This article is part of a series: Learning Lessons from Stanley Cup and Super Bowl Champions. Previous piece in this series: Lesson 1: Focus Training on the Knowledge Specific to Your Team.
Chris Partridge, Defensive Co-Coordinator of Ole Miss football, had his work cut out for him at the beginning of the 2021 season. Sports Illustrated had written that the team’s defense in 2020 was “to be polite, a disaster, ranking near the bottom of the country in nearly every major statistical category.”
Partridge knew that he couldn’t just drop a playbook on every player’s lap and say “Learn this.” If he did that, nothing would change. Instead, he used Learn to Win to implement Agile Learning cycles.
He kicked off each cycle with a short quiz (sometimes just 1 question long) on Learn to Win. The assessment data showed his position coaches where the team had knowledge gaps.
When position coaches spotted concepts that players were struggling to understand, they would focus the next day’s meeting on that topic or change the training approach.
This fast, focused, approach kept players engaged and resulted in a dramatic turnaround in the 2021 season. Sports Illustrated proclaimed that “the defense stole the show for the Rebels.”
By using an assess-first approach to identify and prioritize knowledge gaps, Partridge helped his team get better, faster.
Can you apply this assess-first approach in fields outside of sports? Absolutely! In fact, one of our customers in the pharmaceutical industry was just nominated for an industry innovation award for the way they used Learn to Win.
The company used Learn to Win to administer 10-minute quizzes to sales teams on important concepts. They then analyzed those results to help District Managers know exactly how to structure their weekly development meetings around high-priority knowledge gaps.
The other benefit of this approach? It’s a lighter lift for you! You don’t have to load all your training content into a new platform (the equivalent of dropping the playbook on your team). Instead, you can start with a quick assessment, then build only the content you need! As you move through multiple Agile Learning cycles, your library will grow.
That’s one of the core benefits of Learn to Win: Our focused approach accelerates your team’s performance improvement, while minimizing your upfront work.
