Be the Learn-It-All
/A few weeks ago, Chief Learning Officer published an article I wrote about reimagining our learn-it-all culture. (If you fancy a longer read, you can find it here.) To summarize, I captured a few key strategies of a modern approach to learning at work and included ways you might bring these to life as a leader:
Make it personal. Find room for high-impact personalized learning experiences like mentorship programs and coaching. How might you meet each individual where they are? Seeing (and valuing!) people as unique individuals keeps motivation high.
Engage storytelling. In my virtual leadership workshops, I often invite colleagues to share stories about learning from failure. This simple, yet humbling act can have a big impact on team members’ ability to connect. Sometimes we all share a big laugh. Other stories reveal vulnerability. When we share our stories, we can see each other for who we are - human.
Celebrate risk-taking. Destigmatizing failure by talking about lessons learned can also nudge your teams toward more rapid innovation. Try the prompt: “What new thing did you try this week?” Added bonus for not taking ourselves too seriously, e.g., “Well, I tried this and that sure didn’t work, but here’s what I’d do differently… Onto the next experiment!”
Create synchronous and asynchronous learning moments. Yep, for many of us, we’re now adjusting to greater variety in when, where, and how our teams work —and learn. But that shouldn’t translate to a haphazard learning strategy. As leaders, we can create diverse choices with intention, while bringing our teams back to our shared purpose.
Writing the Chief Learning Officer article prompted my own reflection about learning. With so many demands on our time, learning can feel like a luxury. I’ll confess I’ve had moments of feeling downright indulgent for taking the time to learn something new. But with the speed of business (and life!) at full throttle, we can’t afford to not engage our curiosity and develop new skills. Continuous learning may just be the most valuable skill to cultivate.
Learning can also feel uncomfortable. When we admit we’re learning something new, we’re no longer the expert. For those of us later in our careers, we’ve become accustomed to, well, knowing things. We like to think we have something of value to offer. Learning a new skill takes us out of our comfort zone. It brings us into wobbly territory.
My young daughter is terrified to learn how to ride a bike. While she’s confident at many things (reading, dancing, making instructional selfie videos), she has no current desire to tackle learning this skill, the simple pleasure of bicycle riding, that many of us enjoy.
“I don’t want to fall,” she shared with me. Understandable. But many things worth doing in life call us to skin our knees and elbows to take us to the other side. It’s all part of the process.
At work, we may experience similar fear of learning a new skill. We wobble through adopting new technologies through a series of trial and errors. We experiment with new leadership techniques and approaches that we know will make us more effective in the long run, even when they feel foreign at first. If we’re brave, we even ask for feedback in the moment. “Hey, I’m working on improving how I lead a meeting. Can you share some things that worked for you and things I could do better?” And just when we get our sea legs and gain more confidence, it’s time to learn the next new thing.
When we’re among mentors and colleagues who support us in this continuous learning journey, our growth is limitless. That’s why I often refer to the growth mindset as a muscle that gets stronger as we engage it. Suddenly the ungraceful, floundering process of learning something new is familiar. We’re used to it. It becomes a comfortable t-shirt. We start to crave the next challenge to take us to that state of discomfort. That’s a learn-it-all culture in motion.
I hope you’re riding gently into summer and making up for lost time with family and friends. Maybe this will be the summer my daughter learns to ride her bike – or maybe not. But when she’s ready, my hope is the bigger lesson about learning will last her a lifetime.