The 70-20-10 Learning Model: What It Is and How It Works

The 70-20-10 model is a reference framework used in organizational learning and development to describe how professional competence develops across three categories of experience: workplace practice, social interaction, and formal instruction. The proportional breakdown — 70% experiential, 20% social, 10% formal — reflects patterns observed in research conducted at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) during the 1980s. The model shapes how L&D functions structure learning and development strategy investments, allocate budget, and sequence development interventions across an employee lifecycle.

Definition and scope

The 70-20-10 model holds that the majority of professional learning — nominally 70% — occurs through on-the-job experience: stretch assignments, problem-solving under real conditions, and exposure to novel responsibilities. A further 20% derives from social and relational sources including feedback, observation of peers, and structured coaching and mentoring in development. The remaining 10% is attributed to formal learning events such as classroom instruction, e-learning modules, and structured compliance training.

The framework was developed primarily through research by Morgan McCall, Michael Lombardo, and Robert Eichinger at the Center for Creative Leadership, originally focused on how senior executives developed their capabilities. The proportions are descriptive, not prescriptive — they reflect observed patterns in how leaders reported learning, not a mandated allocation ratio.

Scope boundaries matter here. The model applies most directly to professional and managerial development contexts. Its applicability narrows in technical skills training environments where formal certification, regulatory compliance, or procedural accuracy is the primary outcome. A compliance officer completing mandatory regulatory coursework operates within constraints that the 10% category alone cannot adequately frame.

How it works

The three components function as interdependent inputs rather than isolated delivery channels.

1. Experiential learning (70%) — Learning through doing: project ownership, cross-functional assignments, managing failure and recovery, leading initiatives outside one's expertise. This category requires deliberate design; accidental job experience without structured reflection does not reliably produce development.

2. Social and relational learning (20%) — Learning through others: manager feedback, peer observation, mentoring relationships, action learning groups, and after-action reviews. This category is closely related to social and collaborative learning practices and depends heavily on the quality of the organizational culture around feedback.

3. Formal learning (10%) — Structured instructional events: eLearning and digital learning modules, instructor-led courses, workshops, and credentialing programs. This component creates the conceptual scaffolding that experiential and social learning can then activate and refine.

The model's practical mechanism is sequencing. Formal learning establishes baseline knowledge. Relational learning allows reflection and calibration with peers and coaches. Experiential learning converts both into durable competence. L&D functions that invert this sequence — delivering formal training after extensive job experience, or providing no social reinforcement between formal instruction and on-the-job practice — consistently show weaker transfer outcomes, a dynamic measurable through measuring training effectiveness and Kirkpatrick Model evaluations.

Common scenarios

Leadership pipeline development — A high-potential individual contributor receives a structured assignment managing a cross-functional project (experiential), is paired with a senior leader for monthly coaching sessions (social), and completes a business acumen workshop through a leadership development program (formal). The 70-20-10 structure is explicit and designed.

Onboarding programs — New hires in complex professional roles spend the first 30 to 90 days rotating through functional teams (experiential), are assigned a peer buddy and a manager check-in cadence (social), and complete role-specific training modules through a learning management system (formal). The framework's proportions help designers of onboarding and new hire training resist overloading the formal component.

Technical skill development — A software team adopts pair programming and code reviews as deliberate social learning mechanisms, supplements with internal documentation and tool-specific microlearning modules, and relies primarily on active project work to build proficiency. Technical tracks often compress the formal component further than 10%.

Remote and distributed teams — The social 20% requires active design investment for distributed workforces because informal hallway learning is eliminated. Learning and development for remote teams programs that use the 70-20-10 frame must substitute digital collaboration tools, structured virtual mentoring, and asynchronous peer feedback channels.

Decision boundaries

The 70-20-10 model is not universally applicable, and L&D professionals navigating the learning and development authority landscape treat it as one framework among several rather than a universal standard.

Where the model applies well:
- Managerial and leadership competency development
- Soft-skills development such as soft skills training in communication, influence, and decision-making
- Career development contexts where stretch exposure is the primary development lever, as documented in career development planning

Where the model's proportions require adjustment:

The 70-20-10 model also does not define measurement methodology. Organizations using it to structure return on investment in training assessments must pair it with explicit evaluation frameworks. A training needs assessment and skills gap analysis should precede application of the model's proportions to any specific population.

Competency frameworks (competency frameworks) and instructional design principles operate as complementary reference systems, not subordinate ones. The 70-20-10 model describes where learning happens; instructional design principles govern how each component is constructed for effectiveness.

References

• Center for Creative Leadership — 70-20-10 Research and Framework Overview
• Association for Talent Development (ATD) — Workplace Learning Research
• U.S. Office of Personnel Management — Federal Employee Training and Development Guidelines
• McCall, M., Lombardo, M., & Eichinger, R. — The Career Architect Development Planner (Lominger International, original CCL research basis)