Building Learning Into Experience Individual Learning from Experience

Building Learning Into Experience Individual Learning from Experience

1. Trust. 2. Learning Tactics.

Information Network Innovation Network

Two Types of Trust Matter Strong Ties (frequent and close interaction) Weak Ties (infrequent interaction) Benevolencebased trust I trust you will not harm me when given the opportunity Competencebased trust I trust you know what you are talking about Receipt of Useful Knowledge

Do you trust MD? What would you trust him with or for?

Give Me Three Minutes of Thought: What actions can you take that promotes trust in you? – Consider someone you trust and tell me why. How and when did trust develop in the relationship? What actions can you take that depletes trust in you? – Consider someone you dis-trust and tell me why. How and when did trust get destroyed in the relationship?

Building Interpersonal Trust in Networks • Act with discretion – both for yourself and others. • Match words and deeds – managing expectations is critical. • Communicate often and well – quality matters!! • Establish shared vision & language – simple things matter. • Highlight knowledge boundaries – for credibility & signals to others. • Know when to step out of your role – key development point in relations. • Give away something first – networks and knowledge. • Help refine unclear ideas – not “Come to me with answers” • Create accountability for trustworthy behavior – and evaluate it. • Ensure fair & transparent decisions – avoid “trickle down” of mis-trust.

Trust Plays Out In Big and Small Leadership Decisions

1. Trust. 2. Learning Tactics.

“Only a minute part of a manager’s time is spent in the classroom, suggesting that it is the other 99. 9% of the time that the bulk of development takes place. ” Mc. Call, Lombardo & Morrison, 1988 • Experience is a powerful teacher, but too often people get too locked into surviving the present. • Mc. Call, Lombardo and Morrison (1988) surveyed 191 executives from six major corporations and found three broad categories of educational experiences: – Assignments – Bosses – Hardships • …but all people do not learn equally well from experience and some individuals resist or avoid unfamiliar experiences to their detriment. Adapted from Lindsey, Homes & Mc. Call, 1987

Learning Tactics Inventory • Developed from extensive research at the Center for Creative Leadership. • Does not measure personality or info processing style but rather a series of behaviors managers use when engaging in learning from experience. • No right or wrong approach…all this begins to assess are relative preferences in learning that you have. • However, how people learn and what they learn are inextricably bound. • Take 5 minutes and review the completed questions on pages 1 -2. Once done, please read text on pages 3 -4.

Learning Tactic: Action Taking action to learn and solve problems. Learning is largely done by engaging in the task and learning from the situation itself (not necessarily waiting for all the data or input from all others). • Using Tactic Well: 1) Time efficiency; 2) Learning while getting things done and 3) Learning is based on real experience. • Overuse: 1) Action before relevant data in; 2) May repeat old mistakes or things others have already done and 3) May damage relationships with those not consulted.

Learning Tactic: Thinking through issues ahead of time. Taking action to learn and solve problems. Learning is solitary and internal and includes reflecting on the past and anticipating the future (e. g. , rehearsal or planning). • Using Tactic Well: 1) Actions taken tend to be effective and efficient; 2) Few surprises and 3) Quality of solution is often high. • Overuse: 1) Lets you put off doing anything; 2) Might overlook what others can tell you and 3) Solutions might be aesthetic but not feasible in real situations.

Learning Tactic: Accessing Others Gaining assistance and support from others to solve problems. This includes both active information seeking through others as well as observation and vicarious learning. • Using Tactic Well: 1) Saves time; 2) Improve solution by leveraging others and 3) Builds future social capital. • Overuse: 1) Talk issues to death and 2) Overlook your own experience or formal documents and 3) May mis-place trust in confident sounding others.

Learning Tactic: Feeling emotions and attitudes and considering how the event affects you. These behaviors help acknowledge and manage the feelings of anxiety from facing an unknown challenge. Allows people to engage and do so in a productive way. • Using Tactic Well: 1) Enables people to take risks; 2) Enables one to maximize learning from the experience. • Overuse: 1) Paralysis; 2) Can over-react to internal states and miss task demands.

Managing anxiety is critical to learning at both a conscious and unconscious level… Innovation and Development is Inherently About Taking CALCULATED RISKS People succeed competitively in the work force (and on a personal level) by stepping out…doing things differently and at some level going against the grain…

Scoring Your Preferences • Go to pages 6 -7 and take 5 minutes to determine your scores and then plot them on the interpretation sheet. • Once done please transfer these scores to the participant book.

Individual Reflection • How people learn and what they learn are inextricably inter-related. • People comfortable with a greater variety of learning tactics are more likely to approach and learn effectively from a broader range of situations. • Complete pages 8 -9 in learning tactics inventory.

We often reflect and learn in unstructured ways. We want to put more emphasis on the process. But first, an exercise…