It surprises me that more organizations don’t have peer groups working alongside teams. Teams, by design, live to create a shared work product or achieve a collaborative goal. On the other hand, peer groups exist to develop the individual employees. If you want stronger players who collaborate more effectively, you need more than great content. It will require a mechanism to help your employees grow and operationalize what they learn together. Josh Bersin recently wrote that companies spend $340 billion annually on employee development and training. Many CEOs I meet wish they could receive a better return on this investment, especially during such a period of change and disruption.
One of the big advantages of group learning is that you learn what you are intentionally trying to absorb – and do so more thoroughly – yet also learn from how you learn. This brand of learning is typically more important and enduring. It’s what education scholar John Dewey called collateral learning (also called accidental learning).
In his book, Experience and Education, (1938) Dewey writes, “Collateral learning in the way of formation of enduring attitudes, of likes and dislikes, may be and is often much more important than the spelling lesson or lesson in geography or history that is learned. For these attitudes are fundamentally what count in the future. The most important attitude that can be formed is the desire to go on learning. If the impetus in this direction is weakened instead of being intensified, something much more than mere lack of preparation takes place. The pupil is actually robbed of native capacities which otherwise would enable him to cope with circumstances he meets in the course of his life.”
Group Learning in Action
When an employee watches a video or listens to a speaker on a given topic, it’s both an intentional and passive learning experience, where they receive the information they seek to learn, absorb what they can, and decide how to apply it. Put those employees in a group setting, where they can talk about what they learned, share experiences, and grapple with the concepts, and their understanding and ability to retain the content for longer more than doubles.
Many peer groups inside companies also engage in exercises where they bring challenges, opportunities, and upcoming decisions to their peers, and use what they have learned together to address the subject brought before the group. As they dig deep into the group member’s topic and apply their newfound knowledge, this engagement also asks something else of the participants. They have to be truly present in the conversation, which leads to engaging in active listening, asking more precise questions, and leaning into their curiosity before rushing to judgment, making erroneous assumptions, or prematurely jumping to conclusions. The more practiced they become at defaulting to their curiosity, the more valuable they are to one another in the group, and the more likely they will bring these newly toned soft-skill muscles and zest for learning back to their teams.
Cross-functional groups offer a forum for building a more detailed understanding of everyone’s respective roles, the challenges they face every day, and the interconnectedness among departments that are often too siloed. It’s where you can pressure test an initiative that you are spearheading in your area to ensure it’s not hurting another department. It’s where people can come together, take off their department hats in favor of their enterprise hats, and build real trust.
Last, but not least, groups foster a level of personal collaboration that teams are not wired to deliver. Group meetings start by asking, “How are you doing?” not “What have you done for me lately?” It’s where people learn more about one another as human beings, not just as fellow employees. I’m sure you have all experienced instances where the better you become acquainted with someone’s back story, the greater your insight and the more likely you are to be understanding, cooperative, and collaborative with that individual. Building these relationships requires a level of intentionality that groups are designed to achieve – contributing to a more psychologically healthy environment for everyone.
Now What?
Peer groups inside companies are a powerful mechanism for learning and development. They can also be formed to facilitate innovation, build alignment behind your next strategic initiative, or help you realize various other goals and purposes. Engage someone who has built (in-person or virtual) groups and let them guide you through how these groups can help you achieve your goals and navigate what’s next in 2025. Start a peer group or two as a test, then lean into your curiosity and discover how adding peer groups to your company benefit all involved.
Written by Leo Bottary.
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