How to Know How
Picture the most skilled person you know.
Maybe it’s a team member everyone turns to for guidance or someone who can handle anything hands-on. Now, let’s consider two questions: 1) How did this person acquire all that expertise? And 2) If they left tomorrow, how would that affect you—or your organization?
At Larabee, we take a revolutionary approach to building practical, hands-on skills. For individuals, our methods foster faster learning with precise, confidence-building techniques. For organizations, we provide a robust system to capture and share expert knowledge, preserving valuable insights and securing your team's essential know-how for long-term success.
The Problem
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There is a rampant misbelief that actions and skills can be taught using written instructions or linear videos. That 60-page manual? The 12-minute video on safety and compliance that’s excruciating to get through? These resources are pointless if they don’t connect with the learner.
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Books, manuals, and videos are fantastic learning resources...for concepts, facts, and ideas. But when it comes to skills, written instructions are text heavy, confusing, and lack visualizable demonstration, while videos don't go at the learner's pace or answer questions specific to the individual.
They also fail to capture the wealth of institutional knowledge and IP that experts have spent years accumulating. This is precious knowledge developed over countless iterations, mistakes, and experiential learnings. Outside of an apprenticeship, how do you convey that wealth of information to novices?
Given the nature of this type of knowledge, the best learning solutions are optimized for real-time doing, not in-advance viewing. -
Without a strong way to capture and share knowledge, learners learn slower and your IP is unprotected or at risk of being lost. New hires can take months or years to gain the same competency, resulting in loss of revenue from transition times and mistakes.
The Solution
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As noted earlier, learning actions and skills is very different from learning concepts and facts. The former is referred to as "procedural" while the other is "declarative." At Larabee, we discovered early on that there isn't a single asynchronous tool out there that speaks to how the learner learns. So, we built it.
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The goal for action-based learning is two-fold: 1) successful execution, and 2) turning new actions into habituated muscle memory.
This means that if someone is learning how to use a flow cytometer, self-administer IVF medication, or bake artisanal bread, they need moving imagery (not static pictures). They need to go at their own pace. They need voice navigation, especially if their hands are engaged or occupied. And, they need answers to questions for clarity and/or depth.
We identified the keys to success as clarity of instruction, self-directed learning, seamless navigation that does away with needless obstacles, and opportunities for deep dives to immerse oneself in the culture and values of this category of activity. Larabee eradicates confusion and boosts confidence.
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We realized early on that the linear structure of written instructions has a completely different learning architecture from person-to-person interaction. Rather than try and figure out how to plug text-based instructions into a learning format, we spent years observing the foundational architecture of in-person learning, which is iterative, repetitive, layered, and context-rich. Then, we took this framework for learning and created a scalable, intuitive, and impactful instrument called the Larabee Player.
Expected Benefits
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Greater clarity begets greater accuracy and precision. An intuitive teaching method that delivers on crystal clear instruction and guidance, with additional levers of support, results in fewer mistakes and increased revenue when costly and expensive mistakes are not being made.
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Larabee shines with complexity. The more intricate and involved a task might be, the greater benefit we provide. Depending on the employee and the action or task itself, Larabee shaves one month of training time off. If one month of training a learner is valued at 10K, and you have 20 learners, that's $200K of recovered productivity.
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If a person fails to use your product properly or execute a task correctly, there's a greater chance that they'll walk. Whether you're audience is an internal employee or a consumer or client using your product, investing in their success directly correlates with employee and customer retention. Investing in tools that upskill effectively and dynamically are highly impactful ways to enhance satisfaction and confidence.
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Explicit knowledge is the type of knowledge that's easily put into words, documented, and shared. This might be your Standard Operating Procedures, or your Instructions for Use if you're in the instrumentation, equipment, or appliance space. Ultimately, you should be thinking of this as your source of truth (or gold standard) for how a specific task is executed. in other words, how your most skilled expert would carry out this task flawlessly. Not spending the time to ensure this type of knowledge is preserved meticulously is setting yourself up for a single point of failure.
