Driving engagement through experiential learning
Summary
This article argues that experiential learning — combining formal instruction, social interaction and on-the-job practice — is the most effective way to engage adult learners. Drawing on examples from West Shore Home, the author sets out four core principles for designing experiential learning activities: make tasks challenging, build community, connect the work to business outcomes and run rigorous debriefs. Practical examples include a multi-team “Shark Tank” style business-plan challenge for senior leaders and a front-line team exercise with obstacles to raise task complexity. The piece also recommends measuring impact immediately and again after 30 days to reinforce learning.
Key Points
- Experiential learning integrates the 70/20/10 model into a single activity: formal learning, social learning and on-the-job experience.
- Design tasks to be challenging and matched to the audience to stimulate critical thinking and decision-making.
- Use teams and structured social interactions to create community, spread tacit skills and improve culture.
- Ensure a clear business connection — either by solving real problems or by linking abstract tasks to organisational priorities during debriefs.
- Run structured debriefs and follow-ups (self-assessments, manager check-ins, surveys at event and 30 days later) to turn experiences into sustained behaviour change.
Context and relevance
For L&D and leadership development professionals, experiential learning offers a compact, customisable way to produce measurable behaviour change. With pressure on L&D to show business impact, this approach aligns learning activities directly with organisational priorities and provides simple evaluation checkpoints. It’s particularly useful where leaders’ needs vary widely and one-size-fits-all classroom training falls short.
Why should I read this?
Short version: if you run leadership development or L&D programmes, this gives you four easy-to-apply principles and real workplace examples — saving you time and giving instant ideas to lift engagement and impact. It’s practical, not academic, so you can steal the formats and try them quickly.
Author style
Punchy — the author uses real-world cases and clear rules-of-thumb rather than theory. If you need to design development events that actually change behaviour, read the detail and you’ll get a ready-made playbook.
