Learning: Make it Informal

I have a question for leaders who recognize that learning is a critical element of a team's success. "What can leaders do to cultivate learning across their teams?"

It is a broad question with a complex answer. As I wrote in a previous post, the space is vast and multi-dimensional. This is illustrated in my exploratory mindmap.


I can't pretend that I understand the entirety of this space. However, I discovered a single learning concept that resonated with me. Relative to my question, I found Informal Learning a compelling, thought-provoking and amazingly accessible concept. Simply stated, leaders should build and cultivate informal learning on their teams.

What is Informal Learning?
As Jay Cross writes on his Informal Learning blog, "People acquire the skills they use at work informally — talking, observing others, trial-and-error, and simply working with people in the know."

Informal learning can characterized as learning that:

• Takes place outside educational establishments.
• Does not follow a specified curriculum.
• Will likely be sporadic, incidental, and problem-related.
• Experienced directly as a function of everyday life.

Cross goes on to say that "informal learning is the unofficial, unscheduled, impromptu way most people learn to do their jobs." If you'd like to hear Jay describe informal learning, here is a video he supplied in 2007.

Informal learning is the Rodney Dangerfield of learning. It just doesn't get respect. In fact, Allen Tough in his paper, The Iceberg of Informal Adult Learning suggests that about 80% of learning is informal and quite invisible like the iceberg. However, the other 20%, this is learning that is formal, and institutionally organized, get the lion's share of the attention and the largest share of most organization's training budget.

Some even go so far as to suggest that organizations are spending 80% of their training budget to accomplish a mere 20% of their learning. There is clearly some debate about the validity of this comparison. Despite this, in my experience, organizations don't give much attention to the power and potential of informal learning.

The question for leaders is, "How can you support the growth of informal learning in your team?

In a Lead Quietly manner, I decided to look for common threads and identify a handful of principles where leaders could focus their attention in their effort to build informal learning.

Here are the Lead Quietly Principles of Building Informal Learning:

It's Personal
We've always known that different people have different learning styles. My approach to learning; as much as I attempt to build this skill, is not necessarily the optimal approach for anyone else on my team. First and foremost, a leader trying to expand team learning should recognize that any program or learning initiative should account for differences in learning style.

Secondly, leaders should look to understand how their colleagues learn. Although numerous learning style theories exist, I'd encourage leaders to pick a single framework like Fleming's VARK model which divides leaders into four groups:

1. visual learners
2. auditory learners
3. reading/writing-preference learners
4. kinesthetic learners or tactile learners

Recently, I've started asking applicants during hiring interviews, "How did you learn what you know?" The varied responses led me to believe that you can simply ask and observe in order to build understanding.

With information about personal learning styles, you are in a better position to build informal learning opportunities across your team.

It's Social, It's Networked, It's Collaborative, It's about Community.
A paradox of the study of informal learning is that despite the fact that learning style is personal, informal learning is more likely to flourish in an environment based on strong community. Teams easily form communities of practice where they share a passion for a topic or solution. Teams will build community to help each other, share, and learn from each other.

The Lead Quietly blog has focused extensively on approaches to building community and collaboration across teams. And the not-so-surprising finding about community is that the identical community-building approaches apply to both collaboration and learning. Teams that excel at learning, collaboration, and community are teams with a foundation on personal relationships, gratitude, trust, passion, and sharing. The recommendation for leaders, build a strong community for active learning.

It's about Sharing and Conversation.
Jay Cross says in his video, "The most powerful instructional technology ever invented is human conversation." In his book, Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance (Essential Knowledge Resource), he defines conversation as the "stem cells for learning." Through conversation, learning is created and shared in a single process.

As a leader, you simply want to encourage sharing and conversation. As Catherine Lombardozzi writes in Breathing Life into an Informal Learning Strategy,

Sharing expertise and collaborating with others needs to be encouraged, recognized, and rewarded. Reaching out to others for support of learning needs to be viewed as a savvy strategy for getting up to speed and getting ahead. There has to be some room for informal conversation and sharing experiences. In an economic environment where time is increasingly scarce, interpersonal interactions my be undervalued and underutilized, and that will have serious consequences on learning in our organizations.

