5 Active Learning Principles That Saved SRI International

by Curtis R. Carlson October 19, 2020

Editors’ note: 

When Curtis R. Carlson took the reins as CEO of SRI International in 1998, the famed research center was on its last legs. As Carlson quickly learned, “We were broke, the buildings urgently needed repairs, and the land was being sold. Teams worked in silos, and most of the senior managers were pursuing their own agendas with little regard for what others were doing.” When Carlson left the company in 2014, revenue had more than tripled, and the company’s world-changing ideas had generated tens of billions of dollars of new marketplace value. SRI had re-established itself as one of the world’s leading innovation enterprises.

How did he do it? Carlson’s article in the November/December 2020 issue of Harvard Business Review shares the author’s methodology—a framework that involves developing an “NABC value proposition” that spells out how a company’s offering addresses customers’ needs with a compelling approach while delivering superior benefits per costs when compared to the competition. 

Of keen interest to Inspiring Minds readers, Carlson’s methodology is based on proven practices from the education sciences. What follows is an excerpt of Carlson’s HBR article that focuses on active learning. It’s a helpful reminder of how critical it is for educators to help students become master architects of their own learning—especially during these times when student engagement is so fleeting, yet so important.

At its heart, creating value is an exercise in active learning. Coming up with a novel product or service is not simply a matter of waiting for inspiration to strike, but a process of using proven practices from the education sciences to gain insights and improve fast.

Active learning depends on engagement. 

Students become master architects, for example, not just by reading textbooks, listening to lectures, or watching other architects but by constantly working on and revising actual projects.

 Through that activity, they synthesize the theory they’re taught, the techniques they see others using, and their own ability to manage the design process.

VALUE CREATION AS AN ACTIVE LEARNING PROCESS

In Innovation for Impact: Value Creation as an Active Learning Process, I describe the process we used at SRI International, which enabled us to produce technology such as HDTV and Siri (now on the iPhone). Our methodology is applicable for creating both disruptive and incremental innovations, and versions of it are used in major universities, national laboratories, and large global companies. It works for people in all positions and all professions because value creation is everyone’s job.

Since leaving SRI, I have partnered with a former colleague there, Len Polizzotto, to further develop the methodology at Northeastern University and at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. We call our approach Innovation for Impact, and in 2017 I coauthored a National Academy of Engineering reportdocumenting aspects of the research behind it.

People who try to learn purely through observation and theory miss a great deal and forget even more. That’s particularly true for anyone seeking to create value in business. Innovation occurs in a complex, dynamic environment; those who succeed do so because they manage to find the right signals in a sea of noise. 

To create efficiently and effectively in that context, people must follow a structured process that includes five basic elements of active learning:

1. Iteration with real-time feedback. In creative endeavors, repetition is central to learning. Playing the piano, for example, involves complex manual maneuvers and a high degree of hand-eye coordination, and to reach a professional level, students must continually experiment with timing and movement. This practice is most effective when accompanied by real-time feedback from an expert who can reframe problems and provide potential solutions.

Coming up with a new business idea is, of course, very different from learning to play the piano. The inputs are undefined and may come from a range of sources. So instead of a master-apprentice relationship, the process involves an innovator who keeps refining the idea and seeking feedback widely: from experts, peers, partners, competitors, and, most importantly, customers.

2. Concise mental models. Psychologists assert that all of us construct “mental models”—frameworks carried in our minds to make sense of our experiences and inform our decisions. In active learning, we use these models to identify the beliefs, insights, and assumptions upon which we build hypotheses for what works. We can then test our hypotheses against collected evidence and, if warranted, revise them to develop improved models.

Of critical importance, the mental models that guide the initial inquiry must respect the limitations of the people using them. Research shows that most of us retain only seven items, on average, in our short-term memory. What’s more, we can think about only three or four items at once. If innovators use mental models that are too long or too complicated (as many are), they will not easily make sense of the evidence or rapidly learn their way to better hypotheses. But if mental models are concise, they can, over time, become intrinsic knowledge to be tapped almost automatically.

3. Multiple learning styles. Active learning involves applying a variety of approaches to presenting and experimenting with ideas. Using images, simulations, and prototypes, for example, can bring ideas to life, highlight different aspects of a problem, and challenge people’s thinking about possible solutions. Storytelling is effective because it can create the context for a mental model: Research shows that stories help people remember information and revise their beliefs, assumptions, and theories.

4. Teamwork. Working in teams increases engagement, learning, and motivation. Research suggests that the optimal size for a business team is about five people. That number allows for a diversity of perspectives and skills, is small enough to prevent the group from subdividing, and reduces communication costs and the risk of miscommunication. 

 Because value creation is a highly collaborative, interdisciplinary activity, no individual will have all the necessary knowledge, relevant mental models, or insights. This means that each person on the team must bring the distinct competencies and experiences required for his or her tasks. The goal is to assemble teams whose members have a shared vision but complementary skills and varied viewpoints.

5. Frequent comparison. Comparison is how we learn our preferences and decide most things, whether we’re buying a new car or choosing what to eat. And research shows that direct and rapid comparison of two similar objects greatly amplifies small differences. Suppose you need new eyeglasses. If you randomly try out different pairs, it may take a while to find one that helps you see better. So instead you get an exam in which you look into a machine that displays lenses of different strengths. Your doctor rapidly switches the lens in front of each eye, asking, “Which is better, this or the previous one?” Having you quickly compare lenses with subtle distinctions enables the doctor to swiftly zero in on the right prescription.

Systematic success is achieved when all the building blocks of active learning are brought together in a complete value creation system. 

A Checklist for Creating Effective Learning Programs

In addition to performing basic educational research, SRI International’s education division also evaluates ongoing educational initiatives. When a program—whether online or in a traditional in-person setting—shows little or no educational advancement, SRI teams work to help improve these programs, often by employing the principles of active learning. These are the same principles we used to improve our value creation methodology. 

For educators, I offer this checklist, which includes 10 active learning concepts that are critical in evaluating the potential of not only different value creation methodologies, but learning environments as well: 

1.         Continually perform the task.
2.          Provide real-time feedback and ensure constant engagement.
3.        Use concise frameworks, heuristics, and mental models along with multiple representations.
4.         Focus first on the big ideas.
5.      Employ mentors and not just “teachers.”
6.         Initially form small teams with unique, complementary skills.
7.         Leverage established knowledge and use tools that accelerate learning
8.         Leverage comparative learning.
9.        Provide motivating incentives and support positive human values.
10.        Integrate into a complete system.

For an educational program to be fully effective, it should adhere, in some form, to these 10 core concepts. Using nonexperiential lectures in synchronous online programs, for example, has limited educational effectiveness. Conversely, Northeastern University has built an online platform based on these principles that’s an excellent example in teaching and practicing value creation. 

See Carlson’s HBR article for a complete reveal of the Innovation for Impact framework and its “NABC value proposition.” 

Curtis R. Carlson is the CEO of Practice of Innovation, a consultancy based in Silicon Valley. He is also a professor of practice at Northeastern University and a distinguished executive in residence at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.