What is Self-Directed Learning?

Self-directed training includes the learner initiating the learning, making the
decisions about what training and development experiences will occur, and
how. The learner selects and carries out their own learning goals, objectives,
methods and means to verifying that the goals were met.

Probably the most important skill for today's rapidly changing workforce is
skills in self-reflection. The highly motivated, self-directed learner with
skills in self-reflection can approach the workplace as a continual classroom
from which to learn.

Supervisors and employees who work together to accomplish formal, self-

directed learning in the workplace also accomplish continuous learning for
continued productivity and learning.

Most Learning is Informal and Self-Directed in Nature

We buy a book and think about the writer's viewpoint. We attend a

presentation given at a local school. We take some time at the end of the day
to think about our day and what we learned from it. These are all informal
forms of self-directed learning.

Self-directed learning becomes even more powerful when it's systematic,

that is, when we decide:

1. What areas of knowledge and skills we need to gain in order to get

something done (our learning needs and goals)
2. How we will gain the areas of knowledge and skills (our learning
objectives and activities)
3. How we will know that we've gained the areas of knowledge and
skills (learning evaluation)

Self-Directed Learning is Ideal for the Workplace

Self-directed learning programs hold numerous advantages over traditional

forms of classroom instruction for employees in the workplace, whether they
be leaders, managers, or individual contributors. Bouchard (Self-directed
Learning in Organizational Settings (working paper), Concordia University,
Montreal, Canada) explains, “Over the years, it has become increasingly
clear that traditional approaches to program design and delivery in the
workplace and in associative organizations present some important
weaknesses. Problem areas include: coping with the short life span of useful
knowledge; passing down acquired competencies to succeeding cohorts;
accommodating the demands of productivity while providing for a
continuity of learning; [and!] enabling learners to pursue activities that
correspond to their learning styles and needs” (p. 1).

After many years of reflection about learning, eminent psychologist, Carl

Rogers, founder of self-directed therapy, asserted that “anything that can be
taught to another is relatively inconsequential, and has little or no significant
influence on behavior” (On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of
Psychotherapy, Houghton Mifflin, 1961, p. 276). He adds, “The only
learning which significantly influences behavior is self-discovered, self-
appropriated learning” (p. 276).

Self-directed learning programs

• Are more effective in development because learning accommodates

employees’ learning styles and objectives
• Save substantial training costs because learners learn to help
themselves and each other with practical and timely materials
• Achieve increased employee effectiveness in their jobs as they learn
to learn from their own work experiences and actually apply their
learning in their places of work

How Supervisors Can Help Employees Learn in the Workplace

The supervisor's attitude and knowledge about learning has a tremendous

impact on the development of employees (thus, the major reason the Free
Management Library was developed). Thomas D. Fisher, in Self-
Directedness in the Workplace: A Re-Examination, cites numerous
suggestions (from Lowry) in order to better enable self-directed learning in
the workplace. Some of those suggestions are listed below, and are
wonderful ways for supervisors and learners to turn the workplace into a
classroom (pp. 4-5):

1. Help the learner identify the starting point for a learning project and
discern relevant [ways!] of examination and reporting.
2. Encourage adult learners to view knowledge and truth as contextual ...
and that they can act on their world individually or collectively to
transform it
 3. Create a partnership with the learner by negotiating a learning contract
for goals, strategies and evaluation criteria
4. Be a manager of the learning experience rather than an information
provider
5. Teach inquiry skills, decision making, personal development, and
self-evaluation of work
6. Help learners develop positive attitudes and feelings of independence
relative to learning
7. Recognize learners' personality types and learning styles
8. Use techniques such as field experience and problem solving that take
advantage of adults' rich experience base
9. Encourage critical thinking skills by incorporating ... such activities as
seminars
10.Create an atmosphere of openness and trust to promote better
performance
11.Behave ethically, which includes not recommending a self-directed
learning approach if it is not congruent with the learner's needs
12.Obtain the necessary tools to assess learner's current performance and
to evaluate their expected performance
13.Provide opportunities for self-directed learners to reflect on what
they're learning
14.Promote learning networks, study circles, and learning exchanges,
self-managed teams of self-directed learners)
15.Provide staff training on self-directed learning and broaden the
opportunities for its implementation

Fisher adds that "Self-directed learning is more than a form of education. It

is a component in human development"

Take Responsibility for Your Own Learning

Copyright ©1998 Daniel R. Tobin

Managers (and all employees) must take responsibility for their

own learning. At one time, many companies could promise a
new employee lifelong employment and a predictable career
path. Today, very few if any companies can make that promise.
Even when your company has a formal training department and
offers a catalog full of courses for employees, no one knows
better than the employee and his or her manager what needs to
be learned and how that learning can be applied to the job to
make a positive difference in individual, group, and company
business results. You must take responsibility for your own
career path, whether with your current employer or through a
series of employers. And the way to build your career is to keep
learning throughout your career.

Many companies promise that every employee will receive one

week (and sometimes more than one week) of training per year.
But forward-looking managers know that one week of training
isn't enough to create better performance and new opportunities
for the future. They know that they and their employees must
be in a continuous learning mode -- learning every month,
every week, every day.

