We humans are social creatures. We form organic communities wherever we go, based on shared interests, passions and needs.

But when we try to impose top-down learning communities on an employee population, things get more difficult. Is it possible for L&D to create a flourishing community?

In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner and Nahdia Khan are joined by Andy Lancaster, author of Organizational Learning Communities, who offers a framework that can help.

We discuss:

· Types of workplace learning community

· The key characteristics of successful communities

· A framework that you can use to establish an effective community

Andy’s book is available now from Kogan Page.

During the discussion, Ross mentioned our podcast with JD Dillon and his book The Modern Learning Ecosystem.

Ross also referenced our podcast on Working Out Loud Circles, from way back in 2017.

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Nahdia recommended the ‘Women in Learning’ community.

Ross discussed the weird way language affects our sense of space and time.

For more from Andy, visit reminaginepeopledevelopment.com

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com

Finally, it wouldn’t be appropriate to plug Ross G’s critically acclaimed debut novel Centauri’s Shadow on a regular basis but, since Andy brought it up, it’s available from Amazon US and Amazon UK. It has 4.8 stars out of 5, by the way.

Connect with our speakers 

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

· Ross Garner

· Nahdia Khan

· Andy Lancaster

397 — Do organizational learning communities ever work?

The Mindtools L&D Podcast