Develop Learning Techniques

“Organizations learn only through individuals who learn. Individual learning does not guarantee organizational learning. But without it no organizational learning occurs,” Senge (1990)

What is Learning

Learning can be defined as a measurable and relatively permanent change in behaviour through experience, instruction, study, or being taught. Chris Argyris (1990) explains learning as “detection and correction of error” where an error means “any mismatch between our intentions and what actually happens.”

As a leader, you need to understand how people learn and the different types of learning methods used both inside and outside the workplace so that you are able to help your team members:

Develop in their jobs
Develop in their careers
Perform better
Take ownership of their learning

You also need to take ownership of your own continuous learning.

Understanding How People Learn

People learn in different ways, and by understanding how you and your team members learn will help you be more effective in, for example, designing and implementing training and personal development programmes as well as how you communicate and work together.
Although there is some disagreement as to their validity, there are numerous ‘learning style’ theories that account for the differences in how people learn, the three most popular theories perhaps being VAK, Kolb (1984), and Honey and Mumford (1992).
These models are described in the Spotlight ‘Learning Styles’ (The Institute of Leadership & Management, 2018).

Personal Development Planning

People can have very different ways of learning, their learning style, so someone else cannot tell as well as you can what learning activity is going to work for you, so you have to decide and plan it for yourself. Your manager is there to support, guide, advise and perhaps to coach you, but not to tell you everything you should do. There are three key questions in creating your personal development plan:

What do you need to learn? You can use visualisation to help you decide on your plan. Pictures and graphics can be very powerful, and visualisation means having a vivid and detailed mental picture in your mind of an event, activity, or your desired result. Visualization works best when you are calm, relaxed, and willing to give yourself time to focus in peace, without immediate worries or distractions.

There are many different ways of learning at work. People can use almost any kind of relevant experience as a learning opportunity to gain knowledge or learn new skills or new behaviours. Opportunities vary from:

formal to informal
structured to self-directed
on-the-job to off-the-job experiences.

Each one has advantages and disadvantages:

Informal Learning

Learning takes place through the many informal opportunities to gain knowledge or new behaviours, for example:

Overhearing a useful conversation between colleagues
Using an internet search engine
Watching and learning other people who do these things well
Phoning or emailing a colleague in another workplace who may have the information you want
Learning from mistakes
Joining an on-line group who work in the same industry or sector that you do
Reading books/ articles in trade/ professional magazines relating to the skills you are seeking
Asking a colleague for information
Watching videos recorded by ‘experts’
Reading blogs, top tips and other freely available information
Volunteering to cover for a colleague’s absence
Trying a new task or activity in the workplace

(Argyis, 1990)

Learning is also a social process and interest in social learning has grown significantly due to the rapid rise in information availability via social media. Sharing ideas and lessons learnt, listening to different perspectives and interpretations of knowledge is a good way of improving and testing your own understanding and helping you to put your learning into practice. Engagement in ‘communities of practice’ with people who have similar interests is a particularly good way to learn from others. The choice of method you decide to use will be determined by several factors including: