adding more work to your plate.
Here are six tangible ways to start building learning into your workday:
1. Incorporate a Learning Goal into Your Team’s Annual Goals
Discuss individual learning goals with team members as part of the annual review process. Use the same goal-setting language you would use for other performance expectations to show that your organization values and supports learning. As a leader, what your team member wants to learn more about and work on can relate to their future growth opportunities and potential in your organization. For example, if a team member wants to learn more about leading with influence across the organization, it can be an opportunity to appoint them to an inter-office committee where they can get a better sense of what it’s like to lead peers. Make a point to revisit their learning goal at least quarterly as part of 1:1 meetings and discuss how you can support your team member in achieving their goal.
2. Add Learning to Your Meeting Agendas
Add learning to the agenda of your existing team meetings. Prioritizing learning alongside other business topics, whether monthly or quarterly, demonstrates that your organization invests in their team members’ growth and professional development. To identify learning topics of interest, look for an article, TED Talk, or podcast that relates to areas you’d like to build skills in or discuss with your team. Send the resource in advance for everyone to review or dedicate time in the meeting for people to watch/read so there isn’t “homework” for team members. Invite everyone to participate in a discussion about the topic.
3. Dedicate Time for Synchronous Personalized Learning
It can be challenging to find time in the day for learning—unless it’s something that the full team does at the same time. Set aside one hour on a quarterly basis for the team to make progress on their own learning. They can work toward their annual learning goal or another topic of interest that they share with their manager, but it shouldn’t be a work project or deadline. By encouraging your entire team to dedicate this hour, you’ve both elevated the expectation of learning to be a part of their job and you’ve built learning accountability partners across your team. To extend the learning experience, you may choose to create a rotating schedule of team members to present their progress to their colleagues at one of your staff meetings. Teaching others is an effective way for team members to strengthen their own learning.
4. Create Learning Cohorts
Elevate the shared learning experience in your organization by creating learning cohorts for team members with similar job roles, such as managers or early career professionals. A learning cohort can be formally organized and led by a skilled facilitator or the group can take turns creating and leading the agenda for the gatherings. Peer learning groups demonstrate an organization’s interest in continual learning, which is valuable on its own, and they can also build trust, support, and belonging among team members—all of which contribute to employee engagement and retention. A learning cohort for managers has double benefits of supporting their respective teams’ growth, as well.
5. Share Learning and Failure Stories
Take time to share as a team what didn’t go well and what you learned as a result. Start a strategy meeting with a reflection on something you tried in the past, why it didn’t work, and what you would do differently. This framing can lead to a much more productive and creative meeting, because it creates psychological safety for the group. Talking about mistakes or failures can be complicated for managers who often feel like they’re expected to know all the answers. No one knows all the answers, and no one is expected to. Research shows managers who reflect on their mistakes and share their learning in a group setting contribute to their team’s improvement approach and team performance.
6. Introduce a Retrospective Review
A retrospective review, or an after action review, is a learning method to assess performance. When conducted effectively, the review can identify lessons learned and inform an organization’s future plans. When planning multiple events and projects at the same time, it can feel overwhelming to include a formal review after all of them. Here’s the thing: People determine the success of a project with or without a retrospective review—and when they’re not discussing what went well and what can be improved as a group, it’s a missed opportunity for learning and building community. Build a 30-minute retrospective review into a project timeline and treat the meeting like a professional development session where everyone can contribute. Then, maintain the meeting notes in a repository where they can be referred back to again, so history only repeats itself in the best ways. After all, an organization is only as good as how they apply what they’ve learned going forward.
Prioritize learning in your organization by finding ways to incorporate it into your existing workday. Building a learning mindset in the workplace helps the team improve and innovate, invests in individual team member’s professional and personal growth, and strengthens your company’s organizational culture.
This article is part of a special 4-part series on advancing learning for you and your team. You may also be interested to read:
1. my go-to strategy for starting your next team gathering and
2. how to keep your team's retreat momentum going throughout the year.