Learning by doing: What It Is, Benefits and How to Apply It in Your Company

Learning by doing is a training methodology based on direct practice: professionals develop skills by applying them in real or simulated situations, not just by listening to or reading about them. It is the approach that best explains why we retain 75% of what we do compared to just 5% of what we hear, according to the NTL Institute.

In a business environment shaped by digitalisation, talent turnover and the ongoing need for reskilling, learning by doing has become one of the most evidence-backed methodologies for real skills development. According to McKinsey, most corporate training initiatives fail precisely because they do not combine understanding with hands-on practice. In this article, we explore what it is, how it works and, above all, how to implement it for real impact in your organisation.

‘Learning by doing’: effective learning through practice

Although many companies have yet to fully explore the path of experiential learning, this is far from a new methodology. Albert Einstein captured it well: “Learning is experience, everything else is just information”. And before him, Aristotle put it even more directly: “What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing”.

In the early twentieth century, theorists such as John Dewey, Jean Piaget and Kurt Lewin championed active education, arguing that learning “occurs most effectively when it results from meaningful experiences”. Their ideas were put into practice by David Kolb, professor at Case Western Reserve University, who developed the experiential learning model that remains a global reference today. Kolb introduced games, simulations and roleplays, consistently achieving better attention and retention outcomes than traditional methods.

The result was the Kolb Cycle: a four-stage model describing how human beings learn from experience naturally. It is not a linear process but a continuous, self-reinforcing cycle. Research from leading academic institutions on e-learning innovation has validated the application of this cycle in corporate training contexts, with consistently positive results in retention and workplace transfer.

From a corporate perspective, McKinsey highlights that experiential learning is the element most often missing from organisational change programmes: theory without practice does not change behaviour, and without behaviour change there is no business impact.

Kolb’s cycle: the 4 stages of experiential learning

David Kolb’s model describes learning as a four-stage cycle that repeats and refines itself continuously. According to WGU, this cycle is one of the five learning theories with the greatest demonstrated impact in educational and training contexts:

1. Concrete Experience (Experiencing): the learner faces a real or simulated situation. This is the starting point — doing something new, participating in a hands-on exercise or solving a real problem from their professional environment.
2. Reflective Observation (Reflecting): after the experience, the learner reflects on what happened. What went well? What could be improved? This stage activates metacognitive thinking and consolidates learning.
3. Abstract Conceptualisation (Thinking): drawing on reflection, the learner extracts general principles and theories that explain the experience. This is where experience becomes transferable knowledge.
4. Active Experimentation (Acting): the learner applies their conclusions to a new situation, completing the cycle. This new experience generates fresh reflection, restarting the process.

In corporate training, this cycle takes shape through game-based learning exercises, simulations, roleplays, real-world projects and structured feedback. The key is to ensure that all four stages of the cycle are present in the programme design — not just the first one.

The learning pyramid: why practice outperforms theory

The data is clear: we retain just 5% of what we hear, compared to 75% of what we practise. These figures come from the cone of experience model developed by Edgar Dale and later expanded by the NTL Institute of Applied Behavioral Science, which measured retention rates across different types of learning activity.

The direct implication for corporate training is that passive methods — lectures, readings, videos without interaction — have limited effectiveness when the goal is to change behaviours or develop competencies. This is precisely why learning loops — structured cycles of repeated practice — are so important: retention improves exponentially when practice is distributed over time and repeated across different contexts.

Beyond practice itself, another key mechanism is anticipatory mimicry: when we learn something knowing that we will later have to apply or explain it, the brain processes the information at a deeper level. This is why exercises with real stakes — projects, presentations, assessed simulations — produce more robust learning than low-consequence exercises.

How to turn learning into a meaningful experience

Not all practice is learning by doing. For a training experience to be truly meaningful, it must meet a set of conditions that go beyond simply “doing something”. These are the elements that determine whether an activity generates real learning or just activity:

• Contextual relevance: the practical situation must connect directly to the learner’s work environment. A communication exercise for a sales team has far greater impact when it simulates a real negotiation scenario than when it is generic.
• Immediate feedback: learners need to know what they did well and what they can improve at the moment of practice — not days later. Delayed feedback drastically reduces transfer to the workplace.
• Distributed repetition: practising a skill once is not enough. Structured learning cycles with repeated practice across different contexts are what consolidate habits.
• Progressive scaling: the level of difficulty must increase gradually to avoid both frustration and boredom. The challenge should be slightly above the learner’s current level — Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development applies here.
• Structured reflection: following Kolb’s cycle, practice must be accompanied by explicit moments of reflection on what has been learned, so that experience becomes transferable knowledge.

