When Kendra Grant’s team was charged with designing and delivering learning experiences for 90,000 Walmart Canada associates, she knew as a senior learning-and-design director that the landscape of corporate learning needs was constantly changing. “Over time,” says Grant, now the principal of her own L&D practice, “we acknowledged that many of the problems we saw such as lack of engagement and lack of retention were a result of the design process and not the fault of the learners.”

If you are in a leadership role in your organization, you more than likely share this problem. Technology and society are driving changes faster than your people can adapt. According to the OECD, 1.1 billion jobs will be disrupted in the next five years. Employees the world over require upskilling (learning to improve current work) and reskilling (learning to do new types of work). Some organizations are heeding the signs and investing heavily in learning and development: Walmart, for example, is investing $1 billion into reskilling its workforce, and McDonald’s has spent $165 million over the past eight years to prepare 72,000 employees for upward mobility. The Association for Talent Development’s most recent study found the average organization spends almost $1,300 per employee on professional learning. Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, exhorts everyone to be a “learn-it-all.”

Workers of today need to prepare for what they’ll be doing tomorrow. But how can they adapt effectively if their work is changing in real time? What skills can they learn now that will support them in the face of a volatile and ambiguous future? And how can their employers support them?

There’s a simple but not easy answer to all of these questions. Employers have to help employees become expert learners — people with the will to learn, the skill to do it effectively, and the ability to apply that learning in ways that positively impact their performance and that of their teams.

Still Wearing Blinders

Traditionally, learning within organizations has been driven by a single department. In a general attempt to motivate and support employee development, the learning-and-development team — which sometimes consists of just one person — acts as an order filler for operations managers and leadership, providing formal learning support, such as classroom training and online modules. Frequently, these efforts are augmented by tuition assistance for degree and certificate programs at institutes of higher education. In recent years, companies have created digital “learning-management systems” or “learning-experience platforms” that offer a Netflix-style menu of learning content that employees can access on-demand and at their own pace.

Unfortunately, however, these approaches to employee learning are not up today’s challenge, for a few reasons:

A day late and a dollar short. Content creation lags significantly behind the need for that content, making the content available less relevant to current needs. Also, when an employee needs new knowledge and skills now, a course next month isn’t helpful.

One-size-fits-none. Every learner is unique, with varied strengths, experiences, and challenges. Every learner works in different contexts, thus requiring greater personalization to support meaningful learning and improvement.

A lack of support for application. Pushing out content can impart new information, but developing effective skills requires coaching, reinforcement, and opportunities for safe, authentic practice.

A cultural disconnect. Leaders can say they value learning, but according to Deloitte, workers actually have less than 1% of their time available for learning. Further, learning can be messy, because it requires that people try new things and make mistakes. If an organization punishes people for those mistakes, as some do, people will shy away from learning.

Learner experience and identity. Not everyone thinks of themselves as a lifelong learner, nor do they all have the skills to learn and apply learning effectively. Further, biases in development programs may reinforce the notion that only some people are capable of learning and therefore worth the investment. This bias is communicated to workers.

There Is a Solution

We need to address these barriers to learning in order to meet the challenges of today and the future. Learning, after all, is what enables people to adapt to change and even become drivers of change. But, as Matthew Daniel has recently noted on the Chief Learning Officer website, even if people want to learn they may not know what to learn — or how to learn.

Expert learning requires two key conditions. The first is context. People need the time and space to learn. They need timely, actionable feedback; opportunities for collaboration; and just-in-time support to convert new knowledge and skills into measurable performance improvement. Then there’s capacity. Each person has talents, strengths, interests, challenges, and experiences that influence how they engage with, make sense of, and apply new knowledge and skills. We can’t assume everyone has developed the requisite learning skills and behaviors, and we can’t effectively gauge learning capacity in advance. However, we can help all people become expert learners, by providing them with options to learn and apply key learning behaviors rooted in a framework known as the Universal Design for Learning.

UDL, as it’s often called, was first devised in the 1990s by researchers and clinicians at the nonprofit learning organization CAST, Inc., under the direction of the neuropsychologist David Rose, of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Today it’s endorsed in federal education legislation as a means for supporting inclusive, impactful learning for all learners. That includes workforce preparation and training. In essence, UDL helps us embrace the differences between learners — their variability in strengths, interests, attitudes, cultures, and more — by setting firm, challenging goals and allowing for flexible pathways to meet those goals.

When employing UDL in creating learning experiences, you’re encouraged to think of learning as a set of behaviors and skills that exist on a continuum from novice to expert. Novice learning is primarily guided by external forces: Novices learn what they’re told, when they’re told, for the reasons given to them. They are the type of learners whom top-down, one-size-fits-all training was meant to serve. A distinct step above the novice level is self-directed learning, where learners take the initiative for their own learning, making decisions about what, when, and how to learn.

