ADVENTURE ONE

Learning to Learn

By Steven Kowalski, Ph.D.
Author, Creative Together: Sparking Innovation in the New World of Work
President and Founder, Creative License^TM Consulting Services

In Creative Together: Sparking Innovation in the New World of Work, we explore Learning as one of four key “SuperPowers” that amplify our creativity as we seek innovative results.

That’s because innovation—the generation of new value—depends on our ability to learn and to direct the course of our own learning. And learning is also critical for agility. Time and again I hear people say that to succeed in a world where change is the norm, we need to make individual and collective learning a priority. In the new world of work, it’s become less important to “know stuff,” and more important to know how to learn.

This article seeks to deepen your understanding of how learning can become an increasingly powerful strategy for business agility and for sparking innovation. Summaries of research and thinking about twelve different topics that impact the learning process will help you and your colleagues learn together more effectively. Each topic contributes to four outcomes:

Increasing the speed and impact of productivity
Sharing and exchanging information to co-create more effectively
Delivering outcomes that provide value to customers, partners, and stakeholders
Increasing capacity to innovate and think critically

I invite you to share this article with your colleagues, allies, and partners, and find ways to link these concepts to your everyday challenges and circumstances. Use the scenarios provided to spark conversation. And then, take Creative License^TM (another core SuperPower for amplifying creativity), and talk together about how learning to learn can accelerate your contribution to meaningful outcomes.

Topic One: Definitions of Learning

There are almost as many definitions of learning as there are people who have sought to define it. Here are some specific definitions each with their own particular ‘spin’ on the concept of learning:

Learning is “increasing one’s capacity to take effective action.” (Daniel Kim)
“Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.” (David Kolb)
To learn is “to gain knowledge, comprehension, or mastery through study or experience.” (Webster’s Dictionary)
“A change in an individual caused by experience.” (Robert Slavin)
“Learning means the continuous testing of experience and the transformation of that experience into accessible and relevant knowledge.” It is the “mastery of the way of self-improvement.” (Peter Senge)
“Significant” learning “has a quality of personal involvement, …is self-initiated, …is pervasive, …is evaluated by the learner,” and has at its essence the construction of meaning. (Carl Rogers)
Learning is “a transformation that unfolds through time and space” across an internal and external “landscape.” (Gregory Cajete)
Effective learning has four main components: (1) The nature of the material to be learned, (2) The activities and strategy engaged in by the learner, (3) Personal characteristics of the learner, including learning style and prior knowledge, and (4) A measurable outcome or product of learning. (Ann Brown, Joseph Campione, & Jeanne Day)
Learning is the development of new “practice” within the social context of one’s “lived-in” world. (Jean Lave & Etienne Wenger)

Despite their differences, most definitions of learning suggest that learning involves a change—in thinking or behavior—that modifies a person’s capabilities. Learning how to learn, then, means becoming an active participant in the change. We become skilled at:

Identifying/clarifying the subject of our learning.
Setting goals.
Directing our attention toward the achievement of our goal.
Monitoring our own progress.
Seeking out resources, people, information, and opportunities to test ourselves.
Recognizing when particular strategies are not working.
Revising our plan of action.

Ultimately, learning to learn is learning about ourselves. Called “metacognition,” this is the careful study of our own learning process. We begin with what we know, experiment, listen generously, learn how to observe, how to take 100% responsibility, and how to find and ask for help. With growing knowledge about our learning preferences, capabilities, strengths, and opportunities for improvement, we can increase our potential for relating and achieving. Empowered by our creativity, vision, and self-knowledge, we have the opportunity to explore new directions, see connections, and to create our lives anew.

Try This. With your colleagues, explore the scenario below. How could the person/team in this scenario benefit by knowing about different definitions of learning? How could they put it into practice?

You have prepared a presentation to share your ideas with key stakeholders and potential “investors.” About 30 minutes before your scheduled time, you receive a text from your manager requesting that the presentation be more conversational—a dialogue rather than the delivery of any prepared content.

