What Makes Learning Worth the Effort?

Motivation and making room to learn through change.

My husband and I recently offered our high school senior $20 for every scholarship application he completed. No cap.

Our thinking was pretty straightforward. With his activities and GPA, applying to more scholarships, including smaller local ones, seemed worth the effort. If even a few paid off, the tuition savings could easily outweigh our investment in getting those applications submitted.

Three months and three applications later, our incentive program is proving to be considerably more affordable than we'd anticipated.

Now, though, something interesting is happening. He's been admitted to the college he most wants to attend, and a friend who's navigating the same process told him about applying to its Honors College. Among the potential benefits? Additional scholarship opportunities.

My son had initially been reluctant to consider that program after hearing about another student's first-year experience. Hearing from a closer friend, his own age and making similar decisions, seems to have opened the question back up.

I can't tell you exactly how much of his renewed interest comes from that conversation, his free time during Fall Break, his admission, or the possibility that this next stage of life is becoming more real. Those are my observations, and I still have some questions to ask him. But the experience has me wondering how easily we assume an opportunity will motivate someone because its value seems obvious to us.

Worthwhile from whose perspective?

In my coaching class, we've been exploring how organizations facilitate learning and development. Around the same time, I revisited Daniel Pink's TED Talk about motivation, which questions some familiar assumptions about rewards and introduces autonomy, mastery, and purpose as important sources of motivation.

Our household scholarship experiment hardly qualifies as a research study. It does, however, give me a useful reason to examine my own assumptions before declaring that someone else lacks motivation.

That question belongs in organizational change, too.

We introduce a new tool, redesign a process, or ask people to take on different responsibilities. Learning becomes part of the plan, so we arrange training, share resources, and explain why the change matters. From an employer’s planning side, the connection can feel obvious.

However, the person doing the learning may have a different set of questions. How will this help with the work already on my plate? Which parts do I need to understand? And when, exactly, am I supposed to figure it all out?

I've seen organizations provide access to tools such as LinkedIn Learning without making the expectations around using them particularly clear. Can employees take courses during work hours? Should the content relate directly to their current roles, or is broader development encouraged?

An invitation to learn leaves quite a bit unanswered if people have to guess whether accepting it will put them behind on the work they're already expected to finish.

The learning has to fit somewhere

Consider a hypothetical consulting firm introducing a shared project management system. Leadership wants better visibility into deadlines and fewer missed handoffs. Employees attend training and learn how to create tasks, update progress, and assign work.

Then they return to their projects, where the old spreadsheets, status emails, and client deadlines are still waiting.

For someone managing several accounts, the new system might initially feel like another reporting obligation. Explaining its features won't resolve that concern if nobody has decided which old reporting practices it will replace.

A more useful learning plan could give the team time to move one real project into the system together. As they work, questions about task ownership and handoffs would become visible. A colleague might find a useful way to organize recurring work, while someone else discovers that the proposed approval process doesn't account for a client's needs.

Those discoveries give the organization something to work with. They can inform follow-up instruction, a process adjustment, or a clearer explanation of who makes which decisions. They also give colleagues practical knowledge to share, grounded in the work they're actually doing.

This is why I want communication and learning plans connected to implementation decisions. If training exposes an unclear handoff, someone needs to help resolve it. Otherwise, we risk teaching people how to use a tool while leaving them to negotiate the workflow on their own.

Making the time explicit

One of my clients sets aside dedicated days each quarter for the whole team to work on certifications relevant to a software platform they use in their jobs. They make time for it, and they celebrate it.

I like that practice because the relevance and the permission are both clear. The learning supports the company's work while developing the individual professional. Employees have designated time to focus on it, instead of having to work out whether professional development is an approved activity or something to squeeze in after everything else.

A certification day won't fit every change initiative. The useful principle is to make the learning commitment concrete.

For a new workflow, that might mean protecting an hour for people to practice with a real scenario, then making support available when they use it independently. If someone discovers a better way to complete a recurring task, a short demonstration could help colleagues apply it themselves. Shared notes can capture the steps and questions that are likely to come up again.

Managers have a role here, too. When urgent work starts competing with that practice time, what can wait? Calling learning a priority doesn't settle that decision for the person facing both demands.

I need the reminder, too

As a solo business owner, I have plenty of say in how I spend my time. I also have client work, business responsibilities, and a growing list of AI features and software capabilities I'd like to explore.

I already believe that learning those things could help me. Still, knowing that doesn't magically create room in the calendar. Apparently, being the person who sets the priorities doesn't exempt me from needing to actually set them!

When I do protect time to learn or work on my business, it opens up possibilities and gives me energy. That experience makes me cautious about assuming that someone else's limited participation tells us how much they care. Even when the interest is there, the conditions deserve a closer look.

During a change initiative, we can start by asking people what they need to accomplish differently and where they feel least prepared. Their answers can help us choose relevant learning activities, plan opportunities to practice, and identify what needs to come off their plates. As they begin applying what they've learned, we need a way to hear what's working and address what isn't.

There will still be expectations to meet. A required process can't always be optional. But people can have meaningful input into the support they need and the problems the rollout needs to address.

My son's scholarship applications have reminded me to be curious about what makes an opportunity worth pursuing to the person in front of me. My own calendar reminds me to ask what makes pursuing it possible.

Before the next rollout, it's worth looking beyond the training invitation: Where, in the actual workweek, will people have room to learn—and what will help them put that learning to use?