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Learning in a New World
February 01, 2010
By Chris Majer
It is time to revolutionize the way we approach learning in the business world. For too long we have settled for dispensing tips, techniques, information, and motivational pabulum. If we are going to be the world's source of innovation, regain our competitive prominence, and rebuild our economy, we need to completely overhaul the standard practices for learning, as they are clearly not up to the task. Why do I say that?
In a world where performance is the driver of your company's future, where competition is global, and where everything you do matters, it doesn't make sense to believe we can reshape our companies to be newly competitive with one-day seminars, check lists, stories, slogans, posters, and rah rah meetings. The world is making tectonic shifts, and we are meeting it with puny responses.
Let's start by looking at the phenomenon of learning and the practice of it. The root of our problem is we have been operating with a dysfunctional view of what learning is. In the commonly held view, learning is seen as the acquisition of new theories, models, beliefs, ideas, and information. The goal of this process is to produce understanding as we think if we understand we know. This is a view taken from academia, and it doesn't serve us in the corporate world. On this faulty foundation we built a vast array of corporate universities, course offerings, e-learning, distance learning, and more, all designed to dispense information. The dilemma with all these is while they work well for dispensing information, they do not and cannot work for authentic learning. Here is why.
Authentic learning must be seen as the development of new competence, a new capacity for action. Thus, what you understand may be interesting at lunchtime conversations, but what you can do is the only thing that matters on the job. The goal of any learning program must be the development of what we call "embodied competence." Embodied means you can take the desired new action without having to stop, think about it, or refer to a book. Competence is the capacity to consistently produce the desired result.
There is only one way to produce embodied competence, and that is through practice. No amount of understanding will produce competence. Practice does. The reason for this is simple. While the mind understands, and understanding can occur in an instant, it is the body that learns, and the body only learns through practice.
Let's look at an experience most of us have had—learning to drive. The state you learned to drive in didn't say to you, "Read this manual, go to this motivational talk by NASCAR drivers, sit in your room and visualize yourself driving, take a test, and we will give you a license." No—what they said was "read the manual and show us you understand the basic rules of the road, and more importantly, demonstrate you know how to drive. Once you can do both we will grant you a license." How did you learn? By consistent, recurrent practice. No amount of reading the driver's manual will produce competence at driving.
Where we get ourselves off track is when we think learning new leadership or management practices is any different. You can read all the books, magazines, and Websites; do all the checklists, list all the tips, and none of that will make you a better leader. What it will do is help you understand new skills you may want to learn, but understanding and developing competence are not the same thing. If you really want to learn, the only way to do it is to get yourself into a structured learning process focused on producing new competence, not more understanding.
Another of our treasured illusions is you can go off on your own and learn. It doesn't work that way. You can sit in your office and read about leadership all day and what you get is understanding and delusion. You understand something new and delude yourself into thinking you can already do it or that you will never be able to do it. Either way you set yourself up to fail. Authentic learning takes place in the presence of a community of committed learners. You surround yourself with people who are committed to learn, who will help you stay the course when you want to quit, and who will accurately assess your progress—something none of us can do for ourselves. You work with a competent coach, and if you have patience and persistence, you will learn.
Let's look at another example to understand why this is important. Assume for the moment you play golf, and you make the decision you want to make a serious improvement in your game. What are you going to do? Read Tiger Wood's book and expect your game to get better? Are you going to watch the golf channel and buy some of the gadgets they sell? No, you say, "I am no fool, I'm going to go to the range and practice"—the common mistake. Let's review. I said you had made the decision to make a serious improvement in your game. If you go to the range and practice, all you are going to do is more deeply embed the practices you said weren't working. If you want to get serious about improving your game, you are going to hire a coach and engage in a structured program of learning. You will go to the range with the coach and she will watch your swing for while and then say, "Move your hands like this, bend you knees more, shift your weight, and let's see how that changes things."
As anyone who has been through this will tell you, those next shots are usually terrible. Why? Because the new practice is just that—new. It is awkward, uncomfortable, and you are slightly embarrassed as the ball is doing things that are supposedly impossible. If left to your own devices you would go right back to the comfortable known. The coach's job is to see you through this awkward beginners' stage and guide you through the process of building new competence. If you stick with it, and follow the guidance of the coach, you will quickly watch your game improve. The process for learning new leadership and management practices isn't any different.
I can sit with a group of executives and have a conversation about risk taking. They are bright, and will understand and agree they ought to make bolder moves, and that it will involve risk-taking. I can show them great videos, tell them stories about bold risk takers, and bring in great motivational speakers who will get them fired up. They will go charging out of the room and back to their jobs, and the next time a risky situation comes up they will do exactly as they always have. Why? Because dealing with risk involves knowing how to work with fear. Fear isn't an idea you have. It lives in your body. If you don't develop practices for dealing with fear you will never be more of a risk taker than you are today. No amount of understanding is going to produce a shift in the behavior.
It's a whole new world out there, and if we are going to claim our place in it we need to reinvent everything. We need new practices for leadership, management, teamwork, innovation, strategic thinking, and mobilization. Nearly everything we do in business today is based on the same thinking and methods that were developed in WWII. What we have done since is add technology so we can do a lot of outmoded things quickly.
The fundamental role of a leader is to be the architect of the future for his or her organization. There is no future without authentic learning. Thus, it is time to restructure nearly all current training and human resources offerings. There will be great resistance to this, and new leaders will have to emerge, but it is time for a bit of revolution!
Chris Majer is CEO of
The Human Potential Project.
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