Understanding ‘Mutual Learning’ in the Workplace

Adopting a “mutual learning” approach can propel your organization forward and keep its employees and partners engaged and satisfied. But what exactly is it, and how can you make sure it is effectively implemented? Keep reading to learn more.

Core Principles of a Mutual Learning Approach

Here are some of the core principles of a mutual learning approach.

Curiosity. A mutual learning approach involves all employees and partners asking questions and being comfortable without all the answers. It entails working together to find answers to common concerns and challenges, remaining curious, and not making assumptions.

Under this framework, employees and partners would genuinely take an interest in what each person has to say or brings to the table to work toward common goals while searching for the data and information they need. In this way, a mutual learning approach requires a certain level of objectivity and collaboration.

Empathy. For a mutual learning approach to be successful, participants must be able to empathize with one another and understand the viewpoints of coworkers or partners, even when they don’t agree with one another. Therefore, successful mutual learning requires an emotionally intelligent workforce and partners.

Transparency. Transparent communications, information, data, emotions, etc., are integral to mutual learning approaches. If participants aren’t honest—or don’t openly share information and data—they can’t learn from one another to reach their common goals or solve common problems.

Benefits of Implementing a Mutual Learning Approach

Now that you understand the core principals, here are the benefits of implementing this approach in your workplace:

• When individuals work together and bring different ideas to the table while uncovering and sharing relevant data and information and remaining curious, innovation and innovative ideas will be encouraged and remain at the forefront of the organization.
• When individuals are encouraged to ask questions to learn from one another via a mutual learning approach, the organization will be able to foster and implement a successful learning culture.
• When individuals are empathetic and transparent with one another, they’re able to develop better business relationships.

Challenges of Implementing a Mutual Learning Approach

Although mutual learning has many benefits, it also has some challenges.

• With this type of approach, it can be hard to determine who is responsible for what, resulting in stalled or incomplete projects. And it’s often difficult to recognize individual contributors for their efforts if every project is collaborative and executed by many people simultaneously, leading to demotivated contributors who don’t feel their efforts have a purpose or have been recognized.
• With mutual learning approaches, decisions can be hard to make, as they don’t necessarily require a consensus. But if it’s not clear who is responsible for what and what a group’s common goal is, reaching and implementing a decision might be impossible.
• Working toward a mutual learning framework might be time-consuming because it takes time to foster transparency, empathy, etc.

Above all else, it’s important to recognize that a mutual learning approach might not be beneficial for every organization. So, keep the information above in mind, and conduct your own research before implementing one at your own organization.