In a world saturated with AI-produced content, how can we as L&D professionals still add real value? My perspective: By downgrading the importance of content and upgrading the value of experience and learning from each other ❤️. In our digital-first world, we’re all craving human connections. How can L&D embed this in our approach to “training”?

I reflected on my own training experiences, conferences, seminars, webinars and asked myself: what has really remained from the gazillions of methods and theories I was exposed to? A handful, at best. Why? Because it was just pure information 🙄 . Those events that had an impact on me in my self-development where the ones where I could learn from others, try out something new and reflect on what I can do differently 🤸‍♀️ The rest is 99,5% forgotten 🤷‍♂️.

I propose a radical shift away from content for us L&D folks. A model that I and probably many of you are aware of is the 70/20/10 learning model:

10 % learning through courses
20% from others
70% by doing

Does our L&D responsibility end at the 10%, or do we cover the entire cake?

We have recently developed a series of virtual leadership courses for Helmholtz Munich and were quite short on development time. So, we embraced the challenge to stringently implement the 70/20/10 model in these three-hour virtual live sessions ( 📷 image: our tweaked learning model).

What it comes down to for 180 mins:
–  18 (10%) minutes of theory (yay!)
–  36 (20%) minutes of learning from each other (exciting!)
–  126 (70%) minutes of “doing” (fun!)

Here is what we did:
For the 18 minutes of theory we cleared out a lot of slides and AI suggestions to burn it down to those that will matter most for target audience.

For the 36 minutes of learning through others we developed and ran a combination of these:

– Group reflections.
– Thought experiments.
– Small riddles or quizzes.
– Experience sharing.

And for 126 minutes of action-based learning we developed:

– Role plays.
– Practical problem solving based on cases.
– Joint solution development challenges.

All of these development tasks can be supported with AI but the most critical part is to have one thing clear before you go there: have a clear view of what the target audience’s needs, pains and gains are, otherwise you easily get side tracked.

Our tips for virtual facilitation:

– Unshare screens when possible.
– Embrace silence after questions.
– Ask meaningful questions and listen actively.
– Prioritise discussion over time schedule.

The feedback from learners validated that the relentless focus on experience vs. content pays off: “I loved that it was on the practical side AND hands-on one : learning by trying” and “The three hour practical format works
perfectly “. 🙏

In summary: I propose rebranding our field as Learning & Experience (L&E) instead of Learning & Development (L&D). This is where we can add true value in the age of AI 🌟