by Venchito Tampon | Last Updated on December 27, 2024
The 70-20-10 rule is a widely fundamental framework in learning and development (L&D). It is also the basis of my learning structure when I design corporate training programs and packages for our clients.
This rule defines the optimal mix of learning and sources for effective professional growth, especially for managers and leaders. It was developed in the 1980s by Morgan McCall, Michael M. Lombardo, and Robert A. Eichinger at the Center for Creative Leadership.
In this guide, we’ll explore the 70-20-10 model, its components, and my practical insights on applying this for leadership development, with real-life examples so that you can visualize it yourself.
What Is the 70-20-10 Rule?
The 70-20-10 rule suggests that learning happens in three ways:
- 70% through experiential learning (on-the-job experiences)
- 20% through social learning (interactions with others)
- 10% through formal learning (structured courses and training)
While in real-life scenarios, you’ll find variations of this percentage, to be honest, but the principle remains the same. Not every learning and development comes from simply attending courses and training programs. Most active learning happens in on-the-job experiences and through coaching and mentoring (which has become a trend in talent development today).
The Three Components of the 70-20-10 Rule
70% Experiential Learning
Experiential learning focuses on learning by doing. It involves tackling real-life challenges, solving problems, and applying skills directly in the workplace. Employees apply what they have learned from formal and informal education to tackle daily work challenges in this type of learning.
Experiential learning is the most significant contributor to growth because it allows individuals to learn in a context relevant to their roles. Instead of simply acquiring knowledge, they learn, unlearn, and relearn by doing the task. Their knowledge is tested when they encounter obstacles to accomplishing it so they can find efficient and better ways to solve problems.
One of the best examples of experiential learning is leadership development. It covers these initiatives and skills assessments to learn and grow from work experiences.
Project Ownership: A manager leads a cross-functional team to execute a new initiative, learning project management and team dynamics. By having autonomy on the subject, the employee can own the decisions and outcomes arising from every task accomplished.
If you are a leader, one way to ensure your subordinates learn from their work is to inculcate project ownership. The more they make decisions and achieve wins, the more they want to accomplish.
Problem-Solving: For example, addressing workplace conflicts teaches communication and decision-making.
Most conflicts cannot be solved simply by attending a problem-solving and conflict-management seminar. However, it would help if the corporate trainer smoothly transitioned the session to discuss issues within teams openly.
In reality, this doesn’t happen in most cases. Conflicts get burned in the ground, which causes malfunctions in relationships, resulting in more miscommunication and inefficiency.
Stretch Assignments: For instance, a marketing professional might take on a sales role, gaining new insights and broadening their skill set.
Experiential learning becomes more apparent in new roles and projects. Since the newly trained professional doesn’t have practical experience with the new task, it makes sense that they would make more mistakes than in previous work/tasks/projects.
The coaching and mentoring hat (20% social learning) must be worn here. If the leader becomes more of a coach or mentor than a boss, the need for further refinement of skills that can only be achieved through constant practice will be better understood.
There are a couple more examples, but you should now understand how critical 70% of experiential learning is to learning and development.
20% Social Learning
Social learning happens through interaction and collaboration; for leaders, it refers to coaching and mentoring.
Through daily work interactions and professional relationships, it becomes simpler for professionals to gain knowledge and practical experience from others’ expertise and experiences.
To give you context, in leadership development, someone in a mentorship program looks like this: a junior manager learns leadership skills by shadowing a senior executive. Through actual observation of the real work, the junior manager understands the nuances and challenges of the new task.
Even during lunch breaks, the junior manager can learn additional information from his superior, further expanding his work knowledge.
A feedback culture is an example of social learning applied to leadership development. Team members provide constructive feedback during reviews, enabling individual growth.
Giving feedback can be formal or informal, as nowadays, most professionals are busy with their daily activities. Sometimes, it doesn’t fit into their schedules to have as frequent feedback sessions as it used to be.
You’ll find many managers giving feedback after an actual task. For instance, a sales manager giving direct feedback right after a presentation of his sales presentation with a prospective client. That feedback is more effective as the timing is right after a task is delivered, and more often than not, it is more retainable in the professional’s mind.
Topping it off as part of social learning in leadership development can help employees see improvement through the eyes of their peers, whether feedback from the same department or other departments.