Topic Two: The Learning Cycle

Both individuals and teams learn in cyclical fashion — passing through a series of four phases:

Identify a Question. An individual or team recognizes a need, a question arises, or an awareness emerges of something that needs resolving. Sometimes, the question or issue is determined by others and we are assigned to the challenge. Yet, even if our “official” work focus is clear, there may still be issues or questions that are unresolved.
Plan. We take stock of what we know about the question/issue, and come up with alternatives and options. Before deciding on a direction, it is important that we consider a multiplicity of ideas, possibilities, and solutions. On our own, or together with our team, we find a way to organize and align ideas into a specific plan for implementation.
Act. At some point we must take action. Whether implementing the plan together or sharing different responsibilities, it is essential to evaluate actions along the way and build in flexibility to make modifications. In teamwork, individuals engage in “coordinated action” — where learners execute their plan, but also keeps an awareness of what the whole team is doing.
Reflect. Personal reflection involves stepping back and becoming an observer of our own thinking and actions. We take stock of our thoughts and feelings, how things are going, what is working best, and where we might need to increase our capability. Often, people see reflecting as “not doing anything,” and skip this step in the cycle. In fact, reflection is essential to accelerating the process of learning.

As individuals and teams work to achieve desired results, they may pass through many learning cycles. A key strategy for effective learning is to keep moving through these cycles with increasing speed, depth, and breadth.

With greater awareness of each phase of the learning cycle, individuals and teams can learn to maximize the potential of their current phase, while anticipating what will be required to move to the next phase. First, identify your current phase and use the particular characteristics of that phase to guide value-added actions and choices. As you make the most of the opportunities presented at each phase, continue moving forward. Develop the ability to recognize:

Which phase of the learning cycle you are currently in.
Whether you move fluidly through all the phases or get ‘stuck’ in a particular phase.
If you regularly ‘short-cut’ one of the phases in hopes of saving time.
If you are challenging your ‘underlying assumptions’ (the set of beliefs, principles, and ways of thinking that guide our actions and decisions) in each phase of the cycle.
When your plan of action needs to be modified to accommodate new information.
Opportunities to “know more” about your actions, assumptions, and the direction you have chosen to achieve results.

Try This. With your colleagues, explore the scenario below. How could the person/team in this scenario benefit by knowing about the learning cycle? How could they put it into practice?

Your team leader has always “picked up the pieces” when things fell through the cracks. Now, she has become ill, and will be off work for an unspecified period of time. Your deadline is one week away, and there are a number of key decisions that haven’t been agreed upon.

Topic Three: Speed, Depth, and Breadth

John Redding with the Institute for Strategic Learningⁱ has outlined three factors — speed, depth, and breadth — that can help indicate how effectively an individual or team is learning.

Speed: How quickly are you moving through the learning cycle?

Generating new value in a knowledge-based business means covering ground quickly. That’s why so many teams are working to accelerate individual and collective learning — so communication, resources, and ideas flow seamlessly and swiftly. Accelerating our learning process allows us to move quickly through the learning cycle, take advantage of our natural skills and working styles, and learn how to recognize obstacles before they inhibit collaboration.

One of our greatest opportunities is to build a working environment that encourages people to iterate, experiment, seek courageous breakthroughs, relax boundaries to shorten the time it takes to get things done, and learn from mistakes as well as successes.

Depth: Are we challenging our underlying assumptions in each phase of the cycle?

Each one of us has a set of underlying assumptions and principles that guide our actions, how we think, and the way we make decisions. These are things we take for granted — our beliefs, aspirations, wishes, and habits. These underlying assumptions can help us to make sense of rapidly changing circumstances. Sometimes, however, these assumptions can get in the way—keeping us from seeing new solutions and possibilities.

When learning is “deep” and “indelible,” we look beyond the usual answers. That means we consistently reexamine the patterns of thinking we take for granted — to see if they enable or inhibit our ability to innovate, create, and solve problems. Deep learning involves challenging assumptions—while at the same time respecting a diversity of perspectives. It also requires trust, and the kind of work environment where people tell the truth and speak up when questions or disagreements arise.

Breadth: Are we able to generalize what we are learning to other situations?

Learning is most effective when people think broadly: seeing patterns, relationships, and how different processes and activities are connected to each other. It’s like having the ability to pay attention to the world as if through a wide-angle — rather than a telephoto lens — so you can see how specific actions interrelate with other areas of activity.

Increasing the breadth of learning depends on a strong sense of purpose. Learners are connected to the big picture and understand the principles that guide individual and collective actions. They’ve built a firm foundation of skills and knowledge and are open to see things from many perspectives. Openness to the diversity of possibilities helps us make new connections—between what we are currently learning and new situations that arise.

In the world of work that is emerging, organizations are relying on every person to look beyond the usual answers, innovate, and learn more effectively. But we can all miss important opportunities to increase the speed, depth, and breadth of learning:

For a variety of reasons, we do not share important perceptions, questions, and concerns about current activities and results.
Even when we voice our perspectives to others, these perspectives may not be taken to heart, and used to challenge and revise our thinking about the problem, issue, or circumstances.
We fail to translate revised perceptions into a new plan of action based on what has been learned.