Role-based learning is one of the modalities that best implements these principles: each employee learns from the specific context of their role, using situations drawn directly from their professional day-to-day.

Learning by doing vs. other training methods: a comparison

Learning by doing does not replace all training methods, but it does make the difference when the goal is to develop applicable competencies. This table compares the four most common approaches in corporate training:

How to implement the learning by doing methodology in your organisation

Implementing learning by doing effectively requires instructional design that goes beyond simply “adding practical exercises” to an existing programme. These are the key steps for a genuine implementation:

1. Define the target skills with precision: before designing anything, identify exactly which competencies need to be developed and in what professional context they will be applied. The more specific the objective, the more effective the design. For soft skills development, this step is especially critical.
2. Design practical situations connected to the role: exercises must simulate real situations from the work environment, not generic scenarios. Use real company cases, internal data and contexts that participants will recognise.
3. Build in immediate feedback: both automated (in digital platforms) and human (mentors, managers). Delayed feedback loses much of its formative value.
4. Structure the full Kolb cycle: ensure the programme includes all four stages — experience, reflection, conceptualisation and new experimentation. Many programmes stop at the first stage.
5. Measure behavioural impact, not just satisfaction: the relevant indicator is not whether learners enjoyed the course, but whether they applied what they learned on the job. Evaluate transfer through behavioural observation or business metrics.
6. Distribute practice over time: McKinsey shows that organisations adopting a skills-based approach with continuous practice achieve significantly better outcomes than those that concentrate training in one-off events.

For employee-generated content initiatives, learning by doing also plays a key role: professionals learn more when they are the ones who must demonstrate, explain or teach what they have learned to others.

Common mistakes when implementing learning by doing (and how to avoid them)

One of the most frequent mistakes in implementing learning by doing is confusing it with “unstructured learning”. Practice without instructional design does not generate learning — it generates frustration or, at best, accidental learning. These are the most common pitfalls:

• Practice without feedback: doing without receiving feedback is the greatest formative waste. Without feedback, learners do not know whether they are doing things correctly and may consolidate incorrect patterns.
• Exercises disconnected from context: generic scenarios reduce transfer. If a leadership exercise bears no resemblance to the learner’s real environment, the learning simply will not be applied.
• A single practice per skill: retention requires distributed repetition. One exercise does not consolidate any habit. Programme design must plan for multiple iterations of Kolb’s cycle.
• Measuring only satisfaction: a programme’s NPS tells you nothing about whether employees are applying what they have learned. Transfer must be measured through behavioural indicators in the role.
• Skipping the reflection stage: many programmes move straight from one experience to the next, with no space for reflection. Without reflection, the Kolb cycle is incomplete and learning remains superficial.

McKinsey argues that the organisations that turn experiential learning into a competitive advantage are those that design systems for continuous learning, not one-off training events. The key lies in building a culture where learning by doing is part of the normal flow of work.

Learning by doing in practice: Telefónica’s reskilling programme

Telefónica is a compelling example of how learning by doing can drive large-scale reskilling in a context of deep digital transformation. Faced with the need to upskill more than 18,000 employees in areas such as cybersecurity, Big Data and cloud, the company partnered with isEazy to build a training ecosystem based on agile content, dynamic learning experiences and practice-oriented knowledge transfer. The combination of hands-on methodology, specialised content and cutting-edge technology accelerated the acquisition of new skills and supported the digital transformation of its internal talent.
Find out how they did it →

Learning by doing with isEazy Skills: scalable practical training

At isEazy Skills, we use the learning by doing methodology as the primary approach to talent development. Every course in the catalogue is designed so that employees face real practical situations, following Kolb’s full cycle: experience, reflection, conceptualisation and active experimentation.

The catalogue includes programmes covering power skills (leadership, communication, critical thinking, time management), digital skills and cross-functional competencies for teams at every level. Each course combines microlearning, interactive exercises, decision-making scenarios and immediate feedback, delivering a learning experience specifically designed for the professional environment.

If you want to offer training that genuinely changes behaviours, explore the full catalogue of practical courses or request an isEazy Skills demo.

Continuous skills development is also one of the key drivers of the soft skills trends shaping the L&D agenda in 2024–2025: organisations that master learning by doing hold a structural advantage when it comes to adapting to change.