Learning and the Way We Work AEA 2018

Learning and the Way We Work AEA 2018

Julia Coffman Director 2 Tanya Beer Associate Director Kelci Price Senior Director, Learning and Evaluation

What are we aiming for? Learning as a product. “Here is what we learned” Learning as an event. “Today is the day we learn” vs. Learning as a way of working, a set of developed capacities and regularly-practiced habits that improve an organization’s collective capacity to achieve the outcomes they want. 3

Let’s be more strategic and evaluative about how we support learning. 1. Clarify thethe results youyou want—What new behaviors are Clarifying results want—What are you aiming for with your learning work? are aiming for with learning work? 2. Diagnosing the systemic factors that are getting in the way of learning or helping to support it. 3. Develop a range of strategies to address the roadblocks and support the facilitating factors. 4

1. Making thinking visible 5 habits for effective strategic learning 2. Asking powerful questions 3. Combating your biases 4. Attending to causal inference 5. Answering the “now what” question. 5

Institutional Example strategies for building learning habits at The Colorado Health Foundation Social/Group Individual

Being strategic about supporting learning also requires: 1. Clarifying the results you want–what new behaviors are you aiming for with your learning work? 2. Diagnosing the systemic factors that are getting in the way of learning or helping to support it. 3. Develop a range of strategies to address the roadblocks and support the facilitating factors. 7

Different types of factors affect our ability to develop and practice learning capacities and habits. Institutional Social/Group Individual 8

1. INDIVIDUAL: Personal motivation Social stressors trigger a "threat response” that impedes learning habits: ü Insecurity about status ü Anxiety about uncertainty ü Fear of losing autonomy ü Not feeling part of a social group ü Doubt that decisions are fair 9 Identify and address how individuals’ threat responses are driving willingness to engage with data and learning.

2. INDIVIDUAL: Role identity • Identify the "scripts" people are operating on—how they understand what it means to be good at their role. Our choices are impacted by our perception of our roles. We behave in ways that fit with our identity’s stereotypes. • Help people to see that • Expert? • Advocate? • Strategist? • Coordinator? • Facilitator? 10 learning habits are part of their role identity. • Reinforce that message.

3. INDIVIDUAL: Thinking Patterns/Processes • Set up meetings and The routines our brains follow information gathering for processing information and processes to elicit contrary making decisions can get caught opinions and disconfirming in cognitive traps, especially data. when we’re rushed, overloaded, • Train on explicit steps of or anxious. “scientific” thinking • Confirmation bias • Escalation of commitment • Availability bias 11 • Groupthink

Moving from learning as a product or an event finally requires: 1. Clarifying the results you want–what new behaviors are you aiming for with your learning work? 2. Diagnosing the systemic factors that are getting in the way of learning or helping to support it. 3. Develop a range of strategies to address the roadblocks and support the facilitating factors. 12

Institutional Example strategies for building learning habits at The Colorado Health Foundation Social/Group Individual

4. SOCIAL: Relationships and connections How individuals relate on teams, across teams, and with partners can affect learning habits both positively and negatively. • Comfort with tough discussions and revealing fears? • Too polite and deferential to challenge each other? • Distrusting of one another’s motives? • Too disconnected to even hear different perspectives? 14 Observe who has relationships with whom and their explicit or implicit rules of engagement. Create opportunities to help people understand one another's intentions and competencies, or to create new types of linkages.

5. SOCIAL: Power dynamics and norms Motivation and ability to learn is affected by formal control/ informal influence of: • What the agenda is • Reveal how power is shaping conclusions • What options are on the table • Recruit influential champions to move learning forward • What data has value or is valid • Look for opportunities to bring in different perspectives. • How information is interpreted • Who blocks/enables information flow 15 Understand how power works formally and informally—who has it and how they use it.

Institutional Example strategies for building learning habits at The Colorado Health Foundation Social/Group Individual

6. INSTITUTIONAL: Rewards and incentives Learning habits need to be reinforced. Formal and material rewards: • Performance reviews • Promotions • Grantmaking resources Informal and psychological rewards: • Engagement and praise • Scrutiny and criticism 17 Examine the extent to which learning versus “non-learning” habits and capacities are rewarded or incentivized. Look for opportunities in dayto-day workflow to reinforce learning behaviors. Even basic recognition goes a long way.

7. INSTITUTIONAL: Workspace Opportunities for interaction —physical and virtual—are key to learning. • Who encounters whom? • How and where do people connect? • What mood do they experience when they do? 18 • Observe how physical and virtual space affects how and when people interact. • Identify how to create more opportunities for people to “collide” in ways that can foster innovation or facilitate smaller group learning.

Institutional Example strategies for building learning habits at The Colorado Health Foundation Social/Group Individual

Wrap Up and Parting Challenges 20

As influential supporters of learning in your foundations, we challenge you to: 1. Pick a priority—e. g. , a team or group whose learning you want to support, a particularly behavior. 2. Assess how well they are currently practicing learning habits and capacities. 3. Examine what is either getting in the way or encouraging their learning. 4. Experiment with tactics to either disrupt or further support those factors. Evaluate whether it is working! 21

You don’t plan a strategy, you learn a strategy. Henry Mintzberg The capacity to learn and adapt is of greater value than any specific “lesson learned. ” Marilyn Darling, Fourth Quadrant Partners