The goal is to learn how and when to intervene to strengthen the learning process.

Try This. With your colleagues, explore the scenario below. How could the person/team in this scenario benefit by knowing about speed, depth, and breadth? How could they put it into practice?

While developing their go-to-market plan for a new product, a team learns that a competitor has unexpectedly beat them to the punch and launched a similar product into multiple, highly desired market territories.

Topic Four: Accelerated Learning

“Accelerated Learning” is an approach that emphasizes essential skills for learning fast and balancing constraints with possibilities. Building upon decades of research into learning, the brain, and multiple intelligence theories, the objective of accelerated learning is to:

Actively involve our emotions in learning — thereby making things easier to remember
Harmonize left- and right-brain activity
Actively engage multiple types of intelligence – using the capabilities of the whole mind and ensuring that learning is accessible to everyone
Include relaxation and reflection time to encourage the construction of meaning and storage of information into memory. Although understanding something and memorizing it are different, all significant learning must ultimately be stored in memory.

Using the acronym M•A•S•T•E•R, Colin Rose and Malcolm Nichollⁱⁱ have developed a cohesive, six-step plan to describe the skills and activities associated with accelerated learning.

Motivate yourself to learn. Having confidence and the desire to learn something is essential to acquiring new skills or knowledge. Seeing the personal benefit from your investment of time and resources is also valuable in developing the right attitude toward learning anything.
Acquire the information. Utilize what you know about your preferred learning style and your unique combination of intelligences to acquire and absorb the basic facts of the subject.
Search out the meaning. Building personal meaning from facts is at the heart of learning. Understanding “why” is what distinguishes shallow from deep learning.
Trigger your memory. By using strategies like association, categorization, storytelling, acronyms, flash cards, learning maps, music, review, and practice, you can make information more easily accessible.
Exhibit what you know. Sharing what you are learning with a partner, family member, or friend is a great way to test understanding. Organizing the information for someone else will solidify the learning for you.
Reflect on how you have learned. Examining the process of your own learning will build your capacity to learn in the future. Consider your progress, review the personal relevance of the material, and ask yourself what you could do differently.

The research literature suggests that learning is accelerated when it is enjoyable. Before we began schooling, most of us did not distinguish between learning and play. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi suggests that early in life we are like learning machines, trying out new approaches, testing the world, and adapting our approaches. Unfortunately, the connection between learning and enjoyment tends to diminish over time—perhaps because learning is imposed through the regimented process of schooling.

Here are some suggestions for making learning fun:

Create a low-stress environment where it is safe to make mistakes, experiment, and take risks — even while the expectation for success is high.
Make sure that the purpose for learning the subject is clear. Motivation to learn is higher when learning is relevant to our daily lives, goals, and dreams.
Use humor, music, dialogue with others, regular breaks, and enthusiastic support to provide a positive emotional experience for learners.
Actively engage all the senses and different intelligences in learning activities.
Allow time for reflection in periods of quiet alertness.

Try This. With your colleagues, explore the scenario below. How could the person/team in this scenario benefit by knowing about accelerated learning? How could they put it into practice?

As a team, you’ve decided to consciously help each other increase capabilities, accelerate the speed of your work, and improve effectiveness as learners. One of your co-workers asks you to review their development goals, and provide feedback.

Topic Five: Learning Principles

As the pace of change quickens in the new world of work, and we need to generate value in shorter and shorter cycles, workplace learning must become faster, more flexible, and integrated into the work lives of learners. Brigitte Jordan, a former Senior research scientist at the Institute for Research on Learning,ⁱⁱⁱ has suggested that the question is no longer how to make training more efficient, but how to make learning more effective. This requires a fundamental paradigm shift from an emphasis on training to an understanding of workplace learning.

Jordan and a team of researchers from the IRL translated a wealth of research on human learning into eight principles of learning. These principles can help develop organizational learning strategies that align the reality of our work lives with knowledge of how effective learning takes place.