Leaders should not only participate in the conversation but should mentor, model, and coach with those conversations. I now recognize that when I sit with a co-worker and spend time discussing and exploring, I am creating an informal learning opportunity for both of us. I need to do more of this.

Support Informal Learning with Tools and a PLE
Almost any discussion of modern trends in learning, be it defined as informal learning, social learning, network learning, or e-learning will end up talking about the tools. As a leader, we should encourage the use of tools that support the discovery, sharing and conversation about learning.

When I propose this, I am not suggesting that your team needs to purchase a sophisticated learning management system. I'm really saying, use the common and readily available tools that are already at your disposal. Jane Hart on her Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies site surveys both learners and learning professionals to identify "Top Tools". Hart's top ten list for learning tools includes common and popular tools like:

• Google Search
• YouTube
• FireFox
• Twitter
• Wikepedia
• Delicious
• Facebook
• Google Reader
• Gmail

The list is likely familiar. As you use these tools they collectively evolve into a Personal Learning Environment (PLE), a set of tools that you can use to support and manage your learning. Your encouragement and modeling will grow the tool and PLE concept across your team. My PLE is based on tools like FireFox, Google Reader, YouTube, ScribeFire, Twitter, BigTweet, and iGoogle.

Final Thoughts
Informal learning doesn't require big investments, a budget, or even a formal plan. With awareness, modeling, strong community, and support of a team's leader, informal learning can become viral. It's all about learning. A team of learners can tackle any challenge.

Thanks for reading. Learning? Make it informal.
Don

Big on Learning, Myopic on Learning

Learning and leadership are irrefutably linked. The link is so important that learning took the first position in the Lead Quietly commandments that I proposed in February.

I have written about learning frequently. My personal carnival of learning at Lead Quietly would include these posts:

• It's All About Learning
• It's All About Learning - Part Deux
• For the love of learning, you gotta love a good list.
  
• Fixed or Growth, What's in your mindset?
• Mindset, it will profoundly affect everything.
• Curiosity as a Measure of Passion
  

These posts all stress the importance of learning to leadership. I truly believe in the notion as stated by John F Kennedy when he said, "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."

Nevertheless, I feel that my view of learning and leadership is too myopic. Most of my thinking about learning was centered on my own desire to learn and understand as a leader and team member. However, as a leader, we must also strive to create learning environments for all around us. A situation where everyone views learning as indispensable.

In the workplace of days past, any discussion of learning generally led to a discussion about training, likely formal instructor-led training. However, today the opportunities for learning include new, informal collaborative learning approaches. Personal learning should no longer mean a taking class.

In another revelation, I participated in a number of hiring interviews in the past few weeks where I usually asked a question about learning style. I would simply ask, "How did you learn the skills that you know?" I was never impressed if the response was "a class or school." I was impressed if the candidate talked about a number of channels including web sites, forums, blogs, and networks.

This leads me to the theme that I am proposing for the next few weeks on this blog. I want to explore learning for the today's workplace. I'd like to focus on creating a learning environment for not only me but the people around me. I'd like to get some hint about the future of learning. What are the tools that we should be exploring. How do the social media tools fit into this thinking. Who are the thought leaders in learning?

As a new student of learning, I need help. I need the insight of learning experts. What are the approaches and tools that leaders should employ to create a learning environment for everyone on their team? I'll be reading, learning, and studying.

However, I need help. Please send me you thoughts about team and personal learning in a collaborative environment. Use either Twitter or comments to this post.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly and help me better understand learning and increase my view of learning across my team.
Don

It's All About Learning

In my daily work in data warehousing and business intelligence I frequently use today's title phrase (It's All About Learning) to depict the key success factor for many projects. Learning becomes tantamount when you and your team face a challenge without a clear path to success and success depends on your ability and your team's ability to learn and understand the challenge, tools, techniques, process, and technology. Learning amidst these types of challenges is where you might hear me say, "It's all about learning."

I propose that the link between leadership and learning is inseparable. As President John F Kennedy wrote, "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." I feel lucky to work in a field and in a place where learning is closely linked to success. I have frequently said, the perfect job may be the job where an employer pays you to learn. Even on the worst of days when your core energy is consumed with office politics, turf wars, buggy software, or unappreciative users, I hope you can still say, "Well....., I'm learning a lot"

I have also discovered that my favorite people to work with are the people that I label as "a student of their space." These are the folks who are looking to master their craft and constantly expand their understanding. They are the constant learners and experimenters and people who are comfortable working amidst ambiguity. These are the folks who don't mind doing a little throwaway work in the interest of learning.

