How can you create a workplace culture that values lifelong learning?

Good question. I built learning departments a couple of times and a few key ingredients to foster a collective spirit, energy and openness to dedicate time to learning was the inclusive way I tried to build initiatives, programs and solutions with the very people, leaders and teams who asked for help in solving their business challenges. Once you start co-creating, diverse stakeholders want to leverage their collective intelligence and know more, learn more. If you built the credibility that your passion and dedication to continuous learning is genuine, it's infectous. Your network of advocats will help to scale, promote and practice the rational, resources and opportunities for lifelong learning you can offer

When I left my job in 2021, I let go of a salary worth a Crore. In fact, I was suddenly responsible for ensuring giving GGI's team members' salaries and learning without fail. So why did I leave the comfort of a lucrative monthly salary? Because I have a genuine belief that life is too short to play safe. I do understand that this modus operandi may not be for everyone. Today, as I run GGI, I have had my own set of struggles as well. In fact, I also owe a great deal of credit to luck too. Today, I put my team's learning through self-evaluation, goal determination and creating clear paths for success. You get one life. For me, a life filled with learning, adventure, and growth is worth a thousand times more than a life of regret❤️.

I moved from China to Canada, and switch from insurance industry to assets management industry at the same time, which requires to ride a very steep learning curve in months, let alone the language barrier that I have to overcome. Continues self-learning is a life skill that enables me be adaptable to new life and career challenges. It also demonstrates my commitment to a high level of professionalism in every aspect. As a leader, I encourage everyone on my team to set their own SMART annual learning goals towards relevant professional or soft skills and celebrate their progress along the way. This approach not only helps them grow confidence and dedication at work but also inspire high performance team spirit.

One of the ways I do this is by sending links to articles, videos, and blogs to my team so we can discuss what they learned from those materials. Also, after I read a book, I will create a short book report of the key ideas I took away and encourage them to read the book and send me their thoughts as well. They also do both of these things for me and each other. We are constantly sharing information, ideas, data, and reflections on the things we are learning. To me, celebrating this sort of learning together shows everyone that it is important to the organization and for their personal and professional growth. We make it a priority and we make it fun.

In my experience as a leader if you share being vulnerable it helps bring in open and robust conversations. As it is ok to not know everything and be open to learn from your team and your surrounds. If you have a work environment where you are not judged it will allow for creating a platform for building a learning culture.

Make learning an integral part of the team members’ career growth plan. This then moves this from relying on good intentions to being something both the employee and manager are accountable towards. The career growth plan should also connect the learnings to opportunities to demonstrate the acquired skills for learning efficacy.

Encourage Skill Development: Regularly assess the skills needed within the organization and offer opportunities for employees to acquire those skills. This could involve cross-training, workshops, or even tuition reimbursement for higher education. Promote a Growth Mindset: Foster a culture where employees embrace challenges and see failures as opportunities for learning and growth, rather than as setbacks. Flexible Learning Opportunities: Recognize that people have different learning styles and preferences. Provide flexible options such as online courses, in-person workshops, and self-paced learning to accommodate various learning needs.

Never in the history of humankind has there been more information available - for free. You can download books and videos from the top business experts in the world – for free. You can read blogs by today's top thinkers – for free. You can listen to podcasts where they interview some of the most intelligent, interesting, and successful people on earth – for free. You can work to build a culture of lifelong learning – for free. You don't have any excuses. (Sorry if that came across a little strong. I'm pretty passionate about this topic).

Providing mentoring and coaching are powerful tools to support peer-to -peer learning and the sharing of knowledge as well as resources. This could be in the form of: Technology integration; Conflict Resolution; Promoting Professional Development opportunities; Career Development Pathways and Reflective Practice, amongst numerous other aspects that can be accentuated during the mentoring and coaching process. The concept of reverse mentoring can also be highly beneficial as this system promotes: Inclusivity; Leadership Development; Innovation, creativity and new ideas; adaption to new ideas and Cross Generational/ mutual learning experiences. Overall mentoring and coaching fuels workplace growth and is essential for staying up to date.

I think fostering curiosity, being interested in the new and also the past. How we find ourselves where we are in the world through the paths taken in history. What are we doing and why? Give people the fire to investigate and expand themselves

We spend a lot of our professional time waiting for the moment to make our point, or to say the thing we know to be true. I was once asked to do a speech that was provocative where my goal was not to impart knowledge - the truth as I saw it or what the evidence told us - but to ignite new conversation, new questions and new ways of thinking. It taught me a lot and sometimes now I will run meetings where I will encourage people to abandon orthodoxies where you say the stuff you know, and create spaces where people can think and generate new ideas. The different energy it creates is palpable.

