Despite well-meaning intent why do a majority of skills training fail to produce the expected results? It is well documented that our inability to translate knowledge into action may be coming in our way in building an effective workforce.
In the highly acclaimed Harvard Business School Press book, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action, authors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton argue that the knowledge gap in itself is not the full picture. It is the incapacity to turn knowledge into action that potentially becomes the biggest roadblock to higher performance.
The Apprenticeship Context
In this article, we attempt to examine the knowing-doing gap through an apprenticeship looking glass. Much of our education and, vocational and skills training have one characteristic in common. Heavily skewed towards theoretical and rote learning; it then doesn’t surprise that employers and youth alike are left floundering to bridge the skills-jobs mismatch.
Knowing what to do simply doesn’t deliver. Yes, it’s a good starting point but knowing how to do is imperative in building skills and imperative for our policy-makers, HR leaders and academicians to urgently address. In fact, the authors of the Knowing-Doing Gap believe the chasm between knowing and doing can be more debilitating than that between ignorance and knowledge.
Enter apprenticeships. A fully immersive work-based ‘learning by doing’ approach to skills training, apprenticeships are an established pathway that value action over knowledge. The effects of which can be powerful. Germany’s competitive export advantage over its EU peers stems from a culture rooted in apprenticeship training permeating the entire supply chain of its skilled workforce. Nearly 85% of all apprentices in Germany are found in the SME sector which makes up around 95% of all businesses. According to Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, German SMEs contribute 35% of total corporate turnover and nearly 55% in GDP terms.
Apprenticeships Deliver
When the learning by doing method is applied to skills training, there is little knowing-doing gap. Apprenticeships enable skills acquisition by practicing knowledge in real work terms, rather than from reading, listening or memorising. A lot of the skill gaps that we are faced with today can be closed by simply allowing our youth to learn on the job. Let’s see how.
- Apprenticeships allow businesses to inextricably thread skills training to their core business needs and work culture.
- Apprenticeships allow firms to focus on the processes making up skills training, rather than on the outcome alone. This permits businesses to spend less time on deliberation and strategising, and more on how to best shape an apprenticeship program by basing decisions on what aspects of the training works better. Apprenticeships thus enable a “mindful, ongoing process of learning from experience.”
- Apprenticeships enable a business to minimise the knowing-doing gap by putting in place systems that clear the way for action-based knowledge transfer. Learning is best achieved by trying different things, making mistakes, re-learning, applying theoretical knowledge to actual work experience. And apprenticeships encompass all these.
- By hand-holding an apprentice through a work-based journey, existing staff become mentors, not just a trainer. This builds a culture of learning and development where both senior staff and apprentices become proud contributors to an effective workforce.
Knowing Model to a Doing Model
How can we better align skills training to desired outcomes? By migrating from a knowing model (traditional training approach) to a performance-based model. The former focuses heavily on class-room or on-line learning. The expected outcome of this model is to gain conceptual knowledge. But stopping at this stage can be dangerous. Just because “someone knows how to do something does not necessarily mean that they can do it.”
It doesn’t hit harder than what India faces today. The employability rate of graduates is below 50%. A ‘knowing by doing’ model is what will make a real impact on the skills and employability quotient of our youth. Experts reveal that only 10-20 percent of class-room based training is retained and gets applied. In contrast, a ‘learning by doing’ model such as an apprenticeship encompasses all three elements of a job competency- a cognitive (knowing), attitudinal, and a skill (doing) element.
Take for instance the National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF); a competency-based framework where qualifications are arranged in Levels 1-10 of acquisition of knowledge, skills and aptitude. At each stage the learner masters competencies essential to perform a job well. Close to 90% of competencies for a particular job is covered by the doing model.
In Closing
Talent development leaders must acknowledge that India needs a radical shift in its vocational and skills-based training to ‘doing models’ such as apprenticeships. India’s demographic dividend representing a population with a median age of 28 by 2020, will have a competitive advantage in the workforce only if provided with opportunities to learn by doing. There are no ifs and buts about this- continuing to apply irrelevant, theoretical skills training will end up costing us heavily.
