To produce real behavioral change, understand that there must be internalized or habituated learning. Thankfully, technology has made internalized learning much easier today than it was when books were the primary way of conveying knowledge. Don’t get me wrong, the book was a powerful invention. Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press allowed easy dissemination of knowledge that helped people build on each other’s learnings. But experiential learning is so much more powerful. Now that technology makes it so easy to create experiential/virtual learning, I believe that we are on the brink of another step-change improvement in the quality of learning that will be as great as or even greater than Gutenberg’s. We have been trying to create internalized learning at Bridge-water for a long time, so how we do it has evolved a lot. Since we tape virtually all our meetings, we have been able to create virtual learning case studies that allow everyone to participate without actually being in the room. People see the meeting transpire as though they were in it, and then the case study pauses and asks them for their own thinking on the matter at hand. In some cases, they input their reactions in real time as they watch. Their thinking is recorded and compared with others’ using expert systems that help us all understand more about how we think. With this information, we can better tailor their learning and their job assignments to their thinking styles. That is just one example of a number of tools and protocols we have developed to help our people learn and operate by our principles.
