The Impact of Learning Online at Scale

Anne O’Loughlin:

One might argue that with so many copies in print and the tremendous growth of online retailers like Amazon.com, Clay’s books would be able to reach many more people, and thus be the vehicle to scaling his theories. However, a book cannot capture the power of collective learning, particularly when the theories are needed by a team that is aiming to execute on difficult strategic change.

Clay is cognizant that when someone reads his book, they don’t always describe his theories in the best way. And then, like a game of telephone, the theories become distorted and lose their effectiveness as each person tells the next.

As Clay puts it, “I thought of myself as writing to millions of people, but I have realized that’s the wrong way to frame things. Because what I write is consumed individually by individual people who have a book or an article…everybody else on the team didn’t learn that way of thinking about the problem. Your readers are your resellers of the ideas; [and through] the process of selling and reselling, the idea just loses its momentum.”