The Learning Imperative E-Book

Mark Burns

• Herausgeber: Crown House Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Learning is central to the long-term success of any team and is far too important to dismiss or to relegate to a 'nice to do' list. In The Learning Imperative,bestselling authors Burns and Griffith explore the common barriers to effective learning and present a range of practical tools and strategies to help teams bring about and reap the benefits of a more positive culture around training and development. Together they map out the key stages of the learning journey and provide a comprehensive guide for team leaders and managers who want to improve learning in their teams. They also share essential advice on the design and delivery of effective training programmes, and punctuate their instruction with a range of illuminating case studies drawn from real-life contexts across the public, private and third sectors. The book has been split into three sections. Part I sets out whycreating and maintaining a learning team needs to be a high priority, and provides an easy-to-use framework to help leaders establish their team's starting points. Part II is designed to assist leaders in fostering an open-to-learning mindset in their teams offering tools to diagnose any closed-to-learning mindsets and supplying straightforward strategies to facilitate team members' development in becoming habitually reflective, curious and responsive to feedback. The final part of the book concerns the designing and leading of effective learning, whether it is packaged within a one-off session or a multi-session programme, and will help leaders ensure that the learning their team participates in is engaging, appropriately challenging and, most importantly, will develop their performance. Whether you are an experienced leader or just starting out in the role, this user-friendly manual will empower you to boost your team's performance and to make a powerful impact on their learning. Two Books that I Would Recommend by Thomas Stansfield. Click here to view the feature on The World of Learning's blog. Click here to read the review of 'The Learning Imperative' on 'Thought Space' blog. Radio Edutalk 18-12-2018: Mark Burns on his new book, 'The Learning Imperative'. The Learning Imperative has been named the winner of the HR and Management category of The Business Book Awards 2019 . The Learning Imperative has been named a finalist in the 2018 INDIES Book of the Year Awards in the business and economics category. The Business Desk - Authors celebrate success after business book accolade. Click here to watch Mark Burns' videos in relation to The Learning Imperative. The Extraordinary Business Book Club - Episode 167 The Learning Imperative with Mark Burns

Leseprobe

Praise for The Learning Imperative

An informative and entertaining read, The Learning Imperative is a timeless classic that should be on the bookshelf of anyone interested in progressive management. Mark and Andy display a subtleness in their writing with their thoughtful, realistic approach – reminding us all of the importance of learning in any organisation.

Steve Pegram, Chief Operating Officer, Bardel Entertainment

Developing learning organisations is not easy. For this reason, The Learning Imperative is an essential read for any leader. The authors’ unpacking of how to improve learning and bring about a shared clarity in a team is delivered through insightful and practical strategies, and is complemented by thought-provoking questions to reflect on from beginning to end.

The book also recognises there are many challenges ahead, and that raising performance in any organisation will not happen overnight. But it categorically will not happen if you don’t start! Start now, using The Learning Imperative as your indispensable guide.

Stuart Allen, Head Teacher, Mile Cross Primary School

I am usually put off business books as they tend to be too academic for my liking; however, I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable The Learning Imperative is to read and follow. Set out in a logical format, the book is well structured and includes further sources of information at the end of each chapter – thus signposting the reader to delve deeper into the subject if interested.

I recognise many of the identified challenges and barriers that prevent teams and organisations from learning and developing, and these issues are brought to life by the inclusion of relevant examples and case studies from real-life contexts. The case studies are particularly useful as they prompt reflection on how things can be seen and done differently, and they also make the tools and techniques suggested by the authors easier to understand, remember and hence apply.

Practical, well-constructed and full of insightful tips, The Learning Imperative is a book that I will continue to refer back to.

Martin Riley, Managing Director, Medway Community Healthcare CIC

The Learning Imperative is practical, easy to read, thought provoking and full of useful anecdotes and examples; it shows that the authors clearly have vast experience in the fields of learning and personal development.

It will help all leaders to get the most out of their teams and, at the same time, make the learning enjoyable and interesting.

Mike McKenna, Solicitor and Partner, Hill Dickinson LLP

The LearningImperative is a compelling argument for the importance of learning in the workplace and offers a sophisticated yet practical guide to implementing a positive learning culture.