So what are the recommendations for Quiet Leaders? I have previously cited and am inspired by the the work of consultant Rosa Say and her Twelve Rules of Self-Leadership. Amongst this list there are three rules that speak to the importance of learning as part of your leadership-learning plan:

5. Learn to love ideas and experiments. Turn them into pilot programs that preface impulsive decisions. Everything was impossible until the first person did it.
6. Live in wonder. Wonder why, and prize “Why not?” as your favorite question. Be insatiably curious, and question everything.
11. Be a lifelong learner, and be a fanatic about it. Surround yourself with mentors and people smarter than you. Seek to be continually inspired by something, learning what your triggers are.

Leaders and learners looking for more inspiration, opportunities, and links, should check out the 7 Wonders of Joyful Jubilant Learning at the Joyful Jubilant Learning blog. In recognition of the special date, 07-07-07, this virtual learning community, set as a goal to solicit from the world learning community, 777 learning links. There efforts are indeed "all about learning."

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly.
Don

The Learning Zone - Everyday Action for Learning

Learning is key to leadership. It's a simple idea. However, we also know that learning is complex with many styles, approaches, and theories. It is easy to propose that learning is essential but how does one simplify the concept into everyday action.

Everyday action about learning recently came to me as I read Monday Morning Leadership: 8 Mentoring Sessions You Can't Afford to Miss by author David Cottrell. Monday Morning Leadership (MML) is a short book of practical advice that is set as a story where a manager named Jeff becomes a student of leadership through weekly discussions and coaching with his mentor. Tony, the mentor, takes his student down a journey of sage and practical advice for leaders and managers.

Tony's advice throughout the story is solid and accessible. His advice is consistent with the insights offered here on Lead Quietly. However, no section of MML reasonated more than Cottrell's exploration of "the Learning Zone."

As leaders, it is easy to become stale. Cottrell cautions leaders to avoid becoming complacent within your comfort zone, a space that he proposes is a "forceful enemy to your potential." He proposes that you avoid complacency by entering the "Learning Zone."

Cottrell's Learning Zone is comprised of three rooms, the Reading Room, the Listening Room, and the Giving Room. These three rooms present an approach for everday action from the Learning Zone.

The Reading Room

Your everyday action that brings you to the reading room is simple. Read every day. When you commit 10 minutes per day, you will learn from over a dozen books every year. I'd propose that books are important but that a regular scan of the leading leadership and management blogs will also serve you well. My action plan is simple, set aside time everyday for reading.

The Listening Room

Listening is key to learning, leadership, and collaboration. Listening is inexplicably linked to learning, conversation and sharing which as noted by learning expert Jay Cross, become the "stem cells for learning." Your everyday action? Take time to listen and learn. Listen intently to every conversation.

The Giving Room

Give back by teaching and helping others succeed. By teaching others, you become more accountable for the approaches that you are teaching. Aristotle wrote, "Teaching is the highest form of understanding." Your everyday action from the Giving room? Take the time to give back by teaching other.

I like simple learning actions. Learn by reading, listening, and giving. With these daily actions, we don't need to think that learning has to be complex.

Thanks for reading. And don't forget to read, listen and give.

don

For the love of learning, you gotta love a good list.

Leadership and learning are an inseparable pair. As John F. Kennedy said, "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."

In today's environment, leaders require learning opportunities that are continuous, always accessible, and fast.

As Jack Stack writes in the forward of the book, 1001 Ways to Reward Employees

We like things fast, but we don't have time to study. The world is changing so rapidly that by the time we learn something, it has often changed in some way, shape, or form. We want information in small bites

Learning opportunities come in a variety of forms. Of course there is the classic class or seminar. However, I find that continuous learning is more likely to come from reading, life lessons, discovery, experience, and, a more recent revelation, a good list. For me, the discovery and review of a good list is a great learning opportunity. Let me explain more.

