Since the early 90’s, the idea of a learning organization that continuously improves is something many companies strive for, but often fail at. It has given way to a concept of data driven decisions- but unfortunately most companies don’t even budget for the training and coaching of their sales teams. And those that do is such a dismal amount, it's like throwing a pebble to stop an open dam of water.

There just isn’t a big commitment to learning. So what can executives learn from education about creating a learning culture that has expectations of students?

Learn what Matt Miller, a teacher, blogger, and presenter, has to say to answer that question.

Carole Mahoney: Like since the 90s they've been talking about learning organizations. And yes, I totally just use the air quotation marks... Because we see this as this way, and we've touted it as this way to continuously improve. It's something I think a lot of companies strive to do but often fail at, because they look at data and technology as, "We're a learning organization because we make data driven decisions." But they're not even really budgeting and training and coaching sales teams. And they're doing so with such a dismal amount, it's like throwing a pebble to stop an open dam of water. So it doesn't seem like there's really this big commitment to learning.

So what can executives learn from education about how to create a learning culture that has expectations of students, but also meeting students where they are?

Matt Miller: Yeah. I think there's a lot of crossover with this with standardized testing. You hear so much about standardized test scores, and we inside of education, know that kids are more than the sum of their test scores. And if we want to prepare them for the world, then being able to fill in the right dot on a bubble sheet isn't necessarily a good measure of that.

So then I think we have to look at what is it that's going to prepare them and what's going to motivate them. I always love to come back to Dan Pink's book, Drive. I look at those three big things, mastery, autonomy and purpose. Mastery, trying to get better at something to the highest levels. Autonomy, having the freedom to pursue something. And then Purpose, going after something that's bigger than yourself.

And so, I think when it comes to what you were discussing before, I think that if we want to get those higher levels of motivation and drive the culture so that people want to go and they want to do their best work. You know, they've got to want to do their best work and not be in fear of retribution for doing their least work.

So I think if we can set all of those up, those known drivers, it's like what Dan Pink says in his book. He says, what business does doesn't match up to what science knows. And so I think we've got to change our mindset on that a little bit, on are we really motivating people in ways that we know human beings are motivated? Or are we just sticking to what we've always done before?

Carole Mahoney: Yeah. Are we motivating them, are we teaching them, are we training them, or are we just doing what has been done to us, which hasn't been rooted in science. And has always been, well this is how they did it in my company and my previous company and my previous school. And it just continues that insanity like we started talking about in the beginning.

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