The book has two vital ingredients: plenty of academic substance that is easy to digest, and a writing style that is straightforward and enjoyable to engage with. The real-life examples and case studies are informative and insightful, and promote reflection and understanding. The format of each chapter is excellent too, starting with an outline of the subject under discussion before succinctly delivering the message and wrapping up with action points. The message sticks.

If you are serious about improving performance through learning in the workplace, The Learning Imperative delivers key strategies for achieving this in spades.

Luke Fisher, Chief Executive, Steribottle Ltd

As a manager, one is always meant to be looking at new ways to inspire, motivate and lead. What The Learning Imperative does in a concise and well-considered way is to make leaders look at their attitude to learning and development and reflect on how they can deliver more effective leadership.

The book clearly describes why learning and development is necessary and sets out how to support the development of future leaders, while also providing very useful step-by-step guidance to assist with implementation. I particularly enjoyed the clear structure of each chapter, with entertaining, relevant anecdotes complemented by illuminating case studies that draw out the key lessons. Each section is followed by prompts for reflection, which serve to question the reader’s position on a particular area and to reinforce the points made.

As part of the senior management team of a rapidly growing organisation, I recognise many of the examples given as to how and why learning and development can fail. On this subject Mark and Andy capture, in an entertaining manner, the pitfalls surrounding poorly conceived training – and how learning and development, when properly researched and planned, can be delivered in an effective way. In writing The Learning Imperative they have compiled a very informative and practical guide which shows how to implement a successful learning programme that will help to deliver marginal gains.

Mark Nevin, Chief Financial Officer, Portman Travel Group

The Learning Imperative provides a fascinating and wide-ranging summary of both theory and practice in the field of learning and development, offering a compelling narrative on how to improve corporate performance through learning. I’ve picked up a number of key ideas which I’ll take back to the office.

Matt Cuhls, Chief Executive Officer, ReAssure Group

Mark did some consultancy work with our organisation a couple of years ago; the theories and concepts that he discussed were inspirational and changed my approach to learning design forever. Everything he shared then, and more, is included in The Learning Imperative.

Containing practical guidance on how to develop performance through effective learning, this book brings the subject to life through case study examples, reflection questions and supporting resources. Furthermore, the strategies shared are straightforward, uncomplicated and easy to implement. You’ll wonder how you ever got by without them.

Whether you’re a manager, leader, trainer or teacher, The Learning Imperative provides plenty of opportunity for self-reflection and growth – see where the journey takes you.

Catherine Blackburn, Learning and Development Lead – North Region, Next plc

The Learning Imperative is for anyone who wants to motivate their team to grow and perform well. The authors set out very clearly that learning is at the heart of this process – and that if you get the learning right, the rest will follow. But they acknowledge that this is not necessarily an easy (or straightforward) process. Haven’t we all asked at one time or another – when things feel tough – whether anyone else is in the same boat as us, or, if we are alone in our struggle, whether everyone else is finding it easy? The Learning Imperative helps you tackle such questions head-on. It starts from the premise that members of effective teams must have an ‘open-to-learning mindset’, and makes you think about how to cultivate and maintain this mindset.

The book will work best if you’re willing to reflect and be honest with yourself. Where are you now? What are you trying to achieve? How will you get to where you want to go? Reflection isn’t necessarily an easy process, and it sometimes feels a little close to the bone! But the authors guide you through the process via a set of real-life examples, which help you to understand and apply what you learn, and prompt you to think about why and how you do what you do, how you can implement change successfully, and how you can help others learn.

The Learning Imperative is also a caring book. The authors acknowledge that there is life beyond work, and that all leaders, teams and contexts are different. It invites you to think about what you’re doing, but doesn’t demand that you dedicate every spare moment to it!

It’s a practical resource that you can come back to again and again, and use in a range of contexts and in a variety of different ways – I’ll be returning to it for a while yet.

Dr Niki Kaiser, Network Research Lead, Norwich Research School at Notre Dame High School

Raising performance in organisations by improving learning

the learning imperative

Mark Burns and Andy Griffith

Foreword

I’m an incorrigible learner; I love the thrill of discovery and the challenge of new disciplines.

My wife despairs of my ever-expanding list of hobbies – running, cycling, mountain biking, sailing, photography, kayaking (and the rest) – and the growing pile of kit in the garage that inevitably accompanies these endeavours.

