high performance organizations

In 2014, O’Reilly Media commissioned a study that distinguished between three different types of learners: beginners who are interested in fundamentals, practitioners who have already

High Performance

Organizations

It’s no secret that high-performance organizations pay

than help employees do their jobs better Employees who are

learning feel valued and are less likely to leave the company They’re

valued for what they can become and what they can learn, not just

because they’re another cog in the machine.

However, employees have widely differing needs In 2014, O’Reilly

Media commissioned a study that distinguished between three

different types of learners: beginners who are interested in

fundamentals, practitioners who have already achieved a degree of

proficiency, and high performers Their needs depend on where they are in their learning path Our research found that each type had

specific preferences and needs for how to learn Someone who is just starting out has needs that are fundamentally different from an

expert’s We call this the Performance Stack.

The Performance Stack

PROFICIENT EMPLOYEES

Learn through both linear instruction (for new skills) and non-linear discovery

(when building on current knowledge).

Want to keep current and solve problems on the fly.

Need high-quality, relevant content, with some structure.

NEED THE FUNDAMENTALS

Learn basics through comprehensive, sequential instruction.

Want “speed to understanding” via a formal learning experience that starts from the beginning and leads to competency Need the most structure and the least amount of (highly curated) content.

HIGH PERFORMER

Learn through non-linear discovery

Want “speed to idea,” inspiration from many sources, and credible answers for problem-solving.

Need quick access to content with depth, breadth, and quality.

S T R U C T U R A L L I T E R A C Y

Who Learns, and How

The first job of any beginner is to build a framework that allows them to learn

effectively If you’re learning to program, you’re expected to assimilate a lot of facts

about syntax, data types, control structures, functions, and many other ideas What

looks most important (is there a semicolon at the end of the line?) is often

unimportant Good teachers help beginners by shaping facts into a narrative That

narrative becomes an outline for a book, the syllabus for a course, or the playbook

for a video It’s central to the beginner’s learning experience It provides the context

that helps them figure out what’s important

High performers have different needs They already know the basics and can fit

facts into a framework that they’ve already built They can formulate questions,

search for an answer, and get back to work A lengthy narrative is neither necessary

nor helpful, regardless of the medium

Practitioners have needs that fall between beginners and high performers They are

proficient at what they do: they have a conceptual framework that helps them to

assimilate new material, but it might not be well developed They can learn a new

language without too much difficulty, but they still find a more structured

presentation helpful

Structural Literacy

The difference between beginners and experts is structural literacy—the intellectual

framework that you build to learn effectively It allows you to fit small pieces of

knowledge into a larger whole If you’re a programmer, you’ve experienced this You

probably learned your first programming language by reading a book or taking a

course Learning your second programming language was

much easier because you had already started on your

conceptual framework: you could say “OK, a loop in Python is

basically the same as a loop in JavaScript.” By the time you’ve

learned five or six languages, you have a broad conceptual

framework that allows you to get to the heart of the matter

quickly What’s the type system like? How does scoping

work? Are functions first class objects?

What’s important about structural literacy isn’t helping

people to attain it They will do that with traditional training,

and there’s no shortage of resources to help them It’s

recognizing that, once someone has structural literacy, all the

scaffolding of traditional training gets in the way The

narrative explanation just isn’t necessary

Empowering the Leaders

Successful organizations are built around high performers

Their needs are different, and frequently overlooked It’s easy

to shortchange the high performers; you’ve seen their

successes, not the hard work that went into achieving those

successes But it’s critically important to give your best

people the tools they need to perform as effectively as

possible How do they learn? What questions do they ask?

What are they looking for?

Breadth and Depth

It’s difficult to satisfy the needs of high performers because their needs are unpredictable They’re not the people tasked with building a simple web application They’re the visionaries and entrepreneurs leading your organization into new areas

So they might need a brief intro to Ruby on Rails—but they’re

as likely (probably more likely) to need cryptography, artificial intelligence, design, or even topics like biology and physics

Are you dealing with issues like security and privacy? Are you thinking about developing next-generation tools for

scientists?

