Can Creating a Learning Culture Help Build Better Major Projects, Build Better Organisations, and Solve the Skills Gap?

For the past 42 years the Major Projects Association has worked hard to create a community that shares knowledge and expertise in order that we can learn from one another – across different project types and sectors as well as up and down the supply chain.  Our events and reports capture experiences from major project practitioners such that we can learn from the success (and otherwise) of others and therefore improve our projects going forward.

However, our belief is that learning from that knowledge exchange is not a passive activity.

“Knowledge without transformation is not wisdom” Paulo Coelho

We organise events with plenty of time for discussion to encourage the exploration of the ideas that are presented.  We write reports which not only share key lessons but also pose important questions to encourage readers to consider how those lessons might apply to their projects.

We created our knowledge repository as an easily searchable resource pulling together not only our own reports but also all of the major project learning legacies and NAO reports as a one-stop shop so that our members can access all of the current best practice.

But as is outlined in this guest blog by Mark Coates, Senior International Director of Infrastructure Policy Advancement at Bentley Systems, this cannot just be a case of “build it and they will come”.  In order to be a learning organisation we need to allow time and space for people to properly engage with the knowledge such that they are transformed by it.

It used to be said that you cannot put a value on knowledge. But increasingly, we can.

The world has changed and, across industries, companies rely on highly skilled labour to navigate complex and rapidly changing environments.

Disruptions—everything from the pandemic to transformational technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI)—put a premium on workers’ ability to develop and adapt.

Leaders understand more than ever that skills and knowledge have direct, tangible, and measurable benefits. The more that this knowledge can be shared and deployed, the greater that those benefits will be.

To achieve those benefits, many employers are now aiming to embed an overarching “learning organisation culture”. The exact form can differ depending on industry and company size. However, some principles are common.

A learning organisation supports individuals with learning opportunities to create the environment where that learning can be embedded into the organisation’s fabric, driving improved future performance. There is no point having valuable knowledge unless it is recognised and utilised.

A learning culture identifies and addresses knowledge gaps that might be constraining performance. It identifies valuable knowledge that already exists within a team and creates mechanisms to share it with colleagues, with a focus on action to drive change rather than just capture and “shelve” the information.

Leaders in a learning culture stay abreast of relevant developments both within an industry and within the wider economy. They reflect on how these developments can be utilised within their own organisation, encouraging colleagues to do the same.

They also give individuals and teams the opportunity to reflect on completed work and make sure that they learn the right lessons from success and failure alike.

The overarching idea is that knowledge is valuable, that it can come from unexpected places, and that harnessing the value of knowledge is not something that happens by accident. Organisations need to be designed to identify, and harness the value of, knowledge.

What does learning look like in a company engaged in major infrastructure projects? What might they do better?

Some major projects, such as Crossrail and HS2, create learning legacies—but are these legacies referred to regularly?

Do these legacies become living, breathing parts of organisations involved in major projects?

Or instead, are these legacies written and then stored away online?

Legacies are important. They provide a rich source of information and knowledge. However, we need to step beyond the legacy—and drive approaches and methods to embed learning into organisations and projects—with the right incentivisation.

Done properly, creating a learning approach has a compounding value. These learning legacies could become living, breathing, editable documents where learnings from Project A inform Project B, and then learnings from both Project A and Project B inform Project C.

A learning culture puts continuous development of knowledge and competence at the heart of everything that an organisation does.

How do you create a learning organisation and a foster a spirit of continuous learning and knowledge sharing?

Al Simmonite, managing director of The Advance Consultancy and a member of the Major Projects Association, explains that embedding a learning culture starts at the top but must extend to all levels of an organisation and be genuinely embraced by senior business leaders.

Senior business leaders need to bring clarity around what a learning organisation actually means, setting up coherent systems and structures that support a learning culture. They also have to set an example, showing that they too are open to learning.

Simmonite points out that this also means recognising that learning is a capability that we can, and must, develop. We tend to assume that the ability to learn is somehow innate and fixed. However, research suggests that we can build the skills to learn new capabilities. Different people learn in different ways. Recognising this, and helping people develop their ability to learn better and faster, is an important part of building a learning organisation.

According to The Advance Consultancy, a learning culture is an open culture. It recognises that in an interconnected digital world, fresh ideas can and should be brought in from outside an organisation.

Training and knowledge acquisition from sites, such as LinkedIn, is important, but the ability to challenge ideas, share experiences, learn robustly from failure, and operate in a psychologically safe environment are all critical to building an effective learning organisation.

A learning culture is a collective culture as well. It stresses that people can learn from each other; that sharing learning in a group is often far more effective than one-to-one, siloed learning because it brings in more insights and perspectives, which can spark further insights. It also helps build team morale and a sense of shared identity and belonging, while helping deepen the roots of the learning culture.

For some people, a learning culture probably still sounds like a “nice to have” rather than a business essential. But that fundamentally fails to understand how the world is changing.

Poll after poll has revealed how business leaders across all different industries fear a looming skills gap more than anything else.

To give just a few examples, a recent survey by the London Chamber of Commerce found that 40% of businesses thought skills shortages were already constraining their growth.

A global survey by McKinsey found nine in 10 executives said that their organisations were either facing skills gaps or would do so within five years. In the United States, research by the Association for Talent Development found that 83% of businesses were reporting a skills gap, with a particular shortage of critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Indeed, the World Economic Forum has cited active learning and learning strategies as one of the top 10 skills.

Earlier this month, Jennifer Tankard, principal at UK Finance, addressed the Commercial Finance Expo and explained how closing the U.K.’s skills gap is going to be crucial if Britain is to meet its legally binding net-zero targets.

She said, “For most business sectors that we speak to, skills and labour is a real challenge. The focus needs to go on providing the skills for the future, generating supply, trying to maintain their labour for growth and for innovation. And this is going to be particularly important as we get closer to net-zero targets. There is a whole load of potential growth areas, heat pump installations, hydrogen innovation, that is just not going to take off because we are not seeing the skills and labour coming through.”

Some of these problems arise before the worker reaches the workplace.

We need people learning the right skills in schools, colleges, and universities. However, it is a mistake to assume that a worker—at any level—passes through our doors fully formed.

Learning in a lifelong journey, and creating a learning culture can help workers to learn the new skills that they need, the organisation needs, and the major project needs.

The best learners know this. So should the best organisations and the best major projects.