My career has followed a similar pattern. Having led a couple of geography departments through successful Ofsted inspections, I qualified as an accountant with KPMG and worked in the dark arts of corporate recovery. I then moved on to work for a FTSE 100 software business in a variety of roles, including international posts in which quickly learning your brief was critical to effective engagement with local teams. Right now I’m working on the executive team of a leading housing association intent on tackling the housing crisis head-on.

Incredible then for a learner like me that it took reading Mark and Andy’s book for it to really hit home how critical learning is for an organisation’s success. The headlines concerning The Learning Imperative are, of course, all about learning, but don’t let them fool you: this book is not only about learning but also about how to make teams work, how to lead and how to create cultures that deliver outstanding results regardless of sector. This is a book ultimately about high performance, and as I read it I found myself reflecting on some time I spent on a training course with the Red Arrows. How do you create and maintain a world-beating team capable of wing-tip-to-wing-tip stunts at several hundred miles an hour? You focus absolutely on techniques and methods that help both the individual and the team progress.

What I’ve learned over the years is that before systems, technology or investment comes people. Some great results come from understanding the skills and abilities of your people and applying them to the right tasks. But that is less than half the story and even less than half of the joy of leadership. The real joy comes from spotting talent and opportunity and helping that talent grow and deliver. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing people develop and progress into senior roles and working on larger projects, excelling and delivering great results in ways that you hadn’t envisaged – because you took the time to help them learn and unleash their potential.

Seeing individuals progress is brilliant, but what if you could apply that same thinking and energy to whole teams, departments or businesses? What if you could apply the learning imperative to the culture of your organisation? What would results be like if everyone were on that powerful journey of development? In this book Mark and Andy provide the tools and methodology to help you cultivate in your organisation a positive learning culture which will be invaluable to anyone – not only to those who want to succeed today but also to those who want to create an organisation that can succeed regardless of the social, technological or political changes that will impact them in the future.

Matt Forrest, Executive Director of Business Development, Home Group

Acknowledgements

Mark Burns: Heartfelt thanks to my wife Kerry for your endless patience and support throughout the planning and writing of this book. To Gracie and Ruby for being wonderful distractions. Thanks also to the countless passionate individuals, dedicated to developing learning organisations, who gave their time generously to discuss ideas. Particular mention to Stuart, James, Toby, Matt, Marie, Rob, Bernie, Annie, Sean, Catherine, Michael, Roy and my sister, Sarah. To Nick, who has been a valuable source of feedback. Finally, thanks to my parents for all you have done for me over the years.

Andy Griffith: My thanks, for supporting me with research, advice and the opportunity to learn from them and their organisations, to Andy O’Brien, Carel Buxton, Caroline Saxelby, Mark Nevin, Sean Cushion, Tony McGuinness, Vincent Charnley, John Baker, Samantha McQuillan, Paul Matthews, Peter Hyman and Ian Clarke. Thanks also to my family, Clair, Joe and Anna, for their encouragement.

Contents

Title PageForewordAcknowledgementsIntroductionPart I:Learning and your team1The importance of learning2The learning–performance matrixPart II:Overcoming barriers to learning3Processing overload4Low relational trust5Perception gapsPart III:Designing effective learning6Planning backwards7Developing shared clarity8The you stageConclusionAppendix 1: Feedback surveyAppendix 2:Learning programme plannerBibliographyCopyright

Introduction

This is a book about creating high quality learning in organisations – learning that leads to improved performance, motivation and personal growth. The idea for a book on this topic had been germinating within us for some time, but it was a chance conversation during a morning coffee break that spurred us into action. We were working with a group of middle managers. They were a passionate group, but they were really struggling because of the way their organisation was performing.

Over a coffee, one of the group leaned forward and whispered, ‘Is everywhere else as tough as this place? I mean, how can any organisation thrive with the constant change and ever-increasing pressure we’re dealing with?’

We paused to consider a response. On the one hand, it was appropriate to recognise the external pressures they were enduring. On the other hand, we had been working with two other organisations in very similar contexts during the previous fortnight which, despite the pressure, really could be described as thriving. It was the hesitation and our facial expressions that gave us away. ‘No way! So what are they doing so differently? I thought it would be the same everywhere.’

This book seeks to answer the question, ‘What are they doing differently?’, for anyone who has ever wondered whether there is a better way.

For the last ten years, we have both worked intensively with many organisations, both in the UK and abroad. Our primary role has been to design high quality learning for employees in order to yield improved performance. At the outset, much of this work involved working directly with employees. However, over time, we have increasingly been working with leaders to help them create more impactful learning for their own teams.

