Written by: Ian Gibbs, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I love travelling. Giving talks about Learnability and Learning Clubs takes me to places I would otherwise rarely get a chance to visit.
And travelling is a great metaphor for learning – a journey from one state to another: from ignorance to enlightenment, from newbie to knowbie.
But any journey can be a disaster if you forget to pack your essential travel items. For example, if I travel without my phone charger, my presentation clicker or a USB backup of my presentation, like someone playing golf in a thunderstorm, I’m asking for disaster to strike.
Similarly, when embarking on a learning journey, it’s important to make sure you also have your essentials to avoid it being a failure and a waste of time for everyone involved.
What are they?
Well, I’m glad you asked.
Here are my top five Learnability essential items.
If you’re on a learning journey, I recommend you do a quick check to see if you have them with you.
1. Clear Learning Outcomes
I am continuously bewildered by the number of learners who are unable to specifically identify what they should be able to do once they have finished learning.
Generally mumbling “well… I suppose I’ll have a better awareness of [insert subject here]” isn’t enough.
If you’re sent on a solid training program, you should also have a solid idea of what you couldn’t do before that you will be able to do afterwards. If not, how will you know if you’ve successfully learnt what you’re supposed to?
Vague, woolly terms like ‘improve my Spanish’ or ‘strengthen my presentation skills’ don’t count. If you can’t say what you have learnt to do, that’s probably because you haven’t learnt to do anything.
Consider these specific learning objectives
how to say no to my boss without upsetting her
how to order and pay for a meal in German
how to create slides which communicate the importance of numbers efficiently
how to increase my conversion of potential customers into paying customers.
These are clear learning objectives. Make sure you have them on your next learning journey.
2. Ownership
By ownership, I’m referring to the personal investment you, as a learner, have on your learning journey. As they say, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force it to do it’s homework”.
At the last training day you went to, how many of the attendees really wanted to be there and were 100% committed to learning?
As I keep pointing out, learning is an active process – no trainer can do it for you. You have to make the effort yourself.
If you take ownership of your learning, you become an active participant, engaging in critical thinking, problem-solving, and self-reflection. You are motivated to deliver the goods. You become more accountable for your progress and develop a learning mindset. If you don’t have ownership of your learning, it’s not going to passively happen while you’re watching Netflix.
3. Regularity
Learning a new skill or behaviour rarely happens in an instant – unless it’s learning not to put your arm in the crocodile enclosure. To do this requires practice – usually, lots of practice which is carried out both during training sessions and afterwards on the job.
This can only be achieved by regular repetition over a substantial period of time.
All training needs to be regularly followed up with self-evaluation or feedback.
How many one-day-wonder trainings have you attended that had been completely forgotten by the following month?
Make sure you have a large supply of regularity when you next embark on a learning trip.
4. Feedback
How are you getting on?
How are you really getting on?
Feedback plays a pivotal role in guiding our learning.
Are you applying your new skill the way you think you should, or are you missing something?
Constructive feedback helps us identify our areas for improvement and provides actionable suggestions for development that we otherwise would be aware of. As they say, “It’s difficult to read the label from inside the bottle.”
Timely and specific feedback allows us to make adjustments, refine our skills, and strive for continuous improvement. Whether it comes from your supervisor or your secretary, feedback is a powerful item for refining your skills.
5. External Motivation
Just like pure water, fresh air and free time, self-motivation is a limited resource. When things are going well, motivating yourself to focus and practice is easy.
But when you’re tired, distracted or feeling down, staying on track to develop that new skill can become a monumental obstacle to learning.
That’s when having someone who gives you praise, encouragement or a ‘gentle’ push in the right direction can make all the difference. Look behind anyone who has excelled themselves at learning a new skill and you’ll find a small army of supporters.
So if you find yourself alone on the road to personal development, I suggest you consider recruiting a few supporters – people who will give you a shoulder to cry on or a corkscrew when there’s something to celebrate.
These are five essentials that anyone embarking on a learning journey should make sure they have packed. They are all key components of Learning Clubs, which is one of the reasons why Learning Clubs are so successful.
With them, you will travel far and have a rewarding and enjoyable learning journey.
Without them… I wish you plenty of luck, because you’re going to need it.
Ian Gibbs, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Ian Gibbs is a leading expert in learning techniques and personal development. Through his talks, books and workshops, Ian helps individuals and organisations develop better strategies for learning how to overcome obstacles and achieve goals they thought were beyond them. He is the founder of Learning Clubs which are rapidly gaining notoriety for being a powerful personal development accelerator. Ian's mission is to help people understand and apply everything that science knows about how we develop new behaviour and skills but which is sadly so often overlooked and so keep up in today's rapidly changing world.
