Tag Archives: development

Leadership Minute: Start doing, stop doing, keep doing.

Posted on May 14, 2009 | 2 Comments

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Posted in leadership, learning

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Adult Experiential Learning Cycle

Posted on February 25, 2009 | 1 Comment

Adult Experiential Learning Cycle

  • Experiencing - designed to generate individual data from one or more of the senses (hear, smell, taste, see, touch), thinking (interpreting, judging, conclusions, assumptions – based on past experience i.e. stored information), action (verbal and nonverbal), wanting or intending, feeling (positive/negative affective or emotional responses) modes.
  • Reflection & Sharing- to report the data generated from the experience. The purpose is three-fold. First, the person having the experience, in their sharing, learns to articulate the experience and in so doing expands that experience. They also learn the skill of effective communication. Third, on hearing other people’s experiences, add to the depth and breadth of their seemingly unique experience.adult-experiential-learning-cycle
  • Interpreting -  to make sense of the data generated for both individuals and the group. Interpretations allow me to formulate a position or hypothesis about my experiences. With this in hand I can go into the “real’ world” to test my hypothesis.
  • Generalizing - to develop hypotheses and abstractions from the data.
  • Applying - to bridge the present and the future by understanding and/or planning how these generalizations can be put into operation.
  • Revising & Repeating – through trial and error the learning becomes personalized and the behaviour turns into a habit over time

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Posted in leadership, learning

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Empowerment framework for decision making like a CEO

Posted on February 20, 2009 | Leave a comment

CEO’s and Entrepreneurs who are interested in delegating decisions to their team need to setup a framework for that empowerment so that they feel comfortable with the way decisions are made.

Here are the six questions that CEOs and Entrepreneurs ask themselves when they are making decisions:

  1. Is it good for our customers?
  2. Is it good for our company?
  3. Is it financially responsible?
  4. Is it consistent with our core values and ethical?
  5. Are we okay with the precedent that this decision sets?
  6. Are the key people who are affected by this decision in the loop?

Empowerment

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Posted in leadership

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What Entrenches Learning?

Posted on February 18, 2009 | Leave a comment

What Entrenches Learning?

  • Modeling – model what world-class practitioners do
  • Immersion – immerse myself completely in the learning
  • Spaced Repetition – schedule regular follow-up [this is one of the more critical pieces as our research at ViRTUS has shown that spaced repetition is the critical stage in shifting a new behavior into a habit and finally a style]

Entrenching Learning

(source: Robbins Research International, Inc. (RRI))

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Posted in leadership, learning

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The Five Stages of Learning

Posted on February 13, 2009 | 3 Comments

The Five Stages of Learning:

  1. Unconscious incompetence – I don’t know what I don’t know
  2. Conscious incompetence – I know what I don’t know
  3. Conscious competence – I know what I know
  4. Unconscious competence – I don’t know what I know
  5. Reflective or enlightened competence – I am aware that I don’t know what I know but I can shift back into conscious competence to teach someone else

five-stages-of-learning

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Interactive Business Learning Experiences™

Posted on February 10, 2009 | Leave a comment

Interactive Business Learning Experiences™

Interactive Business Learning Experiences™ can best be described as a process of making generalizations and conclusions about one’s own direct experiences, then applying the learning’s to the “real world.” It emphasizes directly experiencing what I am studying, building a personal commitment to learning with and through others, and being responsible for organizing conclusions drawn from experiences. In experiential learning, the responsibility for learning is on the participant, not on the facilitator/teacher. The facilitator is responsible for creating the learning experiment – participants pull the relevant learning out of the experience and are responsible for application to their lives.

Here are the key tenets of ViRTUS Interactive Business Learning Experiences™:

  •  that the learner is involved in the design and evaluation of their learning – commitment to learning is highest when a person is free to set her or his own learning goals and actively pursue them within a given framework or staged event
  • that mistakes are part of the process of refinement
  • that the subject being learned has relevance to their current situation
  • that the learning is focused on problem solving versus memorizing content
  • that learning is transferable (what, so what, now what?)
  • that the learner is learning with other people who are similarly engaged and interested in the topic
  • involves a process of refining my emotional intelligence
  • that we learn best when involved in a personally memorable learning experience
  • that knowledge has to be discovered by a person if it is to mean anything to her or him or make a difference in his or her behaviors
  • that the learning “comes alive” when I take responsibility for applying it to my personal and professional life

 Lasting behavioral change demands people’s emotional engagement through experiential learning. The overarching objective is to increase the options available to a person in the face of new but similar situations. It is process learning, not so much content learning. It’s about learning how to learn (UBC’s Motto – “tuum est” – a Latin phrase which translates to “it is yours” or “it is up to you”).

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Posted in human resources, leadership, learning

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Top Ten Articles from McKinsey Quarterly for 2008

Posted on January 7, 2009 | 1 Comment

mckinseyIf you’re anything like me then you have a stack of magazines, books, articles, emails, and video in your “to read” pile.  So I was quite thankful to receive this link from Tana Heminsley  for the McKinsey Quarterly listing of the top ten articles for 2008 covering topics ranging from leadership and technology to strategy.

When you click this link you’ll get a summary of the top ten (free registration is required to read the entire article).

And if you’re on Twitter you can follow them at: http://twitter.com/McKQuarterly


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Andragogy versus Pedagogy.

Posted on November 5, 2008 | 3 Comments
Pedagogy  

 

 

Pedagogy

The distinction between the old style of university lecture learning (pedagogy – child learning) where the professor has the answer or it’s in a book, and our job is to write down as fast as possible the “nuggets” of information for the purpose of memorizing it for a test of recollection versus application filtered it’s way into business and leadership training within organizations a long time ago and even though it’s time has passed (while actually, it never really work all that well), there are still many organizations who are using an academic approach to attempting to develop leaders within their organization.  It’s usually referred to as “training” and it’s the mind-numbingly boring “fill my glass” approach to learning that causes most adults to slip into a waking coma for extended periods of time.

A few years ago (1833) a psychologist named Alexander Kapp developed a much better approach: Andragogy (adult learning).  This model supposes that the learner is involved in the design and evaluation of their learning, that mistakes are part of the process of refinement, that the subject being learned has relevance to their current situation, and that the learning is focused on problem solving versus memorizing content.

In my experience the andragogy approach leads to the key thing that’s required in leadership development: actual changes in behaviour over the long term.  Without an actual change in behaviour the result is “academics” who can preach about leadership but who demonstrate a complete lack of application.  We have a model that we use at ViRTUS called the Video Test: turn off the volume and watch what people do.  It’s a much better determinant of a person’s abilities.

When adragogy is blended with immersion and spaced repetition it’s amazing the difference in the ability of adults to take concepts and turn them into behaviours and habits.

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