Through this work, we have gained many insights into why some organisations thrive while others don’t. We have been able to observe learning in organisations up close. We have analysed the key ingredients that ensure effective learning, as well as the barriers that inhibit it.

In addition, it has brought us into contact with passionate leaders who have shared with us the practical challenges they have faced when improving learning performance in their teams. As part of our research, we have interviewed many of those who have most impressed us with the way they have gone about enhancing the quality of organisational learning. From these interviews, we have been able to gather together a range of case studies and examples to bring this work to life.

We are acutely aware of the intense pressures that leaders of modern day organisations face. This appears to be a common thread across the public, private and third sectors. Consequently, in order to give you a clear, concise and, above all, practical manual, we have sought to keep the theory and academic references to a minimum. For those who would like to explore further, there are pointers to further reading at the end of each chapter.

How to use the book

We have designed the book in three sections to provide a step-by-step guide to developing high impact learning for any team.

Part I

Chapter 1 sets out why creating and maintaining a learning team needs to be a high priority on every leader’s agenda. It is designed to help you understand why learning is central to the long-term success of any team or organisation.

Chapter 2 explores the first steps in how to achieve this. It provides an easy-to-use framework to help you establish exactly where your team are starting from, and the learning destination they need to get to – that is, open to learning and high performing. Using this framework will ensure that learning is targeted on the specific development needs of each individual in the team.

Part II

The chapters in Part II are designed to help you build or maintain an open-to-learning mindset in your team. This is achieved by establishing three key foundations: processing capacity for learning, strong relational trust and accurate self-perception. These foundations facilitate the development of team members who are habitually reflective, curious and open to feedback. To assist with this process, the book offers tools to diagnose any closed-to-learning mindsets and provides strategies designed to make sure that teams develop a positive learning culture.

Part III

The final part of the book provides a step-by-step guide to designing and leading effective learning for others. Whether you are planning a one-hour training session or a much longer multi-session programme, the chapters in this section will help to ensure that the learning programmes your team participate in are engaging, appropriately challenging and, most importantly, develop their performance.

Whether you are an experienced leader or someone just starting out in the role, we are confident that this intentionally practical and hands-on book will provide you with ideas and inspiration to help improve the engagement of your team and make a powerful impact on their learning. This is learning that not only supports the ongoing development of your team to meet the needs of tomorrow, but also makes each and every colleague feel valued and nurtured. That is exactly what we mean by the learning imperative.

Part I

Learning and your team

Chapter 1

The importance of learning

We were on the 11.07 out of Liverpool Street station. Sitting across the table from me (Mark) and my 6-year-old daughter, Ruby, was the store manager of (according to the documents in front of her) a major high street retail chain. She was making a series of calls, and, judging by the nature of the conversations, it seemed she was returning from a major review at head office. With each successive call we could sense her palpably growing frustration with various colleagues and their failure – in her eyes – to do their jobs properly.

Ruby – who, due to her curiosity, might well end up working for the secret services one day – was intrigued to eavesdrop on these conversations and was fascinated by the new range of language she was hearing. Arriving into Ipswich station, the preoccupied manager was surprised to discover that she had reached her destination. She leapt up, grabbed her belongings and hustled down the carriage. My little co-traveller observed all of this in silence. Then she turned to me and fixed me with a puzzled look. I knew a question was coming.

‘Why doesn’t she just teach them?’

‘To do what?’ I replied.

‘To learn how to do their jobs properly. Then she can be less angry!’

There certainly appeared to be learning gaps in the store manager’s organisation. But for whom?

Have you ever wondered why it is a struggle to engage your team in learning?

Do you sometimes feel tired or stressed by constantly finding and fixing issues in your team?

Do you find ‘developing your team’ the one task on your to-do list that you never get to?

What’s in this chapter for me?

This chapter will examine first why learning is such a crucial foundation to the future success of all teams and organisations. Having addressed the imperative of learning, we will then go on to explore the common reasons why learning is not always given the priority it deserves. As part of this process, we will give you the opportunity to reflect on your own team or organisation and the importance of its ongoing growth and development.

What do we mean by a ‘learning team’?

A team, as we define it in this book, is the particular group of people who you directly lead or over whom you have direct or indirect influence. This could be a small team of two or three or, if you are a chief executive, a team of several hundred to many thousands.