How do you plan for your own learning needs? Here is a

method of planning for your own learning that I call the
"learning contract." The learning contract is personalized for
each employee and is negotiated by the employee and his or her
manager, for no one in the company knows better what the
employee needs to learn than the employee and his or her
immediate manager.

The learning contract starts with the company's business goals

or, at the minimum, the part of the company's business goals
that are affected by the employee's work. By beginning and, as
we will see later, ending with these goals in mind, we ensure
that all learning activities are designed to make a positive
contribution to the achievement of both personal and company
goals. But it is often difficult for the individual employee to see
a direct connection between his or her work and the larger
company goals. It is the job of the manager to help the
employee understand the company's goals and how those larger
goals are affected by the department's or function's work and by
the work of the individual employee.
Why is it important for every employee to understand the
company's overall business goals, especially if the employee's
work seems very distant from those goals? The answer is
simply this: if you don't understand the company's business
goals, how can you possibly work to help the company achieve
those goals? Being able to demonstrate how your work is
helping the company achieve its goals will be important when
you seek your next raise or promotion. And even if you decide
to leave the company to seek work elsewhere, potential
employers will look more favorably on applicants who are able
to tie their work experience to achievement of the company's
business goals.

Once these goals are understood, the next question is: "How
must I change my work or my skills and knowledge to help the
company achieve this goal?" Too often, companies publish
ambitious business goals, but no one bothers to ask how those
goals will be achieved or what changes will be necessary to
enable the company to meet those goals.

When you understand the changes you must make to help

achieve the goals, then you must ask: "What do I need to learn
in order to make those changes?" You can't change without
learning. Learning may involve greater knowledge of customers
and markets, building new skills in order to work differently,
and so forth.

The next part of the learning contract deals with how the
learning will take place: Will I attend a company-sponsored
training program, take a course at a local college, read some
books and articles, become an apprentice to someone who is a
master of the new skills -- the list of potential learning methods
is very large (and will be the subject of another article in this
series). In planning your learning, you need to specify in the
learning contract the methods you will use, where you will find
the learning resources you need, and a schedule for completion
of the specified learning activities.

I often recommend that employees, before undertaking any

learning activity, find someone inside or outside the company
who has already mastered the new skills or knowledge and who
can act as a coach and answer the employee's questions as they
arise. Ideally, this is the employee's manager, but the manager
does not always have the needed expertise or the time to
acquire it. If you cannot find someone to act as a coach, then I
recommend that you find someone else who is learning the
same skill or studying the same material to be your "learning
partner." By having a learning partner, you will have someone
to exchange questions and experiences with, and the two of you
can help each other study and discuss your experiences as you
later try to apply your learning to your jobs. If you cannot find a
learning partner in your group or your company, look for
groups on the Internet who are interested in the subject. The
Internet can be a wonderful resource, and you can get assistance
from people all over the world, even if you do not know the
person and will never actually meet that person.

You also need to specify in the contract how you will

demonstrate that the learning has taken place -- what will be the
measure of your learning achievements? Will you submit a
report on what you have learned? Will you take tests before and
after the learning activities to show how much you have
learned? Will you demonstrate the skills for your manager?

Next, the learning contract must include a section on how you

will apply your learning to your job. This is where most
corporate training programs fail -- most of the learning that
takes place in formal training programs never gets applied to
the students' jobs -- meaning that the company's investment in
that training is wasted. It is also the area where the employee
needs the most assistance from the manager. When you try out
new skills, you will inevitably make errors -- no one can be
expected to try something totally new and succeed the first and
every time. The manager must provide the opportunity to make
errors and must reinforce the employee's learning with coaching
and reinforcement until the new skills are mastered. Without
this assistance from the manager, the employee will quickly
revert back to the old way of doing things when faced with a
problem -- "Why should I risk making an error and being
penalized by my manager for trying the new methods when I
can continue to do things the old way -- the way I know and
with which I am comfortable. The old way may not be the best
way, but I know it works."

Finally, you must specify in the contract what difference in

business results are expected once you have applied your
learning to your work. This ties back to the first step in the
learning contract, where you specified the company business
goals to which you contribute. By beginning with the end in
mind, all learning activities will be focused on specific,
measurable, achievable business results, for the individual, the
group/function/department, and the company as a whole.

Using the learning contract can also yield another benefit:

When you can demonstrate the direct connection between your
learning activities and the company's business results, no one
will ever question the value of the training programs or other
learning activities you undertake. You will never be asked to
justify the investment in your learning, because the justification
is built into the plan from the beginning.

Summary of the Learning Contract

1. Specify the company's business goals and how your

individual work contributes to their achievement.

2. Specify how you must change your work to help the

company achieve its goals.

3. Specify what you need to learn in order to make those

changes.

4. Develop a learning plan, including:

· What you need to learn.

· What learning resources you will use.

· A schedule of learning activities.

5. Specify measures of learning achievement.

6. Develop a plan for how you will apply your learning to your
job.

7. Specify what changes in business results are expected from

the application of your learning to the job.