Learning is fundamentally social. Traditional methods of learning focused on the individual learner. More people are recognizing that learning naturally takes place in interaction between people. Fundamentally, we rely on others as role models, trouble shooters, critics, approvers, and collaborators/teachers.
Cracking the whip stifles learning. Learning often takes place informally — through conversation and interactions between people that may or may not be task-related. When interaction is valued only when people are ‘on task,’ organizations may miss opportunities for people to share valuable concepts and make new connections.
Learning needs an environment that supports it. For learning to flourish, there has to be both a physical environment and an atmosphere that encourages interaction, social learning, and informal learning among peers.
Learning crosses hierarchical bounds. Truly effective organizational learning assumes that people at all levels in the organization can learn from each other’s special skills and unique perspectives. When people are brought together in cross-functional groups, there is an exchange of diverse ideas and experiences that stimulates learning.
Self-directed learning ignites progress. When people have a say in what they are learning and choice in how they learn, there is more interest in investing time, attention, and resources in the learning process.
Failure to learn is often the fault of the system, not the people. Rather than blaming individuals for a lack of interest or motivation to learn, it can be helpful to examine what role the organization’s culture and structure play in whether people feel excluded or encouraged to participate.
Learning by doing is more powerful than memorizing. There is a distinct difference between being able to recall information and being able to understand the significance of information. Learning by memorizing is a static kind of knowledge and cannot ensure that we will be able to generalize what is being learned to new situations. The large majority of us need practical experience to help make information meaningful.
Sometimes, the best learning is unlearning. In the long run, many of the habitual ways we respond to others and to circumstances do not help us learn. The key is to unlearn these habits, and reward new behaviors that encourage learning and collaboration.
Learning is increased through knowledge of brain functioning. By understanding how the brain receives, stores, and accesses information, we can approach the learning of new ideas and concepts from a more effective, informed perspective.

Try This. With your colleagues, explore the scenario below. How could the person/team in this scenario benefit by knowing about learning principles? How could they put it into practice?

New organizational models and collaborative leadership practices[iv] have flattened the hirerarchy in your workgroup. You are looking for ways to broaden the impact of your project using increased local decision-making and greater access to people across the organization.

Topic Six: Knowledge Assets

Cicero called the memory “the treasury and guardian of all things.” The stores of information — located in webs of meaning and association in our minds and in our communities and culture — are precious assets for learning. In order to build meaning with new information, we continually rely on the knowledge and experience we have already accumulated.

How we build, organize, and utilize this storehouse of information has a profound influence on its value to us. Carelessly throwing inventory into a stockroom does not make it easy to retrieve a particular item or determine what needs to be re-ordered. Similarly, it is important for us to pay attention to both how we acquire and store information, and the quality of information we are acquiring. Knowledge has both present and future value.

Our Allusionary Base. This term is used to refer to the stock of concepts, images, and memories available to provide meaning for the learner. When we learn new information, we “raid” our allusionary base for relevant words, facts, and images in our process of constructing meaning. If the allusionary base is meager, or disorganized, the learner has to let much of what is encountered go by or work harder to incorporate new information into the store of meanings.
Cultural Capital. It is important to remember that knowledge is both socially constructed and situated in history. A group of rice farmers in Indonesia, for example, value different knowledge than office workers in São Paulo. Similarly, an automobile factory worker in 2020 needs different knowledge than another in 1992 or in 1937. Cultural capital refers to the valued knowledge of any given culture, at any given time.
Cultural Literacy. This term refers to familiarity with the body of shared knowledge that is necessary for successful participation in any culture. It is important to remember that some forms of cultural capital have a higher “exchange rate” than others. The lack of basic information can inhibit someone from making meaning from information. Instead of automatically attributing success or failure of learners to any particular inability, it is important to examine the ways societies either restrict or enable access to cultural capital based on membership in different communities.
Communities of Practice. A community of practice can either be a formal or informal network of people, brought together by common interests, work activities, goals, and/or social ties. Generally, communities of practice share specific knowledge assets which may or may not be available outside the network.

In the workplace, knowledge assets are much more than a particular sets of skills. In fact, much of the knowledge that informs our daily work lives is hidden in subtle aspects of the particular tasks being performed. These knowledge assets may include:

How the business works
The various roles and responsibilities of different members within the organization
How the work relates to local and organizational strategies
Effective and productive ‘work-arounds’
Who to contact and how to contact them for various reasons and for resources
Digital literacy
How to manage life cycle of innovation
Human resource policies and “rules”, and knowing when to follow them, break them, or go around them

Just as with individuals, “smart companies” are developing organizational intelligence by strengthening everyone’s ability to access vital information— building learning networks, streamlining information technology systems, and encouraging communities of practice to share information across functional lines and hierarchical boundaries.