As the authors of this book, we are making the assumption that you, the reader, are curious about the value of learning for your team and organisation, and seeking clarity and practical strategies to help develop and implement effective and sustainable learning and development.

Throughout the book, we will use case studies from real life. We will cite the experiences of individuals, teams and organisations we have worked with to illustrate the principles and strategies we are advocating. Our case studies are drawn from a wide range of contexts, locations and types of organisation. They include those that have learning and development deeply embedded in their DNA, and those that don’t. We will also include the learning journeys of organisations and leaders who thought they were optimising the learning of their staff, but who later came to realise that the approaches they were using were ineffective.

Drawing on our experiences, we suggest that a learning team is a group of individuals who commit to learn together. After all, down the ages, human development has been enhanced by people collaborating, sharing learning and struggling through adversity to explore new ideas, new perspectives, new possibilities. We consider how this collaborative power can be focused on ensuring the ongoing growth and development of your team and your organisation into the future.

In what contexts does learning take place?

Learning takes place in many forms in organisations. On some occasions it will be through formal learning programmes. More often, however, it will be in less formal situations such as on-the-job experiences. In this setting, individuals learn from their mistakes as they attempt to master their work role and from the feedback they receive on their performance. Individuals also learn alongside fellow workers through a variety of activities, including social learning, coaching, mentoring, collaborative learning and other methods of engagement with peers. This book will help you to maximise the potential for learning across each of these contexts.

Learning can take many different forms. One of the models we have found most useful in achieving deep learning is the KASH model. This stands for the ongoing development of the knowledge, attitudes, skills and habits of individuals within teams and which contributes to individual and collective improved performance. While Paul Kirschner, John Sweller and Richard Clark have defined learning as ‘a change in long-term memory’,1 in the workplace, learning is likely to lead to the acquisition of knowledge, attitudes, skills and habits which are readily available from memory to use.

The pursuit of KASH reminds us that this book isn’t just about how to design effective learning in our team, although we cover that in Part III. This book explores much, much more. One of our key aims is to support you to foster an environment in which a strong learning team, who are intrinsically motivated to grow and develop, can thrive.

You can download a free KASH template at: www.learningimperative.co.uk/downloads/KASH.

Why is a learning team an ‘imperative’ rather than a ‘nice to have’?

As one leader said to us, as we sat with him in his office reflecting on three tumultuous years of change, ‘Guys, it’s been an interesting three years. However, we’re looking forward now to calmer waters while we embed the changes we have made.’ Just two weeks later we received an email from him. ‘Spoke too soon,’ it said. ‘Just had confirmation of a three-year programme of budget cuts from HQ. It’ll be 10% off our budget. We’re back in the world of change again.’

Whether in the public, private or third sector, organisations are experiencing more change than ever before.2 Whether this is driven by technological advances, the effects of increasing globalisation, the after-effects of the financial crash or changing population demographics, it has meant that calm waters are a dim and distant memory for many.

In parallel with internal drivers for change, organisations are driven by consumers (whether paying customers or not) demanding greater choice. When we were young men in the 1970s, choice was much more restricted. Research in the United States found that in the 1970s the average supermarket stocked 9,000 different items. Nowadays that number is nearer 40,000.3 If you don’t believe us, take a walk down the breakfast cereal aisle in your local supermarket – it is about 20 metres long!

This abundance of choice for consumers places enormous pressures on organisations. Not just consumer choice about what to buy but, given the growth of the internet, greater choice in how to purchase products and access services. All sectors continue to pursue more effective ways to connect with their customers, better meet their needs and have a more positive impact on the end-users of the product or service – and, as a consequence, improve sales and profits or surpluses.

Now, more than ever before, there is a compelling need for organisations to develop learning teams who have the agility to adapt. After all, if we are not open to learning from these changes, and the opportunities and threats they present, what hope does our team or organisation have of surviving in these turbulent times, let alone thriving?

Reflection questions

What have been the main changes in your industry in the last five years?

Do you agree that change is getting faster in your industry?

How has the pace of change affected you and your team?

What have been the main changes in your organisation in the last five years?

How have these changes affected what your team does and how your team works?

What job roles have disappeared or changed?

