This piece is an attempt to bring awareness to the gap that cohort-based courses and businesses will have to bridge before they are able to work together.

Online cohort-based courses have become increasingly popular

The term ‘cohort-based courses’ is used to designate courses where “a group of learners come together to move through a course at the same pace under the guidance of an instructor”, as Tiago Forte, the creator of the cohort-based course Building A Second Brain, writes here.

Each cohort-based course is structured in a unique way depending on the skill that is taught and on the experience that the course creator (often also the instructor) wants to give to students. They still share some commonalities. Cohort-based courses are instructor-led which means they have a start date and an end date. Instructors hold ‘live’ sessions that the cohort of students attends together. Those live sessions will usually be made out of teaching moments which are led by the instructor and interactive moments where students discuss learnings and challenges in groups. Often, those live sessions will be complemented with offline teaching material and/or homework that students are invited to complete at specific times.

In the past few years, an increasing number of creators have been proving that they can deliver time-limited yet transformational learning experiences online. The number of cohort-based courses has skyrocketed since and alongside that, the number of students with positive learning experiences. Among them you’ll find Write of Passage by David Perell, Part-Time Youtuber Academy by Ali Abdaal and Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte. See here for more.

Interestingly the majority of course creators have been focusing on business-to-consumer (B2C) sales. They haven’t yet started pitching their courses to businesses directly. Now that’s not because course creators are not interested, it’s because they need to put a lot of extra work in to adjust their course content, format and marketing to fit business needs, while most of them are still passionately putting all their energy into delivering 5-star learning experiences to their B2C students. Of course they also need to figure out how to navigate the world of business sales which is a topic I’ll leave aside for now.

Businesses are not yet familiar with online cohort-based courses

The thing is, learning in business has a very different feel to what course creators are often  used to. Most learning happens on the job, or through coaching and mentoring. Many Human Resources (HR) teams in business adopt the 70-20-10 learning framework according to which only 10% of learning is done through formal routes e.g. through courses and certifications.

When it comes to formal learning, most businesses usually have access to a menu of options which includes the following types of learning experiences:

• One-off e-learning modules which teach new content and/or behaviours through a 30- to 60-minute pre-recorded presentation with a voiceover and limited interactions. Those modules are often hosted on a company-branded or an independent learning platform
• One-off group training sessions, whether they are held in-person or virtually. Those are either built and delivered internally or by external providers.
• A group training programme that takes place over 3 to 6 months whether in-person or virtually i.e. the business version of cohort-based courses. Those programmes are not used very often as they are time-consuming to create and run. Big businesses tend to use those for leadership or talent training.
• Some businesses will offer sponsorship for professional or university certification for some employees e.g. engineering courses for non-engineers working in engineering companies, CFA certifications for juniors in Finance, MBAs for talented leaders.

The bigger the business, the less group training sessions include people from other companies. Also: an increasing number of those formal learning options are now delivered online. This is a trend that was accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic. 

Cohort-based course creators will have to overcome a few hurdles before they can teach in business

I’ve been an employee, a leader and an HR practitioner in various businesses. If someone had approached me with a proposal to run a $4,000-per-head cohort-based course for me or my business, here are the kinds of things I would have brought up:

• Business fit. You seem to have rave reviews from people across the world. Brilliant, this proves you have tailored a good experience for people in general. How can you show me that the content and pedagogy of your course is a good fit for the world of business? Have you worked with businesses before? Do you have credentials?‍
• Budget. I understand the transformational potential of this learning experience but this is way over the learning budget we have allocated per year and per head. Approx. 60% of businesses in the US are spending between $500 and $3,000 in training. I’m definitely going to have to get this signed off by a senior leader. Do you have a business case that I can use?
• Return on investment. I get that you’re teaching something that delivers value over years of practice. The thing is, the cost of this training will come out of the budget of a specific team. I want the company and this team in particular to get value from the training, even if the person you’ve trained decides to move on in the next 12 months. What’s the return on investment over 3-6 months? A year?
• ‍Time commitment. I like that there’s a start date, an end date and a guided structure in between. I understand that you include time between sessions for reflection and integration. I understand the homework that you give to students because it helps them apply and embed learnings. I worry about how time-consuming this all is. What would a short-yet-impactful version of your course look like?‍
• Confidentiality. I understand the point of including a higher-than-usual amount of interactions with peers. Retention rates are much higher when students make the teachings their own e.g. through peer-to-peer discussion. I worry about information confidentiality. How can people in my team get the most of the training without using real-life work examples?‍
• Fair process. The cost of this programme is above the spending threshold that the company can award without running a competitive process. You’re not on our list of preferred providers so we’re going to have to run a tender to give those providers a chance to bid. There’s no guarantee that you’ll win the contract. Note: this point won’t be raised each time but it not uncommon, particularly if you are negotiating with a listed or regulated company: 

Of course, the questions that you’ll get will depend on the course that you are running and your business contact. HR practitioners will not ask the same questions as leaders or employees. Hopefully this is helpful. I’d love to know what challenges you are confronted with when you connect with businesses!