Sharing best practices regarding what works in the company can be a good source of social learning. It is relevant to the employees’ work and adds more value to the overall KPIs of the team or department being assessed.
10% Formal Learning
We couldn’t ignore the remaining 10% as it often matters.
Formal learning refers to structured training programs, workshops, or e-learning courses. While it contributes the least in percentage, it provides foundational knowledge that can be applied in practice.
When employees join a company, they typically undergo morning sessions to gain fundamental knowledge about their work, team, department, and company. This gives them a foundational understanding of why they do what they do and how they perform at work.
In the leadership development context we mentioned earlier, formal learning could be anything in corporate training, such as attending a leadership training workshop to learn about emotional intelligence, completing an online course on conflict resolution techniques, or simply participating in seminars on emerging industry trends.
All these can add to the employee’s formal learning, which can further develop as they apply all these to their work. It’s about application, as we say and know.
Many multinational companies in the Philippines offer their employees a series of modules and structured formal learning. Conversely, startups have difficulty doing this, as they focus more on their operations and often neglect their talent development. In this case, outsourcing to the top corporate training providers is a more viable option.
How to Implement the 70-20-10 Model?
This section warrants a new post, as there are many things to do when implementing the 70-20-10 rule in learning and development. As such, giving you a start, this list gives you more actionable tips than any other guide on this subject.
1. Make Experiential Learning the Core (70%)
This applies to any company size, industry, and revenue. All employees need a solid experiential learning culture where they can see themselves growing inside the company. As most Gen Z will constantly reiterate during their interviews, this is essential for finding personal and professional growth in their companies.
Here are some tips to make experiential learning part of your systems in your talent development:
- Assign employees challenging projects that align with business goals to develop hands-on problem-solving skills.
- Rotate employees through different roles or departments to broaden their skill sets and perspectives.
- Incorporate on-the-job training for real-time learning in high-impact scenarios.
2. Foster Social Learning Opportunities (20%)
This tip is easier said than done, as it depends mainly on the team and company’s culture and how the management manifests and leads by example in ensuring employees capitalize on learning opportunities.
Best practices in fostering social learning opportunities include:
- Pair employees with mentors to provide guidance and real-world insights.
- Host regular peer-learning forums or cross-department workshops to share knowledge.
- Encourage feedback loops during team meetings to integrate learning into daily operations.
3. Deliver High-Impact Formal Training (10%)
This is what Rainmakers, as a corporate training provider, specializes in. We deliver high-impact corporate training programs to clients of different sizes in teams, organizational structure, and training needs.
Whether you want to do it in-house or outsource, corporate training programs must have any of these – you can do as action plans for your teams as well:
- Create short, targeted workshops or online modules addressing specific competency gaps.
- Tailor learning materials to align with immediate organizational priorities and goals.
- Integrate post-training follow-ups to connect concepts to workplace practices.
You can check out our guides on how to conduct leadership training, its cost and pricing models, and the best leadership training programs in the Philippines.
4. Blend the Learning Methods
You won’t often find a single learning method in practice. So, blending all these methods and rules will be helpful in many of the observations for learning and development.
Few tips on how to do it:
- Start with structured training and apply new skills in workplace challenges (70%).
- Reinforce training outcomes by assigning mentors or facilitating group discussions (20%).
- Encourage employees to document and share key takeaways from their experiential learning.
5. Continuously Monitor and Adjust
You can only ensure the effectiveness of an activity if you measure it so you can continuously adjust for more improvements. Here are some things you can do to adjust the learning initiatives:
- Track progress using measurable outcomes like skill improvements or project success rates.
- Collect feedback from participants and mentors to refine learning approaches.
- Regularly evaluate the alignment of learning initiatives with business goals to ensure
Optimize Learning and Development
We are at an age where not learning is costly for companies and individuals. Using the rule we have – 70-20-10 and other fundamentals and trends in learning and development helps us better optimize our learning and development interventions in companies.
Organizations can create programs that drive measurable results by focusing on experiential, social, and formal learning in the proper proportions. Strengthening the synergy between these components ensures maximum impact, helping individuals and teams grow effectively.
Adopting the 70-20-10 model requires intentionality and commitment. However, proper implementation can transform how organizations approach employee development, paving the way for long-term success.
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