‘Reductio ad absurdum’ is the process of proving a proposition by showing that its opposite is absurd. I always liked ‘reductio ad absurdum’ as a method in maths so it occurred to me that we could use it in our field. I therefore intend to prove that investment in learning is essential by using this tried and tested logical methodology. I will do this by showing that not investing in learning is genuinely absurd.
Let us first take an organisation that is opposed to learning. In this organisation people would be forbidden to learn anything. If a person is recruited they would be forbidden to learn how to do the job. This would only be a slightly advanced version of the organisation that claims only to recruit those who are already competent in the job. Also this organisation presumes that all the processes and rules in place in the organisation are 100% the same as those in the organisation the person left - that is, no learning at all is needed.
Let’s assume that the recruited person really can do everything required in the new job. What happens when some new technology arrives? They would be told not to learn how to use it. What happens when they face a new customer? The answer presumably is don’t learn about them, just treat them the same as all previous customers.
I could go on but I hope it’s not necessary. An organisation that forbade learning is logically impossible, it could not exist. However we now need to address the next issue. The leadership of a business could say that they don’t forbid learning but that they will not invest in it. So let’s see how this organisation would fare.
If we go back to the new recruit they would not provide any induction into the organisation. They would also not allow more experienced members of staff to waste time coaching the person or even explaining any of the organisation’s rules and procedures. Because, if a more experienced person were to take time out from their work to brief or coach someone, that would constitute an investment in learning. The experienced person would, for that time period, be unproductive, so there would be a real cost to the business.
If a new piece of machinery were to be introduced into the company no training or coaching would be provided. The leaders of the business might expect people to read a manual to learn how to use it. However the time that the person takes to read the manual is unproductive time and constitutes a cost to the business i.e. there is a real investment in learning even if the company does not recognise it. If no manual was provided and the person was told to learn by trial and error the chances are that there would be at the very least poor productivity and most likely actual damage or safety problems.
Again I could go on with ever more absurdities. I hope the point is made. Organisations invest in learning whether they recognise it or not. And the organisation that did not would also be impossible to imagine. We may, though, need to take the issue beyond reductio ad absurdum into the real world of organisations. If all organisations have to invest in learning then are their current investments wise? The muddling through mode seems to be very wasteful. Relying on learning to take place by happenstance looks pretty inefficient.
To go back to the organisation that claims not to invest in learning but is actually doing so, we could make the case for a more effective investment. When new machinery arrives people could learn to use it more efficiently if they were, say, coached in its use. The investment in a coaching session is likely to be less than the investment in happenstance learning. Unproductive time wading through a manual or learning by trial and error could be reduced greatly. All of this is pretty basic stuff and hopefully does not need labouring.
To put some hard evidence on this, a Scientific American study reckoned that the cost of a computer terminal could be doubled if one took into consideration learning costs (IT people’s time in advising people, colleagues providing informal coaching, etc.)
So why do organisational leaders make critical remarks about investing in learning? The main reason seems to be that they (and many HR professionals) equate learning with training and education. The Government does not help when it talks about people not in education or training as ‘non-learners’. So when the notion of investing in learning is mooted the image for many business leaders is one of increased spend on training or sending more people on educational courses. And the education and training establishment has a vested interest in promoting this view - this is how they make their money after all.
But all of this is totally wrong headed. Most learning that goes on in organisations has nothing to do with education or training. And there are no such people as non-learners. Indeed we could apply the reductio ad absurdum methodology to this notion. What would a non-learner actually be like? The person would not have any sensory apparatus and they could not have a functioning brain, as research on the brain shows that this wonderful part of our body processes information from our senses, sorts it and learns all the time.
So we end up with another logical absurdity. The only people who come into the non-learner category are perhaps those rare individuals who exist in a vegetative state on a life support machine. Everyone at work is a learner every day of their lives.
Let’s put an end, then, to the illogical notion that there are non-learners and that people do not learn at work. If we can do this then perhaps we can move to creating more cost effective learning strategies. Such strategies may move us away from an emphasis on formalised learning such as training courses and may instead encourage a dialogue around making everyday learning more effective.
© Ian Cunningham, Jan 2001