Learning

Enhancing Lifelong Learning

It's never been more important than it is today for employees to engage in continuous learning. The world is changing so rapidly -- technologically, economically, sociologically -- that a person who stops learning today will be a dinosaur tomorrow.

Effective learning doesn't have to take place in a traditional classroom (though it might). Cutting-edge workers learn constantly; the entire world becomes their classroom.

If this doesn't sound like your workforce (yet), you can take some steps to enhance the learning capacities of your employees. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Idea #1: Harness learning motivations that already exist.

As with learning, so with anything else: you can't create a motive in someone else that doesn't already exist. The best you can do is to take advantage of... to channel or to harness... a motive that already exists.

Some people find learning enjoyable for its own sake, but many do not. For those who do not, learning (especially if the idea of learning is associated with negative experiences from the individual's school days) has to be made relevant to the world in which the person lives and works.

Studies indicate that about 25% of the general population enjoys ideas, concepts, and theories for their own sake. The remaining 75% has a more pragmatic focus, and will learn something new only if it has a concrete, practical application. Try a hands-on demonstration of the new technique or approach first, then work backwards to the underlying principles, when dealing with someone who resists "all words and ideas" type training.

Idea #2: Identify individuals' optimal learning styles.

One influential model of learning suggests four basic ways people learn:

	By reading and conceptualizing (abstract-solitary)
	By listening and discussing (abstract-interactive)
	By watching and observing (concrete-solitary)
	By doing and experiencing (concrete-interactive)

Can you recognize your best style from those above? Many people find that they can't learn effectively, or even stay motivated and interested, when material is presented to them in the wrong mode. Don't assume that others are like you... offer a variety of training approaches that match different employees' best learning styles.

Idea #3: Teach to both sides of the brain.

You may not always feel as if you have even one brain before that first cup of morning coffee, but neurologically you have three. To avoid larynx-choking words like "amygdala" that are hard to drop into casual conversation, let's call them the Logical Brain, the Intuitive Brain, and the Primitive Brain. The last of these three is mostly useful for activities like rage, terror, and professional football, so we'll set it aside and focus on the other two.

	The Logical Brain reasons in a linear, step by step fashion and can explain its conclusions in words.
	The Intuitive Brain, in contrast, uses nonlinear or random-access, wholistic or "Gestalt", reasoning and reaches its conclusions in flashes of insight that are difficult if not impossible to articulate.

Traditional education is geared strongly to the Logical Brain and tends to bypass the Intuitive Brain... boring it to death in the process. (Imagine attending a lecture with the sound turned off, or a lecture given in a foreign language you don't understand, and you'll start to get the idea.) Integrative learning plays to both sides of the brain by making use of nonverbal elements like pictures, color, music, physical activity, and the like. Don't lock yourself into the "talking heads" approach to training!

Idea #4: Model, and reward, mental curiosity.

Most people believe what you do, not what you say. If you haven't learned anything new since 1965, how can you expect those who report to you to do anything different? Between now and a month from now, do one thing to learn something completely outside your area of expertise or responsibility, whether by taking a class, surfing the Net, watching an educational TV program, having an informational interview with someone who works in an unrelated field, or reading a magazine you'd normally dismiss as boring or irrelevant. Surprisingly, studies indicate that the main difference between highly creative types and others is not intelligence, but "mental cross-fertilization": the assumption that all knowledge will be relevant sooner or later, and a willingness to pay attention to matters that don't have obvious immediate significance -- to chase the mental rabbit where it runs.

For more, contact Business Development Group. We offer a range of seminars and workshops that put these ideas into practice for you, and can custom-design a workshop on almost any topic you name!

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