Investment Dimensions to Learning

There are two critical aspects or dimensions to learning that have direct bearing on learning portfolio management. The first of these, which I have come to name ‘Learning use,’ came to my direct attention while researching and working with clients in healthcare. The second, ‘Learning impact,’ came from my consulting work in the field of education.

Learning use

Some of the learning that takes place in healthcare involves practices or techniques that are used immediately to care for sick patients. Healthcare is a unique context in which the effect of not learning (possible death) is so devastating that medical practitioners and caregivers continually explore new procedures and protocols to help their patients. Consequently, they learn new techniques because they are needed immediately to address a patient’s condition and thereby improve their well-being, if not their very survival. Yet as part of their formal training, medical practitioners also learn about illnesses and diseases they may encounter at some future date.

One can think of this comparison as reflecting a time dimension to the value of learning. For some practices the usefulness of what’s been learned is realized immediately in the short term, while for other uses the benefit comes later on. In industry this contrast is reflected in a manager’s choice between focusing on production activities that create valued outcomes and benefits in the short term and investment activities that lead to benefits in the long term. This contrast may be depicted in the following continuum:

The relative timeliness of when we use or apply what we have learned is an important criterion to weigh up when choosing between alternative learning investments. Considering a practice in the light of its learning use (immediate versus future) is a helpful marker.

Learning impact

It is one thing to use or apply what we have learned, it is another to realize the benefits from that use. For example, while a healthcare practitioner may learn and then use a new protocol to assist someone with poor health, whether the use of that protocol actually adds value or creates benefit to the patient may not be known for some time. In effect, there are time lags between the use of learning and its resultant benefits. Consequently, we can’t be certain, at the outset, of the value of what we’re learning.

For some uses of learning, the benefits are unambiguous, as when emergency room staff uses new protocols to save a patient. In other cases, whether a new form of surgery or a new protocol of radiation therapy will extend the life of a cancer patient may not be known until some time has passed. Whenever learned attitudes or behaviors are used without controls or comparisons, there should always be uncertainty over their impacts. Without controls, one cannot be sure whether the outcomes should be attributed to what had been learned or some other factor, such as chance, a change in the environment, or merely the passage of time. For example, if a sick patient is treated in some new way recently learned by medical staff and then feels better, medical staff cannot be sure that the patient would not have felt better without the new treatment.

Thus, while learning may be used immediately, the payoff from that use may be uncertain or lag behind in time. Often we learn and use new behaviors because the impact is empirically known. At other times the impact is unknown, but we invest in learning just the same because we believe that the payoff or benefit will ultimately be positive. This contrast may be depicted in the following continuum:

The field of education is forever having to cope with the challenges of this dichotomy. In our large research universities, those scholars who teach focus on developing theory whose impact is uncertain, while many of their students prefer learning which they perceive to have certain impact. In primary and secondary education we invest in the schooling of our children with the hope and expectation that they will learn how to lead meaningful and productive lives as adults. Of course, support for education also comes from competitive pressures that our children be as successful as possible (even as other competitive pressures lead investors to expect that our corporations be as profitable as possible). The uncertain but expected payoffs from elementary and secondary education help fuel the coffers of many local school committees.

Yet when it comes to supporting education or learning in corporate environments, decision makers aren’t quite so generous when they rely on ROI and other business measures to assess the returns and value of investments in learning. Learning portfolio management aims to maximize that value. Considering the learning use and learning impact of a given practice can guide that management process and ensure the effectiveness of learning efforts.