When we studied the content available on Safari, we found that over 70% of it was aimed at people who were beyond structural literacy; roughly half of the content was aimed at advanced, high-performance learners

How Safari Content Stacks Up The Performance Stack

PROFICIENT EMPLOYEES 21%

NEED THE FUNDAMENTALS 29%

HIGH PERFORMERS 50%

S T R U C T U R A L L I T E R A C Y

For one Safari client, we found that 60% of the content

consumed by employees was advanced, while roughly 40% was

appropriate for beginners For another client, we found that

65% of the content accessed by high performers was

considered “proficient” or “advanced.” Users accessed data in

over 200 different categories, taking advantage of the breadth

of information in Safari Most users accessed content outside of

their specialty, showing that their interests and requirements

aren’t confined to a narrow specialty, but are wide-ranging

Everyone needs beginners’ material from time to time But

you won’t satisfy the needs of high performers if you feed

them a diet of beginners’ material Experts need to to go

both deep and broad And even beginners and proficients

need the resources to become high performers

Get In, Get Out, Get It Done

One big problem with traditional training is that it’s inherently sequential—it assumes that linear learning is the most effective approach You start at the beginning and work through until the end High performers need to jump in and get what they need, then get back to their work What’s important isn’t how much time they spend in a training resource, but how little If they only read a page of a book or watch 3 minutes of a video and come away satisfied, that’s a win The opposite is also true:

if high performers are forced to spend a few hours plodding through a book or a video series to get what they need, they haven’t been served well

High performers also need information on demand They can’t say “I think I’ll sign up for a course on identity and

authentication, because I suspect we’ll be dealing with those issues next year.” That’s a luxury they don’t have When the need arises, they need to deal with it NOW, whether it’s during normal business hours or the middle of the night At the Botness conference in San Francisco (June 2016), Slack co-founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield said that knowledge workers spend 47% of their time looking for information If that’s even close to correct, there’s nothing more valuable we can do than putting that information at their fingertips And there’s nothing less effective than forcing your high performers

to search through long, linear courses and videos High performers need nonlinear, “random access” to information

Personal &

Professional

Development

Information Technolog

y/Ops Enterprise Architec ture Java

Development

Linux

Ja vaScript Analytic

s Securit y

Busine

ss &

Mana gement Leadin

g Teams Node js Computer Ne orkin g

600,000

500,000

400,000

300,000

200,000

100,000

0

Top 15 Topics for a Fortune 500 Safari Customer:

Specific Technologies, General Tech Subjects, and Management/Leadership

Based on Units Viewed Between 02/23/2016-08/01/2016

Courses, videos, and books need to be broken up into short

chunks that allow high performers to discover what they

need, digest it, and get back to work

The Beginners and

the Practitioners

There’s no shortage of training programs for beginners

Almost all the training we see is aimed at beginners Linear

video courses, multi-day training programs, full-length books:

these all provide the narratives that beginners need to build

structural literacy

Such training programs are also useful for practitioners who

have already achieved proficiency—although practitioners are

much more likely to roll their eyes and think (if not say)

“Show me something new Where’s the good stuff? Where’s

the meat?” They’re on their way to becoming high

performers—and training for practitioners needs to take that

into account Their goal isn’t to acquire basic proficiency, or

build a conceptual framework, but to acquire the kind of

knowledge that lets them push their tools to the limit

Taking Care of the

High Performers

It’s difficult for high-performance organizations to take care

of their high performers and innovators Their needs are

frequently overlooked; you’ve seen their successes, not the hard work that went into achieving them

High performers need resources that enable them to do their jobs well, and to feel satisfied and supported, rather than frustrated Plus, even the most skilled practitioners often find themselves beginners in a new domain—management With Safari, they can find a plethora of resources that help them learn how to manage people and projects, in the same plat-form they turn to for tech answers

Your high performers are the ones who will build your future, not just maintain your present They’re the ones who are hardest to replace, whose loss you’ll feel the most, should they leave

That’s where Safari stands alone; it’s the only learning plat-form with the depth and breadth to keep your innovators satisfied, whatever they need Safari offers multiple ways to learn: ebooks, videos, video courses, keynote talks by indus-try leaders, and even multimedia that combines video, text, and working code Only Safari offers you access to the ex-perts who create change Safari is the only learning platform that gives you all the resources you need to transform your company and build the future