Try This. With your colleagues, explore the scenario below. How could the person/team in this scenario benefit by knowing about knowledge assets? How could they put it into practice?

In the latest round of organizational “transformation” and restructuring, it is unclear whether your workgroup will remain intact, lose a number of employees, or be cut all together.

Topic Seven: Learning From Teaching

Not all of us think of ourselves as teachers. In fact, we are teaching each other all the time—whether or not we are aware of it. Learning to teach more effectively can be a strategy for learning more effectively. The goal is to take a more conscious, proactive role in this “everyday teaching” exchange.

Researchers describe teaching as action taken with the intent to facilitate learning. While not all teaching is successful, it is impossible to separate the act of teaching from the process of learning. No one would accept a salesperson’s statement, “I sold the item, but the customer did not buy it.” Similarly, to say, “I taught that, but they didn’t learn it,” does not acknowledge the critical role that learning plays in the teaching process. Teaching and learning are actually aspects of the same process.

When we share something that we’ve learned, we learn twice: once when we receive the information/experience and build our own meaning, and again when we share information/experience with others. In the sharing, we “learn from the return,” as Stephen Covey calls it—strengthening our own knowledge by organizing it and presenting it to others.

Learning from the teaching process involves the development of several specific skills:

Learning to maintain a reflective perspective: reviewing our choices and their results, asking for feedback, and distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant conversations and activity.
Learning to manage key “relationship skills:” including generous listening, separating story from fact, and taking full responsibility to maintain a productive and safe learning environment.
Learning to examine and challenge assumptions and biases: including those we hold about the teaching/learning process itself.

In both formal and informal teaching, it is essential that effective teachers pay attention to three levels that contribute to the effectiveness of learning:

The context created by the teacher (such as room arrangements, lecture vs. activity-based delivery, individual vs. group engagement, etc.), and the behavior of the teacher send powerful messages to learners about both the information itself and the importance of the content.
The engagement experience teachers design to explain ideas and convey content has a profound impact as learners challenge assumptions, construct new meaning, and adapt existing knowledge to incorporate new concepts.
Metacommunications such as body language, time allotted to the subject, and the quality of materials used in conveying information all offer important messages about the importance of the content.

Teaching by Storytelling: Storytelling is a time-honored method of sharing learning. Throughout history, humans have used storytelling to convey principles and values, to pass on important knowledge about the world of experience, and to entertain. Through storytelling we both share and come to understand ourselves. The stories we tell our children suggest ways of being and contain important messages to guide them in their growth. Similarly, the stories we tell each other about the personal and worklife challenges we face—our victories, best practices, and our failure—hold remarkable potential for growth and learning.

Story, in combination with lived experience, image making, ritual, play, imagination, and conversation, forms the basic foundation of all human learning and teaching. Often, storytelling allows us to step out of traditional perspectives and see the world anew, through another’s eyes. We can suspend time and challenge our fundamental beliefs and assumptions about our work, our world, and our future.

Try This. With your colleagues, explore the scenario below. How could the person/team in this scenario benefit by knowing about learning from teaching? How could they put it into practice?

Everyone in your organization is talking about empowerment and how to “push decision-making down to the most appropriate level. Your manager asks you to deliver a presentation on “empowerment” that will help your team understand how it can work most effectively. You are not convinced that making a “presentation” is the right approach for this topic.

Topic Eight: Assessing Learning

As humans, we are all explorers. But in discovery and exploration, there are risks that must be taken, ideas and technologies to explore, and knowledge to uncover. Every adventure includes learning—and one of the most important parts of any learning process involves measuring our success in understanding what we are learning.

Measuring learning is how we know that we are making progress. We build greater confidence and recognize that we can make more effective choices. Here are some quick questions you can ask yourself—anytime—to check your learning progress:

Why is it important that I learn this?
How will I use this information?
What will I be able to do once I have learned this?
If I were to teach this to someone else, what would they need to understand?

But measuring learning is sometimes a difficult task—especially when standardized tests cannot capture the richness or quality of our experience. Albert Einstein famously said, “not everything that counts can be counted.” At the same time that we need quantitative measures to help us keep track of operational excellence and current performance, we also need qualitative measures to help us see how learning is changing us.

Qualitative Assessments: Qualitative research has become commonplace in the social sciences, education, and business communities as a valid and rich way of knowing. In many ways, these methods of gathering information work better within social systems.

