Solving the business issue without transferring learning - or, on the other hand, transferring learning without a real business issue - is taking care of only one side of the equation.

We commonly meet with executives who want a learning and performance improvement consultancy to help them improve business practices, enhance their leadership bench, or help their workforce adapt to, accept, and adopt change.

The question for these clients is, “How do I select the right firm?” Important considerations include the right values fit, strong credentials, results in the field, practicality, business savvy, a fair price, and a solid track record. I’d like to offer another, less obvious criterion for consideration: Is your consultant providing a “twofer?”

Learn while doing
Organizations face an immense hurdle: they want to develop their employees, but they cannot afford to put them in a classroom for days at a time. The work is too important, and their time is too precious to invest it elsewhere - even in such a worthwhile pursuit as learning, which delivers a high ROI. The answer is to create a situation where employees learn together, and, while they learn, they apply the learning to the work at hand. While this method is not without its challenges, the rewards are many.

It works two ways
In employing this method, the challenge is to keep the group from getting so focused on the business issues that the learning becomes insignificant or marginalized. We manage this by using the adult learning cycle. We follow these four steps:

1) Define the skill.
2) Validate the skill. Ensure the learners understand and agree that it’s important.
3) Demonstrate the skill in action.
4) Coach a participant to apply the skill to a real situation.
5) At the end of the learning experience, ask participants to reflect on and plan to apply the learning at a later day and time.

As we apply this method of learning, consultants must pay attention to two tracks – first, are they learning? And, second, are they resolving the business issues at hand?

Reaping the benefits
The most obvious benefit to action learning is the leverage you get when people are doing business while they’re learning. There’s little lost opportunity and virtually no lost time. The other benefit is that learning in a team environment is often more powerful than isolated on-the-job training. Employees don't operate in a vacuum. Learning together, with peer support, they are more likely to transfer the learning to work. And they are able to incorporate a shared language and shared skills to reinforce the learning long after the consultant is gone.

As for the organization, it gets a consultant to do “double duty”. We consultants help them solve a business problem while expanding their employees’ problem-solving, team, collaboration, and leadership skills. As a consultant, I am paying attention to multiple tracks – I coach the individual on the new skill and give feedback to the group on its progress. In some moments, I am raising the mirror to the group. In this way, the method presents an added level of complexity for the consultant. We are coaching someone else to solve the problem; we don’t step in. We make observations and assess to how we see the business issue moving toward resolution. This allows the individual and the group to be successful on two levels.

An example: resolving differences
I recently worked with a service organization within a larger petrochemical company in South America. I was teaching the top tier of leaders; one set of skills they were to learn included the skills of "listening." and "reconciling differences of opinion." We first covered effective skills and language for reconciling differences. I then offered the group the choice of working with a hypothetical or a real issue. Eagerly, the group seized on a real-world, cross-functional issue with which the leaders had been struggling for a long time. Because these leaders work mostly remotely, this was a perfect opportunity. The people who could solve it were present. We framed the issue, and a group member practiced reconciling three points of view. Various individuals practiced facilitation skills while solving an issue that had a large geographic impact. Emotions were flying high – since this problem had huge financial implications, and the points of view were entrenched. When they arrived at an agreement, it concluded a memorable, high-impact learning experience.