Newsletter 042: A two-year journey started by a single question — “How does it help?”

A good day to you!

On Saturday, April 6th, 2024, I sat across from my friend Cedric Chin at a Starbucks in the Bukit Panjang MRT station in Singapore.

I had been reading Cedric's work at Commoncog for a while (you should also read his work!) — he writes with unusual clarity about expertise, skill acquisition, and how people get better at demanding work. When I found out he was in Singapore, I reached out; Cedric said yes.

I showed him the Model for Learning I had been developing — a conceptual model for the process of learning. He studied the model carefully.

Then he asked a question that froze me in place:

"That's great. How does it help?"

I did not have a clean answer, feeling like I had been exposed. The model showed how learning works — but I could not quickly explain how a leader, a teacher, or a coach was supposed to use the model on a Monday morning. The gap between understanding a framework and applying the framework in practice was exactly what my model described; Cedric had just shown me that I was sitting inside that gap.

That question has driven almost every hour of work since.

Two years later — nearly to the day — I finally have an answer!

A learning system is the structure that turns any training event into durable performance. Without a learning system, organizations buy training and watch the results disappear within two weeks. With a learning system, every training investment has somewhere to land.

The learning system I have built has four connected parts:

• One Question, One Shift — Instead of moving immediately to correction when a direct report, student, or athlete struggles, the leader pauses and asks: "Walk me through how you were thinking about that." The one question produces one shift — from the stance of correction to the stance of diagnosis. The answer reveals whether the breakdown lives in attention, knowledge, skill, or concept; the location determines how the leader responds.
• The Learning Loop: Notice, Model, Test, Refine, Balance* — One cycle of learning, made visible and repeatable for anyone trying to get better at any discipline. The loop does not require a teacher or a coach to run — once a learner understands the five moves, the loop runs independently.
• The Learning Spiral — By repeating the Learning Loop over time, a learner builds knowledge and skills into organized and connected conceptual models — the difference between a novice who needs every step explained and an expert who reads a situation and knows immediately what to do.
• The Model for Learning — The overarching theoretical foundation: A conceptual model that is both explanatory and predictive for learning, grounded in decades of research across cognitive science, education, and human performance.

Together, these four parts form a learning system that operates at every level — individual, team, leader, and organizational. A common language and a learning system increase the effectiveness of every investment an organization makes: Curriculum rebuilds, training programs, coaching conversations, and professional learning all compound when a learning system is in place.

This is the answer I owe Cedric – two years in the making, worth every hour of thinking.

A diagnostic that locates exactly where your learning system is breaking down is almost ready; I’ll share more about the diagnostic soon.

In the meantime — if this framework connects to a challenge you are working through, reply to this email. I would welcome the conversation.

All the best!

Nathan

​
*The Learning Loop was developed in collaboration with Dr. Michael Harvey, Strategic Pedagogical Collaborator and New Zealand Pilot Partner.

The (in)famous Model for Learning!