Drive the Learning: The Final Step in Sustainable Improvement
In the previous four blogs, we have explored the foundational elements of effective organisational transformation: Articulate intent, Know the flow, Master the measures, and Engage the people. Each step builds upon the last, creating a coherent system of improvement rooted in clarity, systems thinking, and human engagement.
Now we arrive at the final—and arguably most vital—step: Drive the Learning.
This is where the cycle of improvement becomes self-sustaining. Get this right and it’s where your organisation stops reacting and starts evolving. It’s where learning becomes embedded in the culture, learning is no longer a one-off event or post-project review, but a continuous, deliberate, and strategic process.
Why Learning Matters
My oft referred touchstone management thinker Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the father of the modern quality management movement, famously said, “Learning is not compulsory… neither is survival.” In today’s world of massively accelerating change (AI, Net Zero, political turmoil and more), learning is no longer optional. It is the only viable and sustainable means of gaining some competitive advantage.
Yet many organisations confuse training with learning. Training is an event; learning is a process. Training is often top-down; learning is systemic. Training can be forgotten; learning, when embedded in practice, becomes part of your organisation’s DNA.
To drive the learning, we must create the conditions where learning is:
- Continuous – not confined to classrooms or courses.
- Contextual – rooted in real work and real problems.
- Collaborative – shared across teams and functions.
- Constructive – focused on improvement, not blame.
The research suggests engaged employees are not only productive but also more actively contribute to your company’s success and ongoing development.
The Learning Organisation
Peter Senge, in The Fifth Discipline, introduced the concept of “the learning organisation”, one that is “continually expanding its capacity to create its future.” He identified five disciplines that underpin such organisations:
- Systems Thinking – seeing the whole, not just the parts.
- Personal Mastery – individuals committed to lifelong learning.
- Mental Models – surfacing and challenging assumptions.
- Shared Vision – aligning around a common purpose.
- Team Learning – thinking and learning together.
And, until I started researching and writing this blog, I hadn’t quite appreciated how are our framework of Articulate intent, Know the flow, Master the measures, Engage the people and finally drive the learning, align so beautifully with those of Senge. But to truly drive the learning, we must operationalise these ideas. You need to turn theory into practice. Here’s how.
Learning Loops: From Single to Double to Triple
Chris Argyris and Donald Schön introduced the idea of learning loops:
- Single-loop learning is about doing things right, but correcting errors without actually questioning underlying assumptions.
- Double-loop learning is about doing the right things, challenging the assumptions and norms that led to the error.
- Triple-loop learning is about learning how to learn, reflecting on how you think, decide, and adapt.
Most organisations operate at the single-loop level. They fix problems but rarely ask, “Why did this happen in the first place?” or “What does this say about our system?”
To drive the learning, we must move up the ladder:
- Encourage reflection after action.
- Create safe spaces for questioning and experimentation.
- Reward insight, not just output.
We have explored these ideas in greater depth in another blog, Embracing Failure, inspired by the writings of Matthew Syed, and his thinking along the lines of, if a mistake has arisen we have not properly understood something inherent in the process.
The Role of Leadership
Driving learning is not the job of your HR team, your people team or your learning and development team. It is an all-round leadership responsibility.
You and your top team must model curiosity, humility, and vulnerability. You and your top team must be willing to say, “I don’t know,” and “Let’s find out together.” You and your top team must shift from being the source of answers to being the facilitators of inquiry.
Deming emphasised the importance of leadership in creating a system that enables people to do their best work. That includes creating a system that enables, and indeed, cherishes, learning.
Leaders can drive learning by:
- Asking better questions – not “Who’s to blame?” but “What can we learn?”
- Allocating time for reflection – in meetings, projects, and reviews.
- Celebrating learning – especially when it comes from failure.
- Investing in systems – that capture, share, and apply knowledge.
In another blog, we have set out a whole series of tough questions for leaders check it out here.
Learning from the Work
One of the most powerful ways to drive learning is to learn in the work, not just about the work.
This means:
- Embedding lessons learnt or mop up reviews into projects, contracts or customer meetings.
- Using Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles to test and refine ideas.
- Encouraging experimentation and prototyping.
- Capturing lessons learned in real time, not just at the end of a job, project or contract.
Learning can only become a habit when it becomes part of the day-today workflow, not an interruption to it.
Measurement and Feedback
As we explored in Master the measures, what gets measured gets managed. But what gets understood gets improved.
To drive learning, we need feedback loops that are:
- Timely – so learning is relevant.
- Actionable – so learning leads to change.
- Transparent – so learning is shared.
This includes both quantitative data (KPIs & metrics) and qualitative insights (stories & observations). It includes feedback from customers, colleagues, suppliers, regulators and the system itself.
Learning is not just about collecting data—it’s about making meaning from it. A phrase we’d use a lot would be “we get better decisions from better data.” This is where another Deming idea, and a key to driving learning, the statistical process control chart (horribly named and better labelled as the Process Prediction Chart (PPC) can become especially useful. Process prediction charting helps eliminate knee jerk reactions to spikes in data that are actually within the range of expectation – amazingly, it can also help you predict the future!
Culture: The Soil of Learning
You can’t drive learning in a culture of fear. You can’t drive learning in a culture of blame. You can’t drive learning in a culture of silence.
To drive learning, you need a culture of:
- Psychological safety – where people feel safe to speak up.
- Curiosity – where questions are valued more than answers.
- Respect – where every voice matters.
- Improvement – where the goal is progress, not perfection.
Culture is shaped by what leaders say, do, and tolerate. It is reinforced by rituals, symbols, and stories. It is lived in the everyday moments.
Technology as an Enabler
Technology can of course support learning, but it absolutely cannot substitute for it (yet!).
The best learning platforms are not just repositories of content. They are networks of connection. They enable people to share, collaborate, and co-create knowledge.
Tools like knowledge bases, collaboration platforms, and AI assistants can help, but only if they are used in service of real learning, not just compliance.
From Learning to Transformation
Driving learning is not just about making people smarter. It’s about making the organisation more adaptive, more resilient, and more innovative.
It’s about turning insight into action, and action into impact.
It’s about creating a system where improvement is not a project, but a way of life.
Conclusion
Hopefully, you’ve been on a journey with me from articulate intent, know the flow, master the measures, engage the people and now, drive the learning. So, as we conclude, one final thought, and that is this journey is not linear. It is iterative. Each step reinforces the others.
- When you articulate your intent, you give learning (and your company) a purpose.
- When you know the flow, you see, from the holes in your process interactions where learning is needed.
- When you master your measures, and connect them to your processes, you know what to learn and if you are using process prediction charting, whether or not a change is in fact an improvement.
- When you engage the people, you unleash the capacity of your people to learn.
- And when you drive the learning, you ensure that learning sticks.
In the words of Deming: “The greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could become.”
Driving the learning is how we close that gap.
Related tools and ideas
Recommended references
- Dragon Slaying – a better way to manage – Mark Woods
Downloadable references
- None
