Cultivating a Culture of Learning: Apprenticeships for the new digital age

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Talent is the only resource you have with unlimited potential to improve.

IN A WORLD OF UNPRECEDENTED CHANGE AND DIGITAL DISRUPTION…

“THE BIG SHIFT”

Moving from Scalable efficiency

To scalable learning

Deloitte Center for The Edge Shift Index, Deloitte University Press 2013

“The technology is the easy part. The hard part is, what are the social practices around this?”

- John Seely Brown

WHERE DO I START TO CULTIVATE A CULTURE OF SCALABLE LEARNING?

Start with apprenticeshipStart with your new recruits

• Increase return on talent (ROT) • Build loyalty in both apprentices and mentors • Strengthen culture fit • Develop relevant skills

• Most importantly… • Cultivate a culture of learning

APPRENTICESHIPS…

DEFINING APPRENTICESHIP

WORK

SKILLS

• “A collaborative way to trade knowledge and skills for help with making.”

• “Learning by practical experience under skilled workers a trade, art, or calling.”

ROLE OF THE APPRENTICE

Arranging life and work so that it is focused on your need to grow.

WHAT IT’S NOT . . .NOT ANOTHER TRAINING PROGRAM !

• Pre-planned

• Tightly scripted

• General

• Explicit

• Emergent

• Adaptive

• Directly relevant

• Tacit

vs.TRAINING PROGRAMS APPRENTICESHIP

THE APPRENTICESHIPCULTURE OF LEARNING VALUES …

1 Tacit Knowledge/Making

4 Community of practice

2 Tinkering/Playing

5 Passionate Explorers

3 Coaching

6 Supportive Scaffolding System

1 TACIT KNOWLEDGE

Traditional education focuses on explicit knowledge • When information is stable, explicit knowledge is very

important

Tacit knowledge is understood or implied without being stated • When information is rapidly changing, tacit knowledge is

most important

• Cognitive Apprenticeship: Theory about the process used by a master to teach a skill to an apprentice. Holds that a master of a skill often fails to account for the implicit processes involved in carrying out complex skills when they teach novices

• Cognitive apprenticeships are designed to bring these tacit processes into the open, where students can observe and practice them with help from their mentor

THE BEST WAY TO ACQUIRE TACIT KNOWLEDGE: COGNITIVE APPRENTICESHIP

Increasingly we must learn by doing, watching, and experiencing

It is not about taught knowledge, rather it is about absorbing knowledge

TRADITIONAL MODELA Cartesian view of learning, “I think therefore I am.” Views knowledge as substance to be transferred.

• A social view of learning – “we participate, therefore we are.” Views understanding as socially constructed

• It is the more adequate perspective on learning in the age of digital innovations

NEW MODEL

A BETTER BALANCE

Knowing (Homo Sapiens)

Making (Homo Faber)

2 PLAYING

Tinkering Experimentation Freedom to fail

Imagination

Knowing (Homo Sapiens)

Making (Homo Faber)

Playing (Homo Ludens)

PERFECTING THE BALANCE

3 COACHING

Guiding the apprentice’s journey toward accomplishing the desired learning goals.

Coordinator—Guide—Mentor

Not a teacher

4 COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

Shared interests relative to a specific skill or trade

Members learn to see and experience from many different vantage points

Enculturation (into shared practices)

Freedom to play and imagine (tinkering)

5 PASSIONATE EXPLORERS

“Explorers are defined by how they respond to challenges.”

Passion at work: Cultivating worker passion as a cornerstone of talent development, Deloitte University Press 2014

WHO IS THE PASSIONATE EXPLORER?• Commitment to Domain: Desire for impact in the chosen field or discipline • Questing Disposition: Actively seeking out challenges that push the boundaries of

current capabilities • Connecting Disposition: Finding peers and mentors within and without the

discipline who can accelerate the learning process • Result: The resilience critical for increasing performance in a rapidly changing

world

RECRUITING YOUR EXPLORER

NO • Existing skills and • Credentials (history)

YES! • Focus on disposition • Potential (future)

6 SUPPORTIVE SCAFFOLDING SYSTEMA supportive environment is needed to reinforce the apprenticeship culture of learning while cultivating passionate dispositions.

SUPPORTIVE SCAFFOLDING TO CULTIVATE PASSIONATE DISPOSITIONS

Commitment to Domain

Connecting Questing

Passionof the

explorer

• Create visibility around performance and the impact of learning tasks

• Provide challenges in areas where apprentices could make significant impact

• Foster craftsmanship identity by acknowledging and celebrating what is made and how others have built upon it

• Connect learning to projects that incorporate real-world challenges: Encourage experimentation

• Provide context specific feedback • Build in reflection to capture and apply

lessons learned

• Establish a collaboration platform that connects both internal and external participants in the learning process

• Platform should enable cross-ecosystem connection to diverse skills and areas of practice

• Facilitate connecting relationships through coaching

GREATEST BENEFITS OF YOUR APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM

• Not the training of new skills.

• Cultivating a culture of learning

• ½ Life of a skill is 5 years • But a culture of learning can sustain

success for the next 100 years

THIS IS POSSIBLE !

The Future Belongs to those who create it. Lets talk about helping you take the next step.

@ BradVoeller bradv@DigitalCreativeInstitute.com www.DigitalCreativeInstitute.com

PHOTO CREDITS

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