“Dear L&D” is a reflective letter-style series where learning leaders address the profession directly, giving voice to the lessons, challenges and opportunities shaping the future of learning and development (L&D).
Dear L&D,
We’ve all heard it. It’s repeated in training seminars, thrown into slide decks and even placed in some job announcements as a concept that must be understood in order to be a viable applicant for L&D positions. It’s cited by industry professionals and accepted as an industry norm. It’s the 70-20-10 learning model.
This model tells us that 70% of learning comes from on-the-job experience, 20% comes from exposure gained by coaching, mentoring and feedback, and a mere 10% from formal training including workshops, eLearning courses and any other structured learning activities. The model is ubiquitous. The model is simple. The model is … horribly misunderstood, misused and derived by rather non-scientific means.
In the 1980s, researchers at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) conducted a survey of 200 executives asking them to self-report the most meaningful developmental experiences in their careers. This small, non-representative group of executives reported experiences that produced the 70-20-10 ratio.
As anyone who understands the requirements for scientific validity knows, this survey of a small, non-representative sample with no peer review does not meet the criteria. But not only do many in the L&D community accept the premise of the model, but we apply it to multiple groups of learners — not just executive training. The continuous application of the model to settings involving physical tasks, for instance, creates confusion in the community and reduces credibility for those designing and instructing structured learning programs.
Before I entered the L&D field, I was a Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service. As one might imagine, the training is intense and involves much repetition of physical tasks such as how to cover and evacuate an individual you are protecting. It’s drilled into trainees through countless hours of practical exercises in the hopes one will never have to perform any of the moves.
After I left the agency, and many years after I had completed my training, I was at a baseball game with my wife. We were walking through the concourse during a rain delay when there was a deafening sound behind us. The sound, to my ears, was extremely similar to a gunshot. The next thing I knew, I had covered my wife with my body and was moving her away from the noise. Now, it turned out there was no gunshot and the wind had knocked over a portable concession stand. But I had reflexively pulled a maneuver that I had not performed since my training. I had surprised myself, but not as much as I had surprised my wife who was struggling beneath me or the onlookers who thought I was abducting a random woman.
That reaction, as well as many other muscle memory moves, had been trained into me during structured training. Hence, one of the issues with the way the 70-20-10 model is misunderstood and misapplied. Not only is the model being applied across the board to all types of learners, but there is no accounting for the quality of the content that is being learned in structured training. Even if there is a shred of value to the ratio stated in the model, there is no quantification regarding the importance of the items in each type of learning activity. What is learned in that 10% may be of vital importance to job performance.
So, why are we using the model? It’s clean. It’s the equivalent of a nice sound bite. It also lets organizations off the hook for investing in structured training activities that can be expensive and can be seen as taking away from production. If we are encouraged to claim that most learning is achieved on the job then there is less reason for anyone to step away from the job, regardless of the potential return on investment for solid structured training. All of us in L&D love models that make sense. But, it’s important we apply the right models in the correct context.
