One of our earliest taglines was:
“You can’t learn to swim from a book.”
A more up-to-date version might be:
“You can’t learn to communicate better by watching an e-learning video.”
Yet, organisations continue to invest heavily in e-learning as their primary way of building skills and changing behaviour...back in 2020, we decided to put that to the test.
We ran an experiment with 60 participants to compare the impact of e-learning versus practice when it came to giving feedback. Each participant was asked to speak to a “colleague” (played by an actor) who had been rude and dismissive to another colleague during an online meeting.
We split them into two groups. One group watched a 20-minute e-learning module on the SBI model and how to give effective feedback. The other spent the same amount of time practising feedback with a Practice Coach.
We recorded every conversation and asked two independent assessors, who didn’t know which group participants were in, to evaluate performance.
The result was clear.
Those who had practiced were rated 20% more effective than those who had completed the e-learning.
Which raises an obvious question: why do organisations continue to spend millions on e-learning — an average of $4.5 million per year for companies with over 10,000 employees — when its impact on behaviour is so limited?
I don’t have a definitive answer but I do know this: if even a portion of that investment were redirected into experiences, practice, and supported real-world challenges, the impact on performance would be significantly greater...
Because experiences work.
We don’t just see that in the data, we recognise it instinctively.
If a group of friends invited you on a golfing trip to Portugal and you hadn’t picked up a club in two years, you wouldn’t prepare by watching the Masters. You’d head to the driving range, hit a bucket of balls, and get a feel for it again.
Learning at work is no different, watching someone else do it isn’t the same as doing it yourself.
We see further proof of that in the feedback from our programmes. Every experience we design includes practice, reflection, and feedback. And when we ask participants what had the biggest impact, over 80% point to the experiential elements.
So yes, we know experiences work.
That’s exactly why we’re called The Experience Works.
In my next blog, I’ll share how to design learning experiences that genuinely shift behaviour and improve performance.