How Top L&D Programs Change Employee Behaviors: Insights From Julie Dirksen

Done well, Learning and Development goes beyond simply delivering information and encouraging teams to retain it. In fact, delivering information isn’t really the point at all. 

Great L&D programs exist to change employee behaviors in a way that gets real results. You identify a core business issue, and design the best ways to help team members solve that issue in the long run. 

In my latest podcast conversation, learning design expert Julie Dirksen walked me through the science of effective learning, breaking down what actually motivates people to apply new skills. She examined the key reasons training often fails, the impact of attention and habit formation, and why L&D must go beyond simply delivering information to address real performance challenges.

Julie had a wide range of practical examples to draw from, and delivered her expertise in language we can all relate to and understand. 

Here are five of my key takeaways from our conversation, but I highly encourage you to listen to the episode in full. 

Listen now: Why Learning Doesn’t Change Behavior - And What to Do About It

Why learning must pinpoint the problem

Julie’s background in cognitive psychology—as well as her rich experience—means she’s always looking at behavior in training. Learning and Development shouldn’t exist to deliver information, the goal is to create real changes in how people act and think within organizations. 

So if that’s not happening, what’s the issue?

“The standard response is just to tell people louder and more emphatically. But if they already know what to do, telling them over and over again is of limited use.

“Sometimes, people just don’t see the value in the action. Or there’s interference in their environment. The first thing we need to do is make sure we’re solving the right problem. And if the gap isn’t knowledge, then telling them what to do isn’t going to be very useful.”

Why shorter attention spans aren’t the issue

There’s a common misconception that people’s attention spans are damaged, and that younger generations in particular can’t focus. But the reality is we’ve had to increase our own tolerance for useless information, because there’s just so much information at our fingertips. 

So how can we design learning that keeps people’s attention for as long as we need it?

“If it’s useful, you’ll pay attention,” says Julie. “When I’m working with groups, I like to start by asking how many of them would like to watch a five-minute video on printer repair. Almost nobody does. Then I explain that their printer is broken. Now would they like to watch the five-minute video first? Everybody would. 

“That leans into ‘just in time’ learning: don’t make them learn it before they need it. And if they need it, they won’t have a hard time paying attention.” 

How to create engaging learning experiences

L&D professionals have long been obsessed with learner engagement. A wide range of new tools and experiences have emerged to make learning more interactive and engaging. 

For Julie, it always comes back to utility. “We talk about engaging learning material as though dancing unicorns and cats will make everything better. But do people have an immediate purpose for it?”

So how does Julie design courses that trainees actually complete, with information they actually use?

“Michael Allen uses the CCAF model, which I really like:

• Context: Why are we learning this, and what’s it for? 
• Challenge: Create a specific challenge for it, and make the challenge realistic to the environment they’ll be in.
• Activity: Ensure the information required is available. 
• Feedback: Ensure you have good feedback to reinforce the model. 

“I once worked on an anti-bullying curriculum for teachers. There was this challenge where the trainees had to ‘build the anti-bullying wall’ by placing bricks as answers to questions. That’s a ridiculous challenge—they were never going to be laying bricks in their actual work. 

“It doesn’t have to be in virtual reality. But we can only give our attention to things when we have a pressing need. It’s a limited resource.” 

How to make learning more action oriented

L&D often get asked to deliver training solutions that might not solve the underlying problems. Stakeholders give you 80 slides for a simple induction, and panic when you suggest changing or removing any of them. 

“We really need to ask ourselves, is this a solution to be implemented, or a problem to be solved,” says Julie. “Most of the time, we’re given solutions to be implemented.” So how do we diagnose the real issues, and push back when we’re asked to simply ‘take the order’? 

“Trying to be specific about these things in complex situations is hard, but that’s the challenge. We just need to run you through enough examples of how to handle these things that you start to see the patterns.

“It may not fix everything—the world is complex and unstable—but identifying principles and when to apply them helps when things get subtle. So then the challenge as learning designers is getting people exposed to enough examples so that they can start seeing the patterns themselves.”

The importance of feedback in learning design

Julie has worked with many L&D teams, and has a deep sense of maturity in our field. When I asked her what the best L&D teams do to design impactful, high-performing programs, she went straight to feedback loops. 

“Feedback is something that the best teams do well. They design a solution, but then they iterate on it based on feedback. That isn’t happening nearly enough in our field. 

“When you do classroom training, you get a lot of immediate feedback from your audience. But when we’re creating digital materials, we’re usually missing that feedback loop. 

“We have to know to look for feedback, and to ask for it. A really robust process for piloting and user testing is crucial for producing a good output. I see some people doing this, but not enough.”

Listen to our conversation in full: Why Learning Doesn’t Change Behavior - And What to Do About It

About Julie Dirksen

Julie Dirksen is an expert in instructional design, learning science, and behavior change. She is the author of Design For How People Learn and a sought-after consultant who helps organizations create learning experiences that drive real performance improvement. With a background in UX, game design, and cognitive psychology, Julie focuses on bridging the gap between what we teach and what people actually do. Through her work, she equips L&D professionals with the tools to design learning that truly sticks.