What is a Learning Culture?
You can usually tell how my week has been based on when I get my Thoughtful Thursday email out đ Last weekend I did my 17k in the heat of sun, an anomaly, mostly recently training before sunrise or after sunset and I was reminded how much harder it is. The race itself is during daylight hours but in winter, so my training needs to include some more heat training but I dare say for the next 3 months Iâll try and avoid it as much as I can. 18k this weekend! The xmas tree went up last weekend in casa del Morris and so far the kids have left it alone. Lucy âgraduatedâ from âpre-prepâ which was adorable and is all set for prep next year. Harvey is rocking a pony tail and wears pink as he does all colours so often gets mistaken for a girl by the small minded or âpre-programmedâ đ
This week Iâve been thinking about learning culture. What is a learning culture? What do you think of? Most people might suggest âa culture that promotes, supports and enables continuous learningâ or âwhere learning is built in to a part of everyday business processesâ. But what is learning? I think most people would default respond by thinking that learning could include doing an online or classroom training session on a topic, a multi-day course, a formal certification or qual, a webinar, a lunch & learn, etc. But, when you consider a best practice learning model of 70-20-10, these previously mentioned examples would be included in the smallest component, the 10%, of structured formal learning or training, where 20% is social learning and 70% should come from experiential learning. So if I asked you to talk to me about your learning over the past 12 months, 70% ideally should come from experience. So therefore, I ask, what have you learned through your experience? For me, if I listed all my learnings for the year I am confident that the vast majority of my learning would have been experiential, but I have as you know also had a fair bit of social and formal learning too. But further to this I would add that a learning culture also incorporates continuous improvement and attitudes toward trying new things, failing, capturing lessons learned and making mistakes. A learning culture is a progressive culture, it is not a fearful culture. If we are afraid of learning new things, doing new things, working in new ways, failing or making mistakes, then we still have a way to go. Everything is a learning opportunity and in fact the best learning comes from trying and failing. The focus should be on attitudes toward failures and how we then make ourselves better as a result. If we keep making the same mistakes then we are not learning. In a learning culture staff understand the value of learning and growing and are self-motivated to do so. If say we only know now what we knew 12 months ago then we have not learned or grown. As you know weâve put a lot of effort this year into driving a learning culture and this will continue into 2021 â culture change doesnât happen overnight!
Example maturity model where âlearningâ is:
Available but not integrated into BAU
Integrated into BAU in some areas but inconsistently
integrated into BAU within teams but inconsistently across teams
integrated into BAU and consistently across teams
optimized, proactive, and apparent in all processes and interactions
But culture change is hard, and uncomfortable. As humans generally we like comfort. We like safe. We resist change. But comfort is generally no change and therefore no progress. Progress is therefore discomfort. Good leadership involves not protecting people from change but rather encouraging the embrace of change and constantly exposing staff to and driving growth opportunities. Championing change. Using a green-thumb leadership model we could use a growing tree as an analogy. The harsh elements make the tree stronger and the trees who canât manage changing elements often donât make it. So if I could suggest any skill to prioritise beyond any other hard or soft skill you have, it would be to be skilful in change, flexibility, versatility, and adaptation otherwise you might struggle when facing the harsh elements.
As always my week includes conversations with staff, colleagues and mentees around career development. Weâve put a lot of time into these types of chats this year, âwhatâs next for you?â etc. So I ask you: Where do you see yourself in 5 years? What are you doing to make that happen? You might answer âI see myself in my current role doing exactly what Iâm doing now in exactly the same way that Iâm doing it now in 5 yearsâ timeâ and history might support you feeling this way given the pace of change at times, but I would urge you to reconsider the risk in this thinking. If in 5 yearsâ time youâd like to see yourself in a different role â what are you doing about it? For example Iâm not going to run my marathon just by thinking about it. As per my tips last week if you see career progress in your future you need to take hold of it and get onto some action. Talk is cheap. And without getting too sciency the brain decays faster if not in a state of learning.
Top reads of the week:
Case study: how to ace strategic workplace planning - HRM online
The end of 9-5: 'Complete and utter trust' fuels move to flexible working at PepsiCo - Taking a people-centric approach to its HR strategy, PepsiCo believes a one-size-fits-all model is no longer functional for a modern workforce. âWhat we see as a result from this is our people reaching their full potential and performance.â
5 skills leaders must develop to lead hybrid teams:
ability to flow through different communication mediums for different uses
skilled at providing their team members autonomy.
proactive about staying in contact with their team, dispersed or not.
leave no room for ambiguity
mastered the skill of communicating the big picture, often
Read more:
75 behavioural questions you might encounter at interview â a great resource to save if you see an interview in your future:
How to Deal with Constantly Feeling Overwhelmed â I know its not just me out there â some good reminders here:
A good read breaking down our experience through covid into 4 phases and looking to where to next:
https://mwah.live/blog/the-covid-quadrella?mc_cid=311c9c03b8&mc_eid=667960cf2a
DPC NSW has jumped on the FlexReady certification wagon will be interesting to see which other orgs do too:
Keep well and please prioritise that which matters most! đ