For example, I recently encountered "The Manager's Cheat Sheet: 101 Common-Sense Rules for Leaders" on the Inside CRM site. The Cheat Sheet is a list of tips for managers and leaders.

When you review the list, you might say, "been there, done that" for many of the items. In that case, the validation is useful and important in learning. It is good to know that a concept that you hold dear is validated and valued elsewhere. For example, take rule #8:

Always smile. Smiles are contagious and will make others feel positive when you're around.

I blogged on this idea in a post titled, It Begets It. The "Manager's Cheat Sheet" list validated an existing notion that I had. This is learning.

Other rules might put a new twist on an old concept. For example, rule #77:

Adopt a predictive managerial style. Don't wait for things to happen to make a move. Anticipate problems and provide contingency plans.

This rules reminds me of the quiet leadership definition of vision. The type of vision that gives you awareness of the events around you and serves the opportunity to be proactive. The rule put a new twist on another concept. Still, this is learning and it is fast.

A good list allows you to quickly discover and validate. For the love of learning, you gotta love a good list.

The Manager's Cheat Sheet is one of hundreds of good lists. Here are a couple more of my favorites:

Rosa Say: Twelve Rules of Self-Leadership
Slacker Manager: Guiding Principles
Nightingale-Conent: The 12 Characteristics of High Performance Teams
Tom Peters - Change this Manifesto: This I Believe

I'd love to learn about other lists readers have found useful. In the interest of learning, please comment with other lists that you appreciate. Remember it's all about learning.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly.
Don

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

Fixed or Growth, What's in your mindset?

I have posited in earlier posts that learning and adapting are key and essential elements of quiet leadership. The hypothesis of an earlier post, It's All About Learning, Part Deux is, "Highly effective, remarkable leaders must be continuous, lifelong learners."

This week, I was introduced to the work of Carol Dweck, professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Her work brain development and learning further validates the importance of learning to success. The short video will give you an introduction to her work.



In her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Dweck identifies two mindsets, i.e. fixed and growth, that impact and influence people's success.

1. People with a fixed mindset believe that talents and abilities are fixed. You are rationed an amount and those are the cards you are dealt.

2. People with the growth mindset believe that talents and abilities are developed through education, work, passion, and persistence.

It seems like a simple concept to suggest that people with an openness to learning have greater success and the research of Dweck and others bears this out. It's a pretty simple concept and straightforward relationship.

What can the leader do to increase learning? It appears that encouragement and coaching can have an impact. One study of student achievement by Dweck and others compared the student results across two groups who were learning study skills. The control group received only the standard study skills training. The experimental group received the study skills training and were also taught, "how they could learn to be smart—describing the brain as a muscle that became stronger the more it was used." The skills improvement in the experimental group exceeded the improvement in the control group suggesting that the perception that a person has about their ability to learn impacts learning.

My simple interpretation of the research for leaders is to coach, mentor, encourage, and create opportunities for learning for yourself and the people around you. You are hoping to avoid mindset "lock down" and foster the growth mindset for greater success. Again, it seems that it is "All about learning."

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly.
Don

Change is Inevitable, but it's sad when it happens.

“Change is inevitable. Change is constant."
Benjamin Disraeli

In the nearly three years that I have been blogging at Lead Quietly, there have been countless changes in the makeup of the blogosphere.

Yes, blogs come and go and most of this activity goes unnoticed. In reality, the loss of a single blog from among 126 million isn't worth mentioning. Unless it is a blog that you cherish.

I am saddened by today's "game over" announcement at Joyful Jubilant Learning.

I have never met or talked to Rosa Say but she has influenced my thinking immensely. It started when I cited her work in May 2007 in my fifth post on Lead Quietly titled, 12 Rules for Self Leadership. I was amazed that Rosa visited my blog on the same day and left a comment. At that moment I was hooked on the concept of blogging as a form of learning and community.

In the final post at JJL, Rosa asked us to share a favorite post. In her words,

Point to a post you fondly remember in our archives, and share what the reading of that post may have contributed to your learning.

In July 8, 2007, I posted "It's All About Learning" and in the link I cited 7 Wonders of Joyful Jubilant Learning, the JJL collaboration to assemble 777 learning links to commemorate the date 07/07/07. Nearly three years later, a review of the collaboration is still a great learning experience. Just as important to me, as a novice blogger at the time, this post introduced me to several great thinkers and communicators that I still follow today, including David Zinger, Joanna Young, and Phil Gerbyshak.

