The 70-20-10 Model: How People Really Learn at Work

What is the 70-20-10 model?

The 70-20-10 model is a way of describing how people develop at work. It holds that about 70% of learning comes from challenging assignments and on-the-job experience, about 20% from developmental relationships and interaction with others, and about 10% from formal education such as courses, workshops and reading.

The model is used widely in learning and development because it challenges a common assumption: that development equals training. In many organisations, the learning budget, the learning team’s time and the language people use about development all centre on courses. The 70-20-10 model shifts attention to where most growth actually happens, which is in the work itself and in the people around it.

Where did the 70-20-10 model come from?

The roots of the model lie in research at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), a non-profit leadership institute in the United States. In the 1980s, CCL researchers including Morgan McCall, Michael Lombardo and Ann Morrison interviewed successful executives about the experiences that had shaped them as leaders. Their findings, published in 1988 as The Lessons of Experience, showed that the events executives described as most developmental were overwhelmingly challenging assignments and hardships, followed by other people, with formal programmes a much smaller part of the story.

The specific 70/20/10 ratio was popularised by Lombardo and Robert Eichinger in The Career Architect Development Planner (1996). From the 2000s onwards, practitioners such as Charles Jennings turned it into a framework for designing organisational learning, and it spread rapidly through HR and L&D teams worldwide.

It is worth being honest about the evidence. The original research was based on what successful executives remembered and reported, not on measured learning outcomes, and the population was senior leaders rather than the workforce as a whole. Later studies have found different proportions in different roles and industries. The ratios are best treated as a memorable shorthand for a well-supported idea, that experience and relationships matter more than formal training, rather than as a precise measurement.

What does each part of 70-20-10 look like in practice?

The 70%: learning through experience

Experiential learning happens when people take on work that stretches them beyond their current capability. Typical examples include leading a project for the first time, joining a cross-functional team, managing a difficult client, covering for a manager on leave, launching something new, or turning around an underperforming area. The common thread is challenge with real consequences: the person cannot rely on what they already know.

Experience does not automatically produce learning, however. People can repeat the same year of experience ten times. What turns experience into development is a deliberate choice of assignments that build the capabilities the person needs next, plus time to reflect on what happened and why. A short after-action review (“What did we expect? What happened? What would we do differently?”) is one of the simplest and most effective tools for this.

The 20%: learning through others

The second element covers everything people learn from relationships: feedback from their manager, coaching and mentoring, observing role models, working alongside more experienced colleagues, peer networks and communities of practice. This element is often the bridge between formal learning and experience. A coach helps someone apply a new framework to a real situation; a mentor helps them make sense of a difficult assignment.

Managers are the most important source of the 20%. Their everyday feedback, the assignments they hand out and the conversations they have about development shape far more learning than any formal programme. That is why many organisations now treat manager capability as the single most important lever in their development strategy.

The 10%: formal learning

Formal learning includes classroom training, e-learning, microlearning, conferences, qualifications and structured reading. It is the smallest share of the model, but that does not mean it is unimportant. Formal learning provides shared language, frameworks, technical knowledge and, sometimes, the confidence to try something new. It works best when it is connected to the other two elements: introduced just before people need it, and followed by practice and feedback on the job.

How do you use 70-20-10 to design a development programme?

The most useful way to apply the model is as a design checklist. For any capability you want to build, ask what the experience, the people and the formal elements will be, and how they connect. A practical sequence:

1. Start with the capability and the outcome. Use a training needs analysis to define what people need to be able to do and how you will know they can.
2. Design the experience first. Identify real work that will require and build the capability: a project, a rotation, a new responsibility.
3. Add the people. Assign a coach, mentor or peer group, and brief the person’s manager on their role.
4. Add formal learning where it accelerates. Use short, targeted content to introduce concepts at the point they are needed, not months in advance.
5. Build in reflection. Schedule regular check-ins and reviews where the person makes sense of what they are learning.
6. Measure behaviour, not attendance. Evaluate whether people are doing the job differently, using the approaches in the guide to measuring training ROI.

Here is how that looks for a first-time manager. Formal: a two-day workshop on the basics of delegation, feedback and one-to-ones (10%). People: a more experienced manager as mentor, monthly peer group sessions with other new managers, and a coaching conversation with their own manager every two weeks (20%). Experience: leading their team through a real change project in the first six months, with a clear brief and a review at the end (70%).

What are the common misunderstandings of 70-20-10?

Critics of the model are right that its numbers lack a strong empirical base. But the core idea is consistent with decades of research on adult learning, expertise and learning transfer: people learn most when they practise in realistic conditions, receive feedback and reflect. The model’s value lies in that idea, not in the arithmetic.

How do you get managers to support the 70 and the 20?

Because most of the model depends on what happens in everyday work, managers decide whether it succeeds. They hand out the assignments that make up the 70%, and they provide much of the feedback and coaching that make up the 20%. Yet many managers have never been shown how to develop people, and their own targets rarely reward it. Four practical steps change that.

Give managers a simple routine. A short development conversation every month, built around three questions, works better than an annual review: What are you working on that stretches you? What are you learning from it? What support do you need? Keep a one-page development plan that lists real assignments, not just courses.

Make stretch assignments visible. Many organisations keep an internal marketplace or simple list of projects, secondments and cover opportunities. This helps managers find development opportunities beyond their own team and makes access fairer.

Train managers as coaches. A short programme on asking good questions, giving specific feedback and running after-action reviews pays back quickly, because it improves the 20% for every person each manager leads.

Measure and recognise it. Include people development in manager objectives and track simple indicators: how many team members have a plan with a real assignment, how often development conversations happen, and how many people move into new roles. What gets measured and recognised gets done.

Does 70-20-10 still apply with remote work and AI?

The model was developed in offices where people learned by watching and working alongside colleagues. Remote and hybrid work make the 20% harder, because informal learning from overhearing conversations and asking quick questions happens less naturally. Organisations need to replace it deliberately: structured mentoring, virtual shadowing, recorded walkthroughs of how experts approach a task, and active online communities.

AI tools change the picture again. Generative AI assistants can explain concepts, give feedback on a draft or role-play a difficult conversation on demand, which blurs the line between the formal and social elements. They also change the experiential element, as more routine tasks are automated and the stretch work left for people becomes more complex. The principle still holds, though: capability is built by doing real work, with feedback, supported by good input. For more on how roles are changing, see the guide to AI training and upskilling.

How does 70-20-10 fit a learning culture?

The model works best in organisations where development is part of everyday work rather than an event. In a strong learning culture, managers see developing people as part of their job, stretch assignments are handed out deliberately, mistakes are reviewed for lessons rather than blame, and formal learning is available when people need it. That is the environment in which the 70% and the 20% actually produce learning.

For L&D teams, adopting 70-20-10 means a change in role: from producers of courses to designers of development experiences, coaches of managers and curators of resources. It also means measuring different things, such as how many people have a development plan with real assignments, how often managers hold development conversations and how quickly people reach competence in new roles. The Learning & Development hub brings together guides for each part of that cycle.

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