Improving the quality of what you do

In recent years, the buzz phrase ‘marginal gains’ has achieved legendary status.4 It is an approach that certain teams in sport and industry have adopted as they seek to develop learning cultures which are relentlessly focused on improving quality and performance. The phrase is prominent in the media, and it is creeping more and more into presentations given by leaders to their teams.

But this philosophy has been alive and well since the 1950s, when Japanese car manufacturer Toyota developed its celebrated approach to learning-centred improvement.5 This process led to them creating an unrivalled reputation for producing the highest quality cars with fewer defects than any of their competitors’. Indeed, the approach was so influential that not only did other car manufacturers adopt similar strategies, but so did firms in a wide range of other fields.

Toyota’s approach to learning embodies two key principles – kaizen (continuous improvement) and hansei (relentless reflection). Kaizen is underpinned by Toyota’s ‘five whys’ analysis. Asking why five times when any problem arises enables a team to methodically surface the deeper, systemic causes of a problem and therefore reach more effective solutions. In this approach, ‘errors are seen as opportunities for learning’ and ‘Learning is a continuous company-wide process’6. In his groundbreaking work on systems thinking, Peter Senge noted that with this method ‘people continually expand their capacity to create results’.7 Senge’s work invites us to pose an important question: unless a strong habit of learning is embedded in our teams, how can you possibly ensure a rich, ongoing dialogue about ways to improve the quality of our organisation’s services or products?

The footnote to Toyota’s phenomenal worldwide growth over fifty years reinforces the imperative of learning. At the end of the 2000s, Toyota ran into a spectacular and very costly furore surrounding the safety of more than 1.66 million of their cars in the United States. The negative publicity they received was exacerbated by their slow initial response. The company president, Akio Toyoda, later admitted that Toyota had prioritised growth over the maintenance of the company’s culture.8 It led to a renewed internal focus on getting back to the basics of the Toyota way, as well as analysing and implementing the learning from the setbacks.

Improved quality is key in an era of greater competition and change. It is fundamental both for ensuring that existing customers remain loyal and for attracting new customers.

Belief in growth and development for all

It is not just the quality of what the team creates that is important. Many of the leaders we interviewed pointed to other long-term outcomes they valued. One of them was a head teacher close to retirement. Asked what her greatest legacy was, she surprised us by not focusing on the succession of schools that had been transformed under her leadership. Instead, she listed a stream of former staff who had gone on to be successful leaders elsewhere, instilling the same ethos of learning within their own teams: ‘It’s my contribution to growing a “learning movement” amongst school leaders that I’m most proud of.’

Motivation theorists including Abraham Maslow9 and Frederick Herzberg10 point to the individual importance of being valued and having opportunities for personal growth and development. Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman found in their research that ‘Developing others has the twofold impact of elevating performance and creating a culture that is fun and engaging. It also attracts more people who want to work in it.’11

Unless a culture of learning is embedded in your teams, how can you be sure that you are motivating and engaging them effectively?

Motivation ‘cement’

It is the team’s learning process, as much as its output, which contributes to its effectiveness. One leader we interviewed described learning as ‘the cement that bonds my team together, making it more cohesive and resilient’. What he was getting at is the power of human connectivity that can develop as part of an effective learning process.

Learning is not always easy. It can sometimes leave learners in situations where they encounter setbacks or get ‘stuck’. In work we have done developing teacher quality in schools, we have often found that it is much harder for teachers to improve their performance when they work in isolation. In addition, they also find it more difficult to sustain any improvement.

Similarly, our work with sports coaches confirms that learning seems to be much more effective when it is a collaborative, social activity. This may well be because learning alongside others provides natural opportunities for communication and dialogue. Some of this dialogue will be focused on providing moral support for each other when the learning journey becomes a struggle. However, it is the fact that dialogue creates new shared meaning that is most powerful. Such dialogue may take the form of questions, stories or examples, and helps the collaborative learner to make sense of the new learning. At the same time, dialogue provides valuable feedback to each member of the group about how to improve and move forward.

An invaluable, if indirect, consequence of a learning culture is that the human desire for meaningful social interaction is met, and this helps many individuals to feel more valued. For some staff this is an incredibly important part of what motivates them. One leader we interviewed commented, ‘Since my organisation has embraced learning, I see and hear a more sociable team. People genuinely want to spend time with each other. One colleague told me that they look forward to Monday mornings more, as they sense they are “working with like minds”.’