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Tacit knowledge is the type of knowledge that's harder to put into words (like riding a bike or tying shoes). These are actions that are so habituated that they're non-conscious. They can also be minute adjustments that an expert has made over decades of practice, information or techniques that have been passed down from generation to generation of experts, or the type of knowledge that can only be amassed through mistakes. Lastly, this category can include values and belief systems that are inherently embedded in any culture of practice. Tacit knowledge is much more challenging to document, but if it's done correctly, it's invaluable. We tackle the preservation of tacit know-how through extensive interviews with experts touching on subtle techniques and tips, stories, and value systems. These are then crafted into short insights and contextually embedded into the lesson that the learner can engage with if and when its needed.
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If you're learning how to make or do something, would you rather learn from an expert, or a person playing an expert? When learners are guided by a trusted, experienced, and recognized individual, and achieve the depth and richness that is normally only reserved for in-person learning, organizations can successfully scales both the integrity of work as well as excellence.
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Investing in superior guidance isn’t just smart—it’s essential to building a vibrant and resilient company culture. When your learning audience feels equipped with the right skills, they’re more engaged, motivated, and empowered to do their best work. For enterprises, this means faster problem-solving, smoother collaboration, and higher standards of competency. If you're a consumer-facing product, it means greater customer loyalty from better all-around experiences. The impact is immediate: improved morale, stronger retention, and a team that feels genuinely invested in the company’s success. A culture of growth and excellence ripples through an organization at every level.
Who Needs Larabee?
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If a critical part of your business requires people to accomplish a task with their hands and bodies, Larabee is for you. Our learning methodology is uniquely suited for hands-on, action-based work, meaning it's particularly impactful for medical procedures, laboratory training, equipment manufacturing, tech transfers, installations, and assembly. We're also perfect for consumer-facing actions and activities such as cooking and DIY.
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The second filter for whether or not you need Larabee is how critical precision and accuracy are. If you are losing 100K or more per year due to mistakes or the lack of instructional guidance for newly deployed products or technologies, it's time to invest in an immersive learning solution.
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We work with organizations where very few experts possess critical knowledge. If they leave, they take their IP with them, causing the entire system to stand to a halt. This is what's called a single point of failure. However, it's hard to scale expert knowhow effectively, as there are limits to in-person training.
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If your SMEs are at risk of retiring or leaving the company, the best time to invest in superior documentation was yesterday. If your learners are watching all their training videos at a desk (months before they even engage in an activity) you need a smarter delivery system that pushes relevant training at the relevant times. Remember: novel, action-based information is highly forgettable. By operating from the assumption that critical knowledge is at risk of being lost or forgotten, you'll safeguard your IP as well as set your learners up for success.
How We Work
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We begin our process of Discovery with new clients by assessing whether or not we are the best resource for their needs. A number of organizations approach us asking if we can help onboard new employees onto software systems, or train customer service best practices. While we are passionate about education and love to see people maximize their potential, Larabee is best suited for tactile, action-based activities that require hands and bodies.
From there, we do a deep dive into the procedural needs your organization has. What are the standard operating procedures in most need of documentation? Is the learning audience internal trainees, clients, or consumers? Where are they getting stuck or feeling the need for added support? What are the actions, behaviors, and values that are at the core of the organization? If you had a magic wand and could fix one aspect of learning or training, what would you do? It's important for us to take a holistic and contextual approach to immersive learning.
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There are three types of procedures we prioritize: 1) Complex procedures for which precision and accuracy are critical; 2) Procedures that are the most common with the widest learning audience; and/or 3) Procedures that contain fundamental, core learnings and techniques that make other related procedures easier to understand and do. Once we have our list of procedures (or “lessons”), we create a schedule for lesson production and creation.
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As noted above, we do not simply take written instructions and convert them into linear videos. With subject matter experts and novice and proficient learners, we go through a methodical and rigorous process of deconstructing and reconstructing each lesson. What is the gold standard for how each and every step is executed? What contextual or environmental factors might impact the learner? We refer to our internal and proprietary methodology as empathetic design because we design with both experts' and learners' needs in mind.
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Description text goes here
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Based on the preferences of the client, we supply (or lead) production teams towards the creation of two libraries of content. One library consists of looping video steps, the other consists of insight videos that dive deep into tips, techniques, stories, and values. Our production teams are of the highest caliber and ensure quality and timely outcomes throughout the pre- to post-production cycle.
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After three cycles (on average) of content validation with the client, during which we ensure the accuracy and quality of all deliverables, we deliver the lessons and administrative tools through a hosted platform
