Learning in a New World

In a world where performance is the driver of your company's future, where competition is global, where everything you do matters it just doesn't make sense to believe that we can reshape our companies to be newly competitive with one day seminars on this and that, 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 entire phenomenon of learning and then turn our attention to the practice of it.  The root of our problem is that 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 that if we understand we know.  This is a view that is taken from the academic world and it doesn't serve us in the corporate world.  On this faulty foundation we have built a vast array of corporate universities, course offerings, e-learning, distance learning, and more that are all designed to dispense information.  The dilemma with all of these is that 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 some book.  Competence is simply 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 ever produced 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.  I know this is a big departure from the norm so let's go through it in a bit more detail.

Let's look at an experience that we have all had in common, learning to drive. The state that 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 your self driving, take a test and we will give you a license." No - what they said was read the manual and show us that you understand the basic rules of the road, and more importantly demonstrate that 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 drivers manual will produce competence at driving.  This example is simple and everyone can see the process clearly. 

Where we get ourselves off track is when we somehow think that learning new leadership or management practices is any different.  You can read all of the books, magazines, and web-sites; do all the checklists, and list all of the tips and none of that will make you a better leader. What it will do is help you understand new skills that 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 that is focused on producing new competence, not more understanding. 

Another of our treasured illusions is that 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 either thinking that 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 that you play golf and you make the decision that you want to make a serious improvement in your game.  What are you going to do?  Are you going to 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 am 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 the range and practice all you are going to do is more deeply imbed the practices that 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 a bit 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 they will all understand and agree that they ought to make some bolder moves and that involves taking risk.  I can show them some great video about risk taking, tell them stories about bold risk takers, and bring in great motivational speakers who will get them all fired up.  They will go charging out of the room and back to their jobs and the very 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 that you have it lives in your body.  If you don't develop practices for dealing with fear you will never be any 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 that we do is 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 outmoded things quickly.

The fundamental role of a leader is to be the architect of the future for his organization.  There is no future without authentic learning. Thus it is time to restructure nearly all of the current training programs and HR offers.  There will be great resistance to this and new leaders will have to emerge, but it is time for a bit of revolution!