In the past, I have found it valuable to help people reflect on times in their lives when they failed miserably, but it turned out to be a fantastic learning opportunity. Had I not failed out of college on the first try, I would not be where I am today. Or look at skills they have now and realize that they were a beginner at one time in their life. There was a day when Venus Williams had never hit a tennis ball. The CEO of every major company in the world had a first day at work, at their first job, when they had little to no idea of what they were doing. Life is about learning and the more you learn the better your life can be.

You have to create a Curious perspective in everyone. Rewarding and inspiring Curiosity on the teams will create a better, faster and more effective learning environment all over. Curiosity is the future and the name of the gam

Create an environment where people feel free to opine, disagree for constructive engaging discussions. Only in such safe and supportive environments - creative and growth mindsets thrive to their fullest possible!

In my experience, we need to remove the concept of failure from our vocabulary. We are either succeeding or we are learning. When am employee makes a mistake, encourage them to explore what went wrong and what could have been done to create a better outcome. Encourage them to take courses and personal development so they can learn the industry and use good discernment. Allow them to make appropriate level decisions with the oversight of a mentor so they can build confidence, increasing their authority as they grow. Once they know they can trust you and themselves, they will be inspired to continue learning and growing.

Celebrate learning milestones just that you would celebrate other business milestones! Acknowledge and appreciate efforts of individuals and teams who embrace the learning culture. This recognition can be in public or private. Celebrating success is key for a vibrant learning culture!

Rewarding and celebrating learning is a powerful motivator that reinforces the importance of continuous improvement. It sends a message that learning is not just a means to an end but an ongoing journey that deserves recognition. Setting clear and meaningful learning objectives and measuring progress ensures that employees understand what is expected of them and can see their growth. Providing constructive feedback and acknowledging achievements along the way keeps them engaged and motivated. Celebrating learning by sharing success stories, best practices, and lessons learned creates a culture of knowledge sharing and continuous improvement.

My favorite part of any major learning event is a graduation ceremony! I always make it big and loud! Learners deserve a celebration for all their efforts, time, sweat and even tears (sometimes). Recognition of each learning experience goes a long way. Simple thank you at management briefing, or mentioning on social media, corporate channels, official ceremonies like graduation- there are tons of ways to show your appreciation as a leader.

Work isn’t just about completing tasks, it is also about encouraging people to learn something new and becoming innovative. As part of reward and celebration, run brown bags in which team members share what they have learned, what they found useful, and what could possible provide improvement. This encourage the people in your team to be innovative and encourage them continue being high performers and bar raisers by continued learning and enhancement of skills and processes.

Publicly acknowledge and appreciate employees who have shown dedication to their learning journey. Recognize their commitment during team meetings, company-wide announcements, or through internal newsletters or communication channels. You can also document and share employees' learning journeys, complete with their challenges, breakthroughs and personal insights. These stories can be shared in company publications, on the intranet or during special events. Then, create a digital or physical "Wall of Fame" to honor employees who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to learning. This visual representation can serve as a constant reminder of the value placed on personal development.

I think continuous personal development is critical to keeping your sword sharp and staying relevant. Given the multiple resources available online and the amount of technology available what is important is consistent prioritisation of lifelong learning and staying ahead. This requires personal discipline because it is more than on the job training (which of course takes its own amount of discipline when you sell a limited commodity like time).

In this fast paced world of ours where everything is driven by technology, it is very crucial to be updated and keep learning as a routine. Life Learning is important.

Become a great listener. Highly effective leaders listen to everybody because they know they can learn something new from absolutely anybody. Especially when they are members of your team, or friends and family. When our people feel heard, they feel cared for, and when they feel that they have taught you something, it makes them feel good. So let’s help our people feel good by listening and learning from them.

All jobs have a set of skills and a level of knowledge required to perform the role but I feel it is important to consider the person as a whole. When I was writing job profiles or reading through CVs I always included and looked out for attitude not just skills and knowledge. This included an attitude towards growth. In one organisation I wrote a five-year plan to support all staff at all levels continuing their learning journey in their way. The company went further in supporting staff to study for qualifications that didn't necessarily have a direct correlation to the job they were currently doing. Staff felt valued for who they were and what they wanted to achieve not just for what they provided to the company.

Be yourself, not one of those social media copies, you are elegant enough by just being yourself, cause nothing like you, no need to try to be something or someone else. Everyday try to invest your authentic self, look especially positive attributes of yourself and try to improve, such as smiling more, being kind, being on time, being trustworthy, and these are just zero investment improvements, and pays more fast than any other self improvement programs.