Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Leadership Mission: Leading to Learning

How does a leader lead a team to learning?

It's a question that I have been pondering and researching for the last week. As leaders, we recognize that learning is critical. I personally love to learn in a variety of areas. There is so much to learn in tools, technology, information, data, personal development, and of course, the basis for this blog, leadership.

However, I frequently see instances where that love of learning isn't shared. Although I can't believe that anyone would hate to learn, you still see people around you who resort to old thinking, old and out-of-date approaches. Or you find people who feel that seem to feel above learning as they know what they need to know. These are people who decline an opportunity to try something new, to experiment, to test.

The question of my current learning mission is, "How can you lead a team to learning?" It's a mission that I set our in my previous post, Big on Learning, Myopic on Learning.

My first discovery in this space is, "This is huge." Theories abound. Tools are plenty. Opinions are prominent.

Along the way, I was inspired by some of the work of Robin Good, in particular a mind map that he shared on MindMeister, Best Online Collaboration Tools 2009. With leading team learning as a big topic, it struck me that a MindMeister map might be the perfect organizer. Here is an embedded snapshot:



In the map, I broke the topic in four primary elements, the concepts, the resources, organizations, and tools. Over the coming weeks, I will share my evolving thoughts about leading team learning.

In the mean time, I invite you to browse the map, click through to my links and resources, and please comment or even add to my map. I value your insight.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly and remember, it's all about learning.
Don



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