Qualitative researchers collect information about attitudes, experiences, and perspectives. Unlike an experiment in a laboratory, the person collecting the information becomes the instrument of ‘knowing.’ For qualitative assessment to work, it is essential that we trust ourselves, are honest, say only what’s true for us — not what we think is true for others, and keep an open mind.

Participant Observation: A qualitative ‘researcher’ is often referred to as a ‘participant observer.’ That is because, in most cases, researchers are active participants in the environment and processes they are observing. As you gather more and more data about something, you can start making some more informed observations. You start to see patterns, categorize and organize information, and notice connections. You might have an “aha!” experience or discover something by purposely taking time to reflect.

Sharing Learning With Others: One of the most important parts of keeping track of learning is sharing what you find with others. Ultimately, organizational ‘intelligence’ is built when learning is shared among team members, and across functions. To help others understand the significance of your observations, it is useful to summarize information and present it in a way that:

Clearly describes what it was like before we started. This might be a statement about how we felt, what we thought, or what it was we hoped to discover through the learning process.
Outlines the steps we took along the way. We need to be able to describe to others how we gathered information, what counted to us as ‘evidence’, and how we recorded the information. We also need to be able to talk about our assumptions and beliefs, and how they may have influenced our results.
Provides our best guess (also called an analysis) of why we think we got the results we did — especially when there is a gap between intended and actual results.

Try This. With your colleagues, explore the scenario below. How could the person/team in this scenario benefit by knowing about assessing learning? How could they put it into practice?

A team in a manufacturing facility is developing new ideas to cut waste, water and electricity usage, and material used in production and packaging of their product—all in an effort to contribute to new sustainability targets and be better stewards of our natural environment.

Topic Nine: Learning Styles

It used to be that most of us learned by sitting and listening to someone tell us what problems to solve, when to start and finish, when to ask questions, and where to get the information we needed. And learning was often disconnected from its application and practical use. But times have changed. Information, instruction, and content is everywhere, accessible through multiple channels in an instant. New avenues are opening up to learn what just what we need to know right at the moment we need to know it.

How can we make sense of all the channels and methods available? Research has shown that we do not all learn the same way. Some of us learn best by interacting with partners and in groups. Others learn most effectively by reviewing and studying information on our own. And others learn best by experimenting and seeking ways to test out ideas and concepts. We each have our own ‘learning style.’ Knowing your style can help you focus on channels that align with your learning preferences.

Organizational learning experts have built on the theories of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) to help explain three different styles and preferences for learning and thinking:

People Learners learn by interacting with others — through conversation, brainstorming, and the experience of others. They value the experiences and perspectives of others in the learning process, and readily build networks and relationships to advance their own learning. Good at interviewing, benchmarking, and group projects, they can easily motivate and engage others in projects and plans.
Information Learners benefit from first-hand reading, research and observation. Information learners flourish when they can gather information, reflect on it, and decide for themselves how it is useful. They are thoughtful, comfortable with detail, and often able to organize and understand complicated data and large amounts of information. Good at seeing patterns, themes, and trends, they can bring objectivity and insight to difficult situations.
Action Learners prefer direct and immediate application of learning — trying different approaches, testing hypotheses, and ‘making things happen.’ They are active, goal-oriented learners, seeking practical ways to implement learning. Often comfortable with trial-and-error, risk and ambiguity, and tight timelines, action learners can quickly change direction if necessary.

Developing awareness and appreciation for all three learning styles has proven to increase the success of individual and team learning. And, in many cases, teams can work more effectively when people with each of the learning styles are represented, valued, and encouraged to contribute through their strongest approach.

Ultimately, flexibility is the key in developing any learning strategy. Expanding the range of learning approaches can bring new insights,

Try This. With your colleagues, explore the scenario below. How could the person/team in this scenario benefit by knowing about learning styles? How could they put it into practice?

After a few weeks, a team realizes that several members are routinely absent from scheduled meetings. Timelines are beginning to slip—jeopardizing the success of the project.

Topic Ten: Mindful learning

Formally called metacognition, “mindful learning” involves both knowledge about the learning process, and the capability of monitoring one’s own learning process. As children, there is a time in our development where we become aware of our own thoughts. Where previously language and thought had been focused outward, thinking eventually shifts to allow an inner dialogue that guides, determines, and helps us plan a course of action.

Individuals who are mindful learners evaluate their thinking processes — literally observing and controlling their own processes of imagination, attention, encoding information, remembering, and reflecting. Mindful learners also question their comprehension of ideas and make decisions about how to approach learning based not only on the nature of material to be learned, but also on their own strengths and weaknesses.

