FUTURE TALENT November - January 2019/2020 | Page 73

PERSONAL TRAINING
to new c i rcu m s t a nce s a nd
challenges throughout one’s work
life”. It’s not about what people
already know, but about how
quickly they can learn – and how
readily they seek out opportunities
for development.
ASSESSING LQ
Back in 2005, John Taylor and
Adrian Furnham examined, in their
book Learning at Work, whether
it’s possible to assess an individual’s
ability to learn, creating an early
model around the factors which
influence LQ. They identified three
groups of learnability factors,
comprising seven sub-categories:
HISTORICAL
(social background; education; age)
STABILITY
(cognitive ability; personality)
MOTIVATIONAL
(self-esteem; motivation)
By constructing questions
around these factors and plotting
p refe re n c e s a g a i n s t t h e m ,
individual LQ patterns could
be identified.
While Taylor and Furnham were
clear that this work needed to be
rigorously tested (and that another
huge factor in LQ is the quality of
available training), their work
opened u p two intere s ting
ideas: that it is indeed possible to
measure LQ, and that identifying
i nd i v i d u a l LQ p a t te r n s a nd
preferences creates the potential
for individuals and organisations to
develop their learnability through
b e t te r s e l f- awa re n e s s a n d
targeted learning opportunities.
More recently, ManpowerGroup
developed a web-based
awareness-raising tool, similarly
designed to help people and
organisations identify their own
individual and collective LQ by
providing insights into motivation
and learning capability. According
to Jacques Quinio at Right
Management, the Career and
Talent Management experts within
ManpowerGroup, it provides “a
teaser which helps to open
conversations which might not
otherwise take place”.
The tool identifies an individual’s
three strongest learning abilities
from nine identified LQ types (see
box, p72). These are grouped into
three clusters, based on the
characteristics ManpowerGroup
considers essential to LQ: the
mental c apaci t y to learn
(intellectual), the ability to explore
outside the box (adventurous) and
to challenge the status quo
(unconventional).
Learning abilities are not cast in
stone, but the tool gives insights into
where learning strengths and
weaknesses might lie. It can be
used with individuals and
companies and ManpowerGroup
also charts LQ trends across regions
and groups: for example, its data
suggests that leaders in Europe
tend to be more free-spirited and
less rule- or etiquette-bound than
their counterparts in North America
or the Asia Pacific region.
PERSONAL REFLECTION
For companies, says Quinio, it offers
a way to assess “their DNA around
learnability; how fertile the ground
is for learning in an organisation”. In
one example, analysis of LQ data
from 200 senior leaders, gathered
as part of a wider assessment,
allowed the company to identify
the two areas where they showed
particular LQ strength and the two
areas where the most development
work was needed.
For too
long,
businesses
have been
thinking
about
‘what
people do’
P
How organisations
can foster
learnability
In a 2016 Harvard Business Review
article, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
and Mara Swan identified three
things employers can do to foster
a culture of learnability:
SELECT FOR IT: focus your training
efforts on curious people with a
genuine desire to keep learning.
NURTURE IT: model continuous
development at all levels of the
organisation.
R E WA R D I T : a c k n o w l e d g e
learnability whenever possible and
provide opportunities for new
challenge and experience.
For individuals, the test gives
people the chance to reflect on
their own LQ strengths and
weaknesses, to consider whether
they’re a good fit for their current
role, and how their ability to learn
impacts on their effectiveness
within their teams – and the
company more generally.
According to Quinio, “for too
long, companies have been
thinking about ‘what people do’,
how they build capability. But this
is only part of the story. We need
to s u p p o r t p e o p l e a c ro s s
organisations not just with the
ability to learn, but to develop an
openness to new ideas and
c a p a b i l i t y fo r c o n s t r u c t i ve
challenge.”
T he b ot to m l i ne i s t h i s :
individuals must continuously
upskill to remain attractive to
employers, and employers must
provide meaningful ways for their
p e o p l e to l e a r n new s k i l l s
and adapt to new processes and
te c h n o l o g i e s . At te m pt s to
measure and build awareness
around LQ can only benefit this
crucial two-way process.
November – January 2019 // 73