L&D practitioners without the urge to learn will be missing out on a host of opportunities, writes Barry Johnson
The change from training to learning has created a new spark, a glow, an excitement among my colleagues – but why? We suppose it is because learning is now recognised as a necessary contribution to an organisation’s effectiveness and efficiency, and the profitability of our clients. Not all of them recognise this yet, but it is coming. We are learning to use social media, and making use of neuroscience findings in our daily practice.
I just love change and learning. So has my learning changed? Yes. My learning is more focused. I suppose I am relearning from my experience. You have a massive amount of experience – have you used it effectively? Did you see the content and depth of the change, the clarity of learning facilitation to help your learners learn? Much is not new but often a different slant and different emphasis.
Confucius said: “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.” Oh, if only I could.
‘Thinking’ learners are making connections across their experiences, and, by letting go of approaches that are less than effective, we can unlearn things with better learning methods. Are you oriented toward learning goals and open to the new understanding of the brain? Do you experiment, seek feedback and reflect systematically? Reflection: I’ve been doing much of that recently. Acquiring new skills and mastering new approaches is fundamental to our shift from training to learning. Learners, it seems, derive satisfaction from the process of learning itself, which boosts their motivation and their capacity to learn from experience. Taking risks may be a key, but some will fear mistakes. Such is the nature of change.
Many of us will miss out on learning opportunities. We avoid questioning ourselves or moving outside of our comfort zone.
So what may help? Changing routines, seeking feedback and considering what we could do differently. There is always more to learn. We can free our thinking, dissolve our fear of failure and power our success. We read, we review, we reflect and we decide. What will we do differently in the future? We can conduct thought experiments, unearth possibilities and try out different points of view. When helping people learn, do we know more than they do? Did Socrates? Or did he craft the questions to ask and use the other learners to explore, and did the learners decide what was valid? Have we learned from him? Has reflecting on our experiences boosted our learning? If it does that for us, will it do it for our learners?
Barry Johnson is a non-executive director at Learning Partners