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At Eleven Madison Park, we implemented training sessions that were led not by management, but by the team themselves. It was assigned. Because I do believe that making things mandatory can be a good thing. Mandatory has this kind of ugly perception in many organizations. But when you choose to make something mandatory, you’re not only communicating to your team that it matters to you, you’re forcing them to do something that sits slightly outside of their comfort zone, and I think we all know that that’s where growth happens.
What we would do is we’d assign everyone on the team to lead one of these sessions. Let them pick the thing that they wanted to teach. And then give them time to learn enough about that thing such that they would be well-equipped to teach others about it.
I really do believe that the best way to learn is to teach. And compelling people to teach requires that they first stop and learn. And if you create a culture where every single person is doing that, well, everyone, on the day that they finally decide to move on from your organization, leaves a much better version of themself than the day where they first stepped foot in your doors.