Superman's Guide to Learning: What Action Comics Taught a Professor

Professor Karl Kapp turns traditional learning and development on its head with his revolutionary Action First Learning framework. Rather than beginning with theory and content, Kapp advocates for jumping straight into action—allowing learners to try, potentially fail, and then receive targeted instruction based on their real-time experience.

The Commonwealth University professor brings years of research in gamification, instructional design, and performance improvement to this conversation, revealing how failure serves as our most powerful teacher. "We learn more from failure than we do from success," Karl explains, highlighting how creating safe spaces for practice and failure transforms reluctant learners into engaged participants. This approach proves especially effective with resistant groups like sales professionals, who typically avoid traditional role-playing but enthusiastically embrace Kapp's card-based challenge games.

When discussing the current learning landscape, Kapp addresses the elephant in the room: artificial intelligence. Rather than joining the AI hype cycle, he advocates for focusing on human capabilities and connection. "When we take AI out of the discussion, people's anxiety levels go way down," he notes, reminding us that organizations fundamentally function as human social groups. As L&D professionals uniquely touch every corner of their organizations, they hold tremendous power to humanize workplace interactions and shape culture, positioning people for success in an increasingly technology-driven environment.

Want to transform your learning approach? Discover Carl Kapp's "Action First Learning" book, available at all major retailers, and connect with him on LinkedIn and YouTube to explore how practice, action, and embracing failure might be the performance breakthrough your team needs.

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Talking About Ways To Improve Company Culture and People Performance

The People and Performance Podcast is a show that dives into all things related to raising performance in the working world around us. We investigate how technology and HR processes are inextricably linked to the employee experience and the bottom line.

Chris Bjorling, Co-host

Christopher Bjorling is President at Fidello Inc., a consulting and services firm specializing in improving human performance.

For over 30 years Chris has led Fidello in creating unique talent management solutions. Through the products and services he and his team have created over the years, his organization has helped clients design, develop, implement and integrate talent management processes and systems.

Bill Banham, Co-host

Bill Banham, Publisher at The HR Gazette, Host of the popular HRchat Podcast and Organizer of events such as DisruptHR London.

Bill has worked with lots of business tech and HR-focused brands in the UK and North America including HRreview, TalentCulture, HRmarketer, Sprigg HR, and Team Fitness Tool.

Contact us to learn more!