Nurturing curiosity

Sitting in on a team meeting one Tuesday afternoon, we were struck by what was taking place. Each of the team was taking their turn in the ‘hot seat’. The occupant of the hot seat would provide the rest of the team with an update on progress in his or her own area of responsibility. Everyone else, including the team leader, acted as interrogators, enquiring and probing with questions. This challenged the hot seat’s occupant to explain their thinking with greater care and consider the quality of their future planning more deeply.

No quarter was given or taken, yet despite the challenging nature of the exercise it was clear that the strong relationships within the team were unaffected. After the session, the team leader told us that this curious and demanding learning community was not something he had inherited when he took on the role: ‘No, I had to work hard to get them to realise that the whole point of meetings is to test and challenge our existing thinking in order to consider other viewpoints and perspectives. Meetings are not for sitting in silence. They have definitely got the benefit of this now. As a group of learners we consistently make better decisions because we are more curious and more demanding.’

Later in the book, we will explore tools that can transform your meetings from pedestrian information dumps to more highly tuned opportunities to develop new directions and possibilities using creative methods such as ‘pre-mortems’ which build a more open-to-learning culture.

We’re committed to learning, aren’t we?

Surely, every leader wants their team to be engaged in improving what they do, wants them to consistently develop higher levels of performance, wants them to be better equipped to face future uncertainty, wants them to provide better quality outputs that reduce the need for difficult conversations about underperformance? The learning imperative is unquestionably a compelling call.

Well, yes and no. Many leaders we have worked with do indeed put the learning and development of their team at the heart of what they say and do. The imperative runs through them like the letters in a stick of seaside rock. When we shadow these leaders, learning can be seen happening on a day-to-day basis, not only in themselves but also in their teams, even when they are working independently of their leader. Learning has become habitual and widespread in these organisations.

There is another group of leaders we have worked with for whom learning and development is not valued as an imperative. In fact, learning is not on their radar. From our observations and from listening to hundreds of individuals and teams, we have found that this is normally due to one of five causes.

As you read about each of these factors, we encourage you to honestly rate yourself on a scale of ‘completely me’ to ‘not me at all’.

1. I haven’t got time for this

There are some leaders who take the view that learning is something they will get around to once they have dealt with the short-term concerns they are facing. Issues persist over time, and before we know it, short term has become medium term and medium term becomes long term. One leader we worked with typified this kind of procrastination. In our first session with him, he had come to the conclusion that he needed to develop the quality of learning in his team. He said, ‘It’s the only game in town for us. I promise it’ll happen.’ But when we met up again some months later, he had the demeanour of a slimmer turning up to a Weight Watchers meeting after a week of bingeing. ‘I know, I know,’ he blustered. ‘I know I said I’d change, but we’ve just been sooo busy!’

Of course, time is a legitimate constraint. However, a great deal of time is often invested in micro-managing staff who are underperforming due to lack of training. Instead of steadily developing the internal capacity of their teams to become more skilled and higher performing, micro-managers micro-manage quality issues on a day-to-day basis. As a result, the performance of teams where micro-management is the norm, despite the Herculean caffeine-fuelled efforts of their managers, is inferior to those teams in which staff are fully engaged in the ongoing learning process. Micro-managed teams suffer from lower staff morale, too.

The adrenaline rush that comes with unilateral, power-in-action management can appear more seductive than collaboratively nurturing the slower, more incremental development of a learning team. But wisdom and experience would suggest that we heed the old adage: ‘Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I’ll spend the first four sharpening my axe.’

Reflection questions

Do find yourself spending too much time dealing with problems that have arisen because individuals in your team are underperforming?

Do you ever avoid delegation because you lack confidence in members of your team to do the job?

What would your day be like if you didn’t have to micro-manage, since your team had developed the capacity to learn and take greater ownership?

2. Treating the effects, not addressing the causes

Somewhat related to the perception of lack of time and micro-management, the second blind spot is the compulsion to focus on the effects rather than the causes of problems. A couple of years ago, we were working with a group of relatively inexperienced middle leaders in London. We asked them to work in small groups and analyse the knotty issues they were facing when leading their teams – the sort of problem, like having a stone in your shoe, that was giving them cause for discomfort. Having asked them to identify the effects of these difficulties, we then invited them to evaluate the likely causes. It didn’t take long for them to make some important connections. ‘I get it,’ said Imran. ‘I have to switch my attention to dealing with the causes.’