We had an interesting Skype conversation at L&B this morning as Caroline shared the story of how her 6 year old had dismantled his bed with an allen key last night! Dilesh responded ‘Oh dear’ which was exactly what I’d been about to type …so instead I wrote ‘Clever boy’. Now that was very easy for me to say, and I’d been much less encouraging when one of my children removed all the zip fasteners from our cushions recently! Caroline agreed and added that now she just needs him to put it to constructive use.
And that’s the thing with learning – one person’s exploration is another persons inconvenience. The same thing happens at school where the teacher is hoping the class will learn the social skills of sitting nicely, not interrupting and listening to each other, a child is far more interested in learning what happens when they stretch an elastic band as far as it will go.
So it’s hardly surprising that workplace L&D teams find encouraging people to take responsibility for their own learning one of the most difficult challenges they face. At the same time they know that if they can encourage that love of learning into their workforce the pressure on them to provide learning opportunities will diminish and they will be able to focus on what will really make a difference in moving their business forward.
So what simple things can we all do for our families, friends, and work colleagues to help rekindle that ability to learn every day in whatever we’re doing. Here are three to consider:
- Give people opportunities to make mistakes. It’s like ice skating, the best thing to do when you’re learning is fall over so you realise it’s OK and begin to lose the fear of falling. How at work can you give people low risk tasks that they want do perfectly first time so they can start to let go of that fear and unlock their potential?
- When people do make mistakes look first for the positive intention behind their action. Your teenage daughter might have burnt your best pan, but she did it while trying to cook you all dinner.
- When you you think of the positive intention it will help you to be able to respond rather than react. So you will be able to praise the ingenuity of working out how to use an allen key …and then mention where, and when in the future would be a good time to try out that skill again.
Gill
Great observations Gill,
I especially like your 3rd point about ‘responding’ rather than ‘reacting’. To often, I react to mistakes and focus on the error rather than a more considered approach that focuses on the intent.
On reflection, I think this is more true at home rather than at work. When I’m working as a trainer, I think I have a more forgiving and ‘developing’ head on. At home I guess I’m a Dad and husband who is more likely to react to mistakes.
Thanks for making me think