How Do We Instill a Culture of Learning Within a New Company?

How Do We Instill a Culture of Learning Within a New Company?
	I work in a company with about 300 staff. We are only a year old, and to build a learning culture it's been suggested that we implement some type of a points system that lets people earn points each time they attend a training session, deliver any type of peer coaching, etc. We are pondering using these points as key result areas (for employee learning, I think). I am not sure how to design such a system and what would be the pitfalls of such a system. Can you point me in the right direction?—Learning About Learning, people & culture consultant, finance/insurance/real estate, Melbourne, Australia
	Learning can mean different things to different people. Prior to engaging in a process for creating a "learning culture," you should first define what the concept means for your organization in terms of expectations and outcomes. For example, be clear about whether you are looking for people to become cross-trained, share information or innovate--and for what purpose. Once you have defined your objective, you can strategize on how to create the appropriate culture. Culture is not simply compliance with expectations or a response to rewards such as award points. It is the manifestation of attitudes and beliefs. Creating a change in culture will require that you make changes in your organization that support and enable the attitudes and beliefs you desire. These changes must include intrinsically motivating practices and systems such as management practices that push decision-making out to the workforce and support systems that support your core business. If you wish to create a broad-based learning organization as defined by broad sharing of information among all employees in all directions and at all levels, employees working together as an integrated and interdependent whole, and core worker risk-taking, innovation and entrepreneurship, you should do three things: First, create a sense of personal vision and ownership among your workforce. Share all but the most sensitive information about the business with every member of your workforce, especially core workers. Information should be provided as if you were training them to take over one day. Second, build the capabilities of your workforce through cross-training, functional problem-solving teams, product learning and instruction about financial aspects of your company. Third, let employees make decisions about how to perform the core work and serve customers. Remove policy frustrations and excessive controls on resources so that employees can act on their ideas about how to better serve customers, drive new business and champion risk-taking (even when it fails). Instead of focusing on reward points and incentives, concentrate on building an intrinsically motivating workplace by changing management practices and support systems. In so doing, you will create a workplace culture that encourages personal learning and commitment to higher performance. [SOURCE: Kevin Herring, Ascent Management Consulting , Oro Valley, Arizona, September 22, 2006.]