Expert learning takes things to another level, by adding in specific learning skills and a focus on strategic performance improvement. Expert learners have the will and skill to learn, can identify ways to leverage that learning into impact, and are always looking for new challenges and ways to improve their skills. They are the learners best able to adapt to the rapidly changing modern workplace.

How Expert Learners Improve Outcomes

Building a strong learning culture that focuses on capacity and context can give companies a strategic advantage. Let’s consider why.

First, employees who are skilled learners can more readily innovate, for what is innovation if not the learning how to solve a problem in a new way? A person focused on continuous improvement rarely settles for “We’ve always done it this way.” Expert learners can identify emerging knowledge and skill needs and generate new knowledge to meet those needs.

Next, learning fuels employee engagement. Employer-supported learning is a key driver of retention, particularly when learning is visibly linked to employee development — that is, upward mobility. Creating a culture that supports people to learn and own their improvement makes improvement a common cause between the employees and the organization. Further, a visible emphasis on learning can be key to attracting new talent, with Gen Z and Millennial workers citing learning and upward mobility as key motivators in selecting job opportunities.

Finally, investing in learning is just that: an investment. According to Gallup, companies that invest in employee development increase profitability by 11%.

Building a Culture of Expert Learners

Building a culture of expert learning is a complex undertaking. There are, however, some foundational practices, aligned with UDL, that leaders and teams can engage in as they work to develop support an expert learning culture.

Adopt a learning philosophy and stick to it.

A learning philosophy is a codification of what the organization believes about learning, including its value, the responsibilities of each person related to learning, and the methods by which the organization will support its employees to learn and improve.

Consider the philosophy of the United States Marine Corps, where learning is literally a survival skill. In 2020, the USMC published Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 7: Learning, or the MCDP 7, which tells all Marines, from the lowest-ranking enlisted member to the commandant, that they have a professional responsibility to learn. It also lays out the necessary conditions for learning, requiring each Marine to contribute to and leverage those conditions. All Marines are told they can’t rely on a training department of some sort but instead have to define and own their roles as learners. “Continuous learning is essential,” USMC Commandant Gen. D.H. Berger writes in the MCDP-7, “… because it enables Marines to quickly recognize changing conditions in the battlespace, adapt, and make timely decisions against a thinking enemy.”

Audit your culture for barriers to learning.

With your learning philosophy in place, make sure the collective behaviors, practices, and systems of your organization — and particularly the behaviors of your leaders — model and support the tenets of that philosophy. Examine what learning currently looks like in your organization and begin addressing common barriers. Provide time and resources for learning and regularly reinforcing the value of learning. Incentivize experimentation, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing. Promote team learning over individual knowledge-hoarding. Link learning to development by creating clear pathways for skill development and promotion. And enlist frontline employees and managers to more quickly identify learning needs and potential solutions.

Be flexible.

To act like expert learners, particularly in selecting and strategically applying learning, people need flexibility in when and how they learn. New approaches, such as learner-cluster design and the modern-learning–ecosystem framework, acknowledge variability among learners, providing them options that best suit their learning needs, and close the gap between formal learning and where learning happens most — on the job.

* * *

Change is constant, and the need for adaptability extends beyond leaders to every level of the organization. When employees own their improvement, they can better anticipate, communicate, and meet their upskilling and reskilling needs. As Kendra Grant pointed out in describing her work with Walmart, many barriers to improvement that are thought to be internal to learners are really external — they’re flaws in the design. UDL helps us focus on what works for people rather than on what’s not working in them. By providing the right context and supporting capacity, we can make expert learning become the skill that fills the skills gap.

Reading a business book is an exercise in efficiency, not literary aesthetics. You’re trying to maximize the return on time invested. For the executive, time allocation is as important as capital allocation. So, in approaching any business book, there are two goals: First, determining if the book can help you do your job; second, figuring out the quickest way to extract that value. In writing several business books — and reading more than I can count — I’ve found that, for books worth reading, the process consists of three steps: compression, absorption, and application.

But first, step back and consider the anatomy of a typical business book. The components are almost always the same:

• Concepts (key ideas)
• Numbers (data and statistics)
• Tools (frameworks and diagnostics)
• Examples (stories and case studies to illustrate application)

The job to be done is to extract insights to increase judgment and skills to increase performance.

Consider that three groups of people write business books:

1. Practitioners: Leaders and founders who practice business and share their experience.
2. Researchers: Scholars and academics who analyze data, test hypotheses, and create new theories.
3. Advisors: Consultants and domain experts who advise those who practice business. Advisors tend to straddle the worlds of theory and practice.

