From Knowledge to Experience: New Paths of Learning in Everyday Work

June 9, 2025 by
Sustainability Impulse, Oliver Fels

We live in an age where knowledge is available at the push of a button. Tutorials, trainings, webinars - the offerings are seemingly endless. Yet one question remains: Does this really move us forward?

I claim: No. 

Not as long as we see knowledge as the endpoint – and not as the beginning. 


Three Stages, One Development Path

My credo is simple - and it has grown from many years of hands-on work with teams, methods, and projects:

  1. Knowledge is gained through training, research, and exchange.
  2. Competence is developed only through practical application.
  3. Competence is gained through repetition, mistakes - and learning from those mistakes.

And this is exactly where the gap lies in many traditional training concepts. Employees leave the seminar room with a head full of information - and soon find themselves in the real project environment wondering: How do I actually apply this now?

The Training Gap: Why Good Content Often Fizzles Out

I've seen it many times: People leave trainings motivated and full of drive. But during implementation, doubts arise. The complexity of daily business, unclear roles, real-world goal conflicts- none of that is in the script. What follows is frustration.

And there’s another issue that’s rarely talked about openly: the enormous knowledge gap among participants. While some still need basic orientation, others want to dive deep. It's a stretch that's hard to manage - both didactically and timewise.

Very few offerings walk the full path with you.


The answer: methods@lab & methods@work

From this experience, two formats have emerged that open up a new path together: methods@lab and methods@work.

Both are modular, flexible, and practice-oriented - but with clearly different focuses:

  • methods@lab methods@lab deivers solid methodological knowledge in a compact or in-depth format. As a personal seminar or digital learning unit. It provides clarity on models, principles, and tools - and is the ideal starting point for everyone who wants to understand what works..


  • methods@work goes a step further: It brings the method to where it’s meant to have an impact - into the real project, the actual environment. Whether 60 minutes or several days: we work together on a specific use case, tailored to the topic, environment, and experience level. No one-size-fits-all coaching - but real implementation competence in everyday work.


Two Formats – One Goal: Impact


Both formats are freely combinable and available in various sizes. No unnecessary lectures, no seminar tourism. Just real impulses – exactly where they’re needed – close to everyday life, close to the team, close to the goal.

Close to everyday life, close to the team, close to the goal.​


Outlook: Rethinking Learning

Whether we are at the beginning of a paradigm shift, I don’t know. But moving away from pure knowledge transfer towards a learning approach that emphasizes application, context, and experience — that’s the right path.

A learning that takes humans seriously as acting beings – with room for mistakes, reflection, and growth.

methods@lab and methods@work are my contribution to this. For everyone who doesn't just want to learn – but truly wants to make a difference.

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