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70-20-10 Model

also known as 70/20/10, 70:20:10, experiential-social-formal model, Lombardo-Eichinger model, CCL development model

Tags: 70-20-10Lombardo-EichingerCCLexperientialsocial-learningformal-trainingL&D

A heuristic for structuring professional development across three learning modes: roughly 70% from on-the-job experience (challenging assignments, real problems), 20% from social learning (feedback, coaching, observing role models), and 10% from formal training (courses, reading). Originated from a Center for Creative Leadership study of successful managers in the 1980s, codified by Lombardo and Eichinger in their 1996 Career Architect Development Planner. The model challenges the common organisational inversion — where formal training dominates L&D budgets while on-the-job experience is left to chance — and argues that development is primarily driven by experience, mediated by social reflection, and supplemented by structured content. The percentages are indicative, not empirically prescriptive: no randomised study has validated 70/20/10 as a precise ratio. It is best used as a design lens, not a formula.

How the learner advances

Intent. Design professional development that allocates most learning opportunity to challenging real work, uses social feedback and coaching to extract learning from that work, and positions formal content as a targeted supplement rather than the main event.

When to apply. Apply when designing or auditing a professional development programme, career development plan, or organisational learning strategy. Use when formal training is consuming disproportionate budget and time relative to its actual contribution to skill development. Use with individual contributors and managers who can be intentionally placed in stretch assignments — roles with genuine challenge that exceed current capability. Do not use as a rigid formula to allocate learning hours: the ratios are a provocative framing, not a measurement target. Do not use where the 70% (real work) is unavailable or unsafe — where mistakes have irreversible consequences, formal training and simulation must carry more weight.

Threshold — earns the next step. The learner can, without prompting, identify the stretch assignment they are currently developing through, name the feedback relationships that are shaping their learning, and cite the specific formal inputs that gave them frameworks for what they are experiencing.

Masterpiece — the artifact that proves it. A completed development plan with documented evidence across all three modes: the stretch assignment and what it demanded, the coaching moments that shaped reflection, and the formal inputs that provided frameworks — culminating in a capability the learner can demonstrate in a real-world context that did not exist in the training room.

Facets

  • Container — async
  • Mode — experientialsocialformal
  • Reach — individual
  • Persona — learnermanagerL&D-designer
  • Craft (AI Fluency) — delegationdiscernmentdiligence
  • Learner — human
  • Trainer — human

Inputs

  • Stretch assignments and real challenges — Job responsibilities or projects that push the learner beyond current comfort, requiring new skills and decisions. The 70% only works if the work is genuinely challenging — routine work produces routine skill, not development.
  • Feedback and coaching relationships — Managers, mentors, or peers who provide regular, specific feedback on how the learner is performing in the stretch role and who model effective practice through their own visible behaviour.
  • Targeted formal content — Courses, books, workshops, or structured programmes that give the learner frameworks and language for what they are experiencing — most effective when timed to moments of active challenge in the 70%, not delivered speculatively.

Outputs

  • More capable learner — A professional whose development was driven by real work rather than by training alone, and who can therefore apply their capability in ambiguous real-world situations — not just in the conditions of the training room.
  • Intentional development plan — The masterpiece: a written development plan in which the majority of learning activity is structured around specific stretch assignments, supported by named coaching relationships, with targeted formal inputs scheduled at moments of active challenge — and in which the learner can articulate what they are learning and from which mode.

Steps (5)

  1. Audit current development allocation

    Estimate how the learner's development time and budget is currently split across experience, social learning, and formal training. Most organisations find formal training is over-weighted relative to its contribution to actual capability change.

  2. Identify stretch assignment for the 70%

    Find or create a real work assignment that is meaningfully beyond the learner's current capability — not a token challenge but a role, project, or responsibility with real stakes and real difficulty. Document what skills this assignment is expected to develop.

  3. Structure the 20%: coaching and feedback

    Arrange regular feedback from a manager, mentor, or peer — not annual performance reviews but frequent, specific observations on how the learner is performing in the stretch role. Where possible, structure exposure to role models so the learner can observe effective practice directly.

  4. Select targeted formal inputs for the 10%

    Identify the specific concepts, frameworks, or skills the learner needs to make sense of what they are experiencing in the 70%. Time formal inputs to moments of active challenge — not as orientation before the challenge begins.

  5. Review and adapt the plan

    Revisit the development plan regularly — monthly or quarterly — to check whether the 70% challenge is still genuinely stretching, whether coaching is delivering useful feedback, and whether formal content is being applied. Adjust proportions if the assignment has become routine.

Principles

  • Experience is the primary driver of development: formal training that is not anchored to real challenge does not transfer. Most of what professionals need to learn cannot be learned in a classroom.
  • The 20% mediates the 70%: raw experience without structured reflection and feedback does not automatically produce learning — it can produce reinforcement of bad habits as easily as development of good ones. Coaching and social feedback extract the learning from the experience.
  • The 10% must be timed: formal content delivered long before or long after the relevant stretch experience has low transfer. Delivered during active challenge, it gives the learner language and frameworks for what they are living through.

Known uses (2)

Known failure modes (3)

  • [formula-literalism]

    Anti-pattern: treating the 70-20-10 ratios as empirically validated targets and attempting to measure or report actual hours against them. The original research did not prescribe exact percentages, and the numbers were never validated as a causal formula; designing to hit the numbers is cargo-cult L&D.

  • [70-percent-without-reflection]

    Anti-pattern: relying on stretch assignments alone — the 70% — without the 20% coaching and feedback that extracts learning from experience. Raw experience without structured reflection can entrench bad habits as effectively as it builds good ones.

  • [formal-training-as-the-plan]

    Anti-pattern: the development plan consists entirely of courses and certifications — the 10% — with no identified stretch assignment and no coaching relationships. Organisations frequently default to this because formal training is easier to schedule and measure than real developmental experiences.

Related trainings (5)

Sources (2)

Provenance

  • Ecosystem: corporate learning and development, leadership development, professional education
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  • Verification status: verified