Workplace learning often gets stuck in vague language that doesn’t help anyone build, measure and improve real capability. In this article, Jonathan Halls considers why shifting from a “Know Mindset” to a “Do Mindset” makes learning objectives clearer, more credible, more useful, and easier to write. If you want training that aligns with real work and delivers real performance, this subtle mindset shift is game changer.
The Do Mindset: Why Workplace Learning Must Focus on Action
If you’ve struggled to write learning objectives, you’re not alone. They can feel fiddly, awkward, and strangely technical because they require very intentional language to describe what a learner can do after a learning experience.
A common mistake trainers make when writing objectives is describing the action with terms like know, understand, learn, or appreciate. These words feel natural because the education systems we grew up with operated with what I call the Know Mindset. But in workplace learning, words like understand and know make it more difficult to design learning or measure performance that translates into talent development.
Words like know and understand are vague. They’re subjective. And they don’t help us determine whether someone can actually perform the work. For example, how can you be sure a learner “understands” the key principles of customer service? How do you measure whether someone “appreciates” the difference between good and poor leadership?
This is where the Do Mindset comes in.
Mindset shapes performance. A safety mindset changes how you act. A customer service mindset changes how you serve. And the mindset you bring to writing objectives changes how clearly you describe the work. The right mindset makes objectives easier to write and far more credible with stakeholders.
Two Learning Traditions, Two Mindsets
Writing learning objectives becomes much easier when you adopt a Do Mindset — and it stands in contrast to the Know Mindset. To make sense of these mindsets, it helps to look at two major learning traditions that shape how people think about learning.
The first is the academic tradition, stretching back to Plato’s Akademeia — a place where learning meant debating ideas, exploring truth, and mastering knowledge. This tradition still influences universities and K–12 schools today. Learning is framed as knowledge. It’s content‑heavy, teacher‑led, and assessed through tests and exams.
The second tradition is vocational learning — apprenticeships, trades, and on-the-job skill-building. Here, they measure success not by what you know but by what you can do. Five hundred years ago, people didn’t evaluate a blacksmith on his ability to describe a horseshoe but on his ability to forge one. Today, people evaluate a mortgage broker on her ability to calculate a loan-to-value ratio, not on her knowledge of it.
The mindset you adopt has a tremendous impact on how you frame learning — and therefore how you write objectives. Workplace learning aligns far more closely with the vocational tradition because organizations hire people for what they can do. Organizations fund training and talent development to help people learn how to do these things.
For example, if you interview two candidates for an accounting role, would you hire the person who understands how to complete a tax return, or the person who has demonstrated that they have done one correctly? Most of us choose the person who demonstrates they can do the work rather than the one who says they know. The same is true for leadership. Would you hire someone who understands leadership theory, or someone who has demonstrated they can lead teams and manage change?
In the workplace, we’re interested in performance — in what people can do. That’s why the Do Mindset matters. And to be clear, this does not mean knowledge is irrelevant. Far from it. Knowledge is essential. But we frame learning around what people do with that knowledge.
What the Do Mindset Means for Writing Objectives
The Do Mindset helps us write learning objectives that are relevant, precise, and credible. It has several implications:
- Objectives must describe actions, not knowledge.
Start with the question: What does the learner need to do? Then ask: Where? Under what conditions? And how well? It’s tempting to ask, “What am I going to cover?” or “What do they need to know?” Those are learning design questions for later.
- Objectives must reflect real workplace practice.
A subject matter expert (SME) should frame the objective and confirm the accurate description of the task, reflecting current standards. They should do this with learning professionals who ensure the objective is written clearly and includes the 3 elements of a learning objective. The SME’s sign-off provides credibility and protects the trainer if anyone challenges it.
- Objectives are not about teaching or learning.
This surprises many people. Objectives don’t explain the methods of teaching or learning. They describe the tasks the learner will perform after the learning experience. In fact, I often tell people that learning objectives have nothing to do with learning. They are about performance and capability.
- Objectives support consistent feedback.
Clear tasks and standards help trainers, supervisors, and coaches give consistent, nonsubjective feedback — a cornerstone of performance improvement. We can’t see or measure what someone knows, understands, or appreciates. The Do Mindset helps us avoid thinking in those terms.
Why the Do Mindset Matters
As we discussed earlier, your mindset shapes how you perform a task. And something simple, like adopting the Do Mindset, can make your writing quicker and easier. However, it’s really easy to default to the Know Mindset because that’s how most of us experienced school and university. But if we want learning objectives to help us design focused training, facilitate effectively, and align with stakeholders, we need to write objectives with the Do Mindset.
Before we wrap our conversation here, I’d like to make an important comment: some people think I undervalue knowledge. Not at all. Knowledge is essential — it’s one of the building blocks of capability, alongside physical skills and mindset. What we’re talking about here is how we frame the learning. When we describe the output as a task, we gain a practical tool to design relevant learning, facilitate flexibly, and evaluate effectiveness. And we gain credibility with stakeholders because we speak the language of business: performance.
Questions to Put This Into Action
- Where do you use “know” or “understand” when writing objectives? Can you replace them with an action statement that describes what they will do?
- Do you have SMEs working with you to ensure your objectives reflect actual practice and strengthen the credibility of your curriculum?
- Where could clearer, action‑focused objectives improve feedback or coaching?
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