Mindful learning requires a valuable kind of self-knowledge. Building on an awareness of personal strengths and weaknesses, we manage ourselves as a learner by:

Capitalizing on questions, hunches, and doubts.
Building strength in areas where there is room for improvement.
Practicing a variety of strategies to help attend to, encode, remember, and retrieve information.
Reflecting on when, where, and why a given strategy is effective.
Practicing ways of getting around roadblocks and thinking through questions.
Practicing ways of orienting ourselves to an unfamiliar body of information.
Figuring out how much time we need to learn something.
Assessing our own level of understanding about a subject.

Of the many metacognitive strategies that can be learned, self-questioning is among the most effective. This involves asking yourself a common series of questions about what you are learning:

What is the main question, issue, or challenge?
What do I already know about this question/issue?
What assumptions am I making about this question/issue?
What is my plan of action to learn about this question/issue?
Do I need to modify my plan based on new information?
How do I account for the results I am getting?
What could I do differently in the future?

In addition to managing our own learning process, mindful learning requires that we challenge our underlying assumptions — the beliefs and principles that guide our actions, how we think, and the way we make decisions. Sometimes, basic assumptions can limit our learning potential. Based on past experiences, we can think things are “a certain way” — only to find that under new circumstances, our assumptions limit our openness to new ideas and new possibilities.

Through mindful learning, we become active, generative learners — taking the initiative to continually examine our assumptions and the unique interaction between all that we learn, the meaning we make, and the manner in which we express and share what we have learned. We understand the difference between being created by circumstance and creating our own circumstances.

Try This. With your colleagues, explore the scenario below. How could the person/team in this scenario benefit by knowing about mindful learning? How could they put it into practice?

After working several months on a project, you and your team discover that another group in a different part of the business has been working on the same topic. As you start to explore a bit further, you realize that multiple groups in different functions have also been working on related topics—each developing their own approach.

Topic Eleven: Multiple Intelligences

Harvard professor Howard Gardener first suggested that intelligence is not about how smart you are, but how you are smart. Gardener proposed that intelligence is not a single trait or ability but varies by context and subject matter—that different ways of knowing and acting have their own specific intelligence. This represents a fundamental shift in our understanding about individual success and learning ability across different subjects.

Defined as the ability to solve problems or fashion products that are valued in at least one culture or community, Gardener has outlined eight different kinds of intelligences—each with their own unique context for problems and products^v. It is commonly believed that we all possess varying degrees of each of these eight, and that any of the intelligences can be developed further. The greatest success appears to come when individuals leverage their greatest strengths while at the same time work to develop intelligences that could use improvement.

Linguistic: reading, writing, and communicating with words. People that draw heavily on this intelligence include authors, comedians, poets, speakers, and journalists.
Logical-Mathematical: reasoning, calculating, and thinking things through in a logical, systematic manner. People that draw heavily on this intelligence include engineers, scientists, accountants, lawyers, and economists.
Visual-Spatial: thinking in pictures, imagining, and visualizing future possibilities. People that draw heavily on this intelligence include architects, artists, strategists, sailors, and photographers.
Musical: making or composing music, singing, keeping rhythm, and understanding/appreciating music. While we all seem to have some basic musical intelligence that can be developed, people that draw heavily on this intelligence include composers, recording engineers, and musicians.
Bodily-Kinesthetic: using the body to express ideas and/or emotions, skillfully solve problems, building things, and participating in athletics. People that draw heavily on this intelligence include athletes, dancers, surgeons, people who are good with their hands, and people who work in construction.
Interpersonal-Social: working effectively with others, collaborating, and displaying empathy and understanding. People that draw heavily on this intelligence include teachers, facilitators, therapists, politicians, and salespeople.
Intrapersonal: looking inward, reflecting, contemplating, and reviewing one’s own behavior and feelings. People that draw heavily on this intelligence include counselors, philosophers, and, in many cases, leaders.
Naturalist-Ecological: recognizing flora and fauna and making distinctions and seeing patterns in the natural world. People that draw heavily on this intelligence include farmers, botanists, environmentalists, and biologists.

Another Kind of Intelligence – Emotional Intelligence:

For decades now, researchers have suggested that the emotional side of our human experience might be the lost key to more effective learning. In his book, Emotional Intelligence,^vi Daniel Goleman suggests that the intellectually brightest people are often not the most successful—either in business or personal affairs. The variables that explain the discrepancy in most all cases have to do with emotional and social intelligence. In fact, feelings and emotions have a powerful influence on reasoning, and clearly have a say about how the rest of the brain and cognition go about their business.

