Being near the beach on this work trip has meant more time watching the water. The other day, instead of just walking, I spent ten minutes skimming stones. It’s a simple act, but it’s a perfect feedback loop. You pick a stone, you throw it, and you get instant data. Too much spin? It dives. Wrong angle? It sinks. But when you get it right -the flat stone, the low angle, the flick of the wrist - it skips across the surface, a series of satisfying, measurable successes. You don't just throw one and walk away; the result of the first throw immediately informs the second.
This simple act is a masterclass in effective strategy, and it’s the opposite of how many learning functions operate. In L&D and customer education, we have a tendency to launch boulders. We spend months designing and polishing a single, massive training program. We invest huge resources into making it perfect. Then, we heave this giant boulder into the water. It makes a big splash, and then it sinks. The feedback comes too late, if at all.
This approach is too slow and too risky for the pace of business today. When AI can change workflows overnight and market needs shift every quarter, waiting six months to see if our big initiative worked is a recipe for irrelevance. We need a new model, one that looks less like boulder-heaving and more like skimming stones.
How to Skim Stones in Your Learning Strategy
This is about adopting a rapid, experimental mindset, using Minimum Viable Pilots (MVPs) to generate fast feedback and iterate toward success.
Action 1: Pick a Good, Flat Stone. Don’t try to solve a massive problem all at once. Start with a small, well-defined challenge where you can make a measurable impact. Instead of "improving partner performance," target a pilot cohort and focus on reducing their most common delivery error by 10%. A smaller scope allows for a faster throw.
Action 2: Define Your 'Skips'. Success isn't how polished the training content is; it's the result it creates. Before you launch, define what a successful "skip" looks like in business terms. This isn't about completion rates. It’s about metrics like a reduction in support tickets, an increase in a specific product's attach-rate, or faster onboarding time for a new cohort. These are your success metrics.
Action 3: Throw, Watch, and Adjust. Launch the pilot quickly, even if it’s not perfect. The goal of the first throw is not perfection; it's data. Did it work? Why or why not? Gather immediate feedback from the participants and look at the metrics. That data, not your assumptions, informs your next throw. This is how you fail smarter and iterate your way to a solution that truly works.
The Impact of Skimming Stones
Shifting from launching boulders to skimming stones changes the game for a learning function. It dramatically lowers the risk of big, public failures. Instead of one big bet, you’re making a series of small, intelligent ones. You get to validate your approach with real-world data in weeks, not months or years.
This methodology forces you to be relentlessly focused on business impact. When your success is measured in "skips" - real business KPIs - your work is automatically aligned with what the organisation values. You cease to be a cost centre and become a nimble, evidence-driven partner in growth.
The next time you're tasked with a big learning initiative, resist the urge to look for the biggest boulder you can find. Go down to the water's edge and find a few good, flat stones.