Certainly, there are great business books written in each camp, but keep in mind that more than 1,000 new titles are released each month alone in the United States (some of which are published by Harvard Business Review Press). The good ones represent original contributions to theory and practice or provide meaningful extensions or applications of those theories and practices. The others tend to present recycled and superficial treatments of those original contributions. With that in mind, here are eight suggestions to guide you through the process of compression, absorption, and application:

Compression

Begin with purpose.

Define a reading plan with a need or opportunity in mind. Otherwise, you’ll wander and waste time on books that are either irrelevant or of low quality. If you’re not reading to learn at the moment of need, you’ll likely forget what you take in anyway. Define your use case. Do you want to inform a decision, analyze a situation, or develop a skill?

Creating a living document to lay out your next five reads can help. Regularly review and adjust your plan based on your evolving needs and the value you’re gaining from your reading. A structured approach can help you stay focused, prioritize relevant books, and optimize your learning experience.

Read the introduction.

When you begin any business book, engage in what philosopher and educator Mortimer Adler called “inspectional reading” to evaluate the potential time investment. Begin with the introduction. A good one is a compression of the whole: dense with insights and laying out the bones of the argument in a coherent, compelling way. It should summarize the topic, frame the problem, and explain the central idea. In almost every case, ignore the preface and acknowledgments, which are obligatory elements that rarely add value.

Beware of bulk validity.

Watch out for long books that attempt to establish validity with bulk. If the author can’t get to the point, they don’t know the point. They haven’t crystallized their thinking. As historian Yval Noah Harari reminds us, “In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.” And clarity means brevity. There are some exceptions in which authors offer powerful insights but load their books with tedious, long-winded examples and case studies. In those instances, skim or skip the stories and case studies.

Absorption

Challenge the thesis.

Regardless of the topic you’re reading about, there’s no definitive answer, no single authoritative source, no one formula that will solve your problem. Even if you open a book with confidence because you trust the author, the data, the argument, or the reviews, commit yourself to being the loyal opposition. Argue with the author. Remember, there’s competing advice on every business topic. If you must place a bet based on the author’s advice, where do you stand? In the end, the author is your thinking partner. They are there to challenge you, not think for you. Never outsource your critical thinking.

Read, skim, or toss.

After reading the introduction, triage the book. If the introduction doesn’t move you with relevant insight, you’re done. Toss it. If it does, you’ve met the bar for skimming — but not reading. Here’s how to skim:

• Analyze the table of contents.
• Read headings and chapter summaries.
• Slow down and look for what’s directly relevant to you in each chapter.
• Pay attention to diagrams and call-out boxes.
• Read the conclusion.

At any point, be it on page one or 100, if the cost/benefit equation of continuing isn’t what you want it to be, quit. Cut your losses and abandon ship. There’s nothing heroic or moral about finishing a book. At the same time, if that equation tilts the other way and the ratio of insights-per-page is much higher than you thought, you may have a book worth reading. Go back to chapter one and dig into it. Keep reading until that ratio drops you back to skimming.

Application

Harvest the book.

If a book is worth reading, it’s worth harvesting. Compress your yield by making highlights and marginal notes and then listing both key insights and points of criticism. If you’re listening to an audiobook, stop the recording to make a note or record a voice memo when you glean an important insight. Store that list or file in an accessible format and revisit it periodically. Then share the captured insights with colleagues and team members — there’s no better way to internalize learning and make it a part of your portfolio of knowledge and skills.

Test use cases.

A business book isn’t supposed to tell you what to think; it’s supposed to teach you how to think. It provides a lens through which to frame, interpret, and solve a problem. Once you’ve absorbed a concept, argument, theory, or tool, find a use case to apply what you’ve learned. Until you apply it, a concept remains an untested hypothesis. For example, early in my management career, I read this statement from Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive: “The truly important events on the outside are not the trends. They are changes in the trends.” I took that concept back to our strategic planning team and we incorporated the practice of inflection-point spotting instead of trend spotting. That insight was enormously helpful in practice.

Reject quantity.

When it comes to the dynamic range of talent in an organization, it quickly becomes clear that 100 B players do not equal one A player. Why? Because the A player creates and delivers value in a qualitatively superior way. It’s simply not additive. Similarly, 100 average business books can never equal the value of one good one. A LinkedIn post with someone’s mile-high book stack and the “100 books I read this year” tagline may motivate you to crush a few more titles. But remember, it’s never about quantity, it’s about quality. Your return-on-time-invested is measured by positive behavioral change and the application of tools to produce better outcomes, not the number of books you’ve read. Perhaps instead of reading another book, read a good one twice.

. . .

In my 30 years of leadership development experience, I’ve seen that reading and listening to business books is the single most common way business leaders engage in continuous professional development. The trick is allocating your reading time to your greatest advantage through careful selection based on need, triaging the mode of consumption — whether reading, skimming, or quitting — and harvesting the takeaways for application.