Try This. With your colleagues, explore the scenario below. How could the person/team in this scenario benefit by knowing about multiple intelligences? How could they put it into practice?

A product development group is having trouble progressing their product ideas past the “proof of concept” phase and securing funding for implementation at scale. Senior management believes they are not adequately capturing real-world user experience evidence to support the investment.

Topic Twelve: Lifelong Learning

Education involves the ongoing cultivation of the human mind—with the aim of building greater understanding, insight, and wisdom. Yet many people equate education only with what is taught in schools, universities, and through formal instruction—believing that independent, ongoing, non-institutionalized learning is not “real” education. The fact is, we go on learning throughout our entire lives. Unfortunately, many people stop paying attention to this lifelong journey.

More than anything, lifelong learning is an attitude—an approach to life that include conscious inquiry, constant exploration, and active personal development. To the lifelong learner, a chance meeting becomes a window into another life-style. A new route to work includes a mini-lesson in urban planning. A stimulating television series begins a search for answers to a community problem.

As lifelong learners, we direct the course of our own learning, and we have what Carol Dweck has called a “growth mindset.”^vii

We are open to new experiences, ideas, information, and insights
We are always exploring things we’d like to know more about—or want to learn how to do better
We learn as much through experiences and exposure to new concepts and ideas as we do from “taking courses”
We know that the kind of life we want to live five years from now requires that we learn new things now
We believe that investing in our own growth is the best investment in our future—both personally and professionally.

Realizing some basic truths about learning and growth can help each of us more effectively manage and direct the course of our own learning:

People who are proactive about their own learning often master more things, and master them better, than those who rely on being taught. The tend to have increased motivation, retain more of what they have learned, and make better use of it in day-to-day living.
Adults learn in different ways than children. We have a different sense of ourselves, of our time, of what’s worth learning, and why.
No one can learn for us. “To learn” is an active process, and as learners we are unique. Ongoing learning is something we must tailor to ourselves—not something we can get ‘ready-made.’
No particular way of learning is more superior than another. How we each learn depends on temperament, circumstances, and our stage in life. Success in lifelong learning depends more on your passion for the subject.
There is no prescribed curriculum that everybody must or should learn. The scope of lifelong learning stretches far beyond the subjects taught in schools and through formal programs.
Growing older may change what, why, and how we learn, but it does not diminish our capacity to learn.

Taking charge of our learning—learning to learn— is the truest form of “graduation.” It is the end of being taught what ‘everyone must know,’ and the beginning of learning what each of us, individually, most needs to discover in our life path. It can be argued that learning to learn and practicing across the arc of our life is one of the most critical factors for shaping our future—for discovering new opportunities and turning those opportunities into new value for ourselves and others. With each new opportunity we encounter, we can ask:

How am I feeling about this new opportunity, new information, or new experience?
How does this new opportunity relate to what I already know and do?
What assumptions and biases might influence how I capture value from this opportunity?
What is my strategy for involving others, co-creating value, and sharing value with others?
How is my experience pursuing this opportunity changing who I am and who I am becoming?

Try This. With your colleagues, explore the scenario below. How could the person/team in this scenario benefit by knowing about lifelong learning? How could they put it into practice?

You have been asked to lead a newly formed department in a different part of the business. Accepting the role will mean moving across the globe to a country where your native tongue is not the primary language. Almost everything about your work and life will change.

ⁱ John Redding is president and founder of Institute for Strategic Learning, John has 30 years of experience as a strategic planning facilitator, personally leading planning sessions for over 150 organizations. Islconsulting.com
ⁱⁱ Adapted from Rose & Nicholl, Accelerated Learning for the 21st Century.
ⁱⁱⁱ The Institute for Research on Learning (IRL) in Palo Alto, California, was co-founded by John Seeley Brown, then chief research scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center, and James Greeno. Professor of Education at Stanford University with the support of David Kearns CEO of Xerox Corporation in 1986 through a grant from the Xerox Foundation. It operated from 1986 to 2000 as an independent cross-disciplinary think tank with a mission to study learning in all its forms and sites.
^iv See Frederic LaLoux, Reinventing Organizations. Nelson Parker, 2016, and Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini. Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them. Harvard University Press, 2020.
^v Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons. Basic Books, 2006.
^vi Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why it Can Matter More Than IQ. Bantam Books, 1995
^vii Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Ballantine Books, 2006.