Thank you Rosa for leading and facilitating this important discussion. And know that I will continue to follow your efforts wherever it goes. It's all about learning.

Thanks for reading. Please Lead Quietly and keep Meshing Up
Don

Lead Like a Teacher - Focus on the Follower

In my previous three posts, I linked the skills of leaders and teachers by comparing the five critical behaviors of ateacher to associated leadership skills. I'm a former teacher and I find myself using my teacher skills and behaviors every day. I have deep regard for the skills of a good teacher and this series of posts is my proposal that thoseteacher skills are also essential leadership skills.

Here is the complete list of the critical teacher behaviors and the same behaviors applied to leadership:

Five Critical Behaviors of a Teacher	Five Critical Behaviors of a Leader
Teach to an objective	Lead to an objective. Have clarity in your misison.
SELECT an objective at the appropriate level of difficulty.	Put people in a position and role where they can succeed.Pursue clarity in roles.
MAINTAIN the focus of the learner on the learning.	MAINTAIN the focus on the follower.
USE without abuse the Principles of Learning (Active Participation, Motivation, Closure, Reinforcement)	USE without abuse the Principles of leadership (Active Participation, Motivation, Engagement, Trust)
MONITOR and adjust.	MONITOR and adjust.

In this post, I focus on the the third critical behavior of teachers and leaders, maintain the focus on the learner or follower.

In teaching, the activities of the teacher need to focus on the learner. It's another simple concept. Teaching is not a brain dump or continuous lecture of information. Learning requires active participation of the learner.

Constructionist theories of learning propose that the teacher is a facilitator who crafts a learning experience that allows the learner to construct their own understanding of the content. The activities of a good teacher should center around learning (learner-focused) and not about teaching (teacher-focused). Teaching is not a performance. It's about learning.

The activities of a good leader should also focus on the follower and not the leader. A good leader is not about command and control. It is about facilitating, coordinating, collaborating, trusting and influencing. It's a big job and it's difficult.

Here are some snippets of previous Lead Quiety posts that focus on this concept.

From Leading from Below:

Focus on influence, not control.
Enlist people around you to work on a common cause. Try to get people to act on their own. Adopt the perspective of the people around you. Don't hoard information. Share it. Keep things simple and clear and win the devotion of the people around you. Think influence not control.

From Hiding your Leadership come one of my favorite leadership quotations, quote from Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu,

As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!

From my Quiet Leader Hall of Fame series, featuring Dwight Eisenhower, we learned that Eisenhower was always team focused:

Eisenhower never used the word "I". It was always "we," except one time when he wrote out the message that would be handed to the press in the event the landings failed. And there he used the personal vertical pronoun, it's my fault, I did it. Otherwise it was always "we".

From Be a good leader. Be incomplete. Don't be perfect, don't even try. I quote Peter Senge and others who wrote in the Harvard Business Review:

... the sooner leaders stop trying to be all things to all people, the better off their organizations will be. In today’s world, the executive’s job is no longer to command and control but to cultivate and coordinate the actions of others at all levels of the organization. Only when leaders come to see themselves as incomplete—as having both strengths and weaknesses—will they be able to make up for their missing skills by relying on others.

In summary, isn't leadership really more about followership? A good leader should focus focus on the follower andlead like a teacher.

Thanks for reading and please lead quietly.

don

It's Brain Awareness Week - Let's focus on learning

This week is Brain Awareness Week. Founded by the Dana Foundation, the event promotes that:

Brain Awareness Week (BAW) is an international campaign dedicated to advancing public awareness about the progress and benefits of brain research. Founded and coordinated by the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives and its sister organization, the European Dana Alliance for the Brain, BAW is now entering its fourteenth year as a catalyst for public understanding of brain science.

I wasn't aware of the event before this past weekend but I have decided that the brain is a nice focus for some learning that I wanted to pursue in a couple of posts this week. This notion started as I was watching the public TV show, "Brain Fitness Program." My curiosity about brain development eventually brought me to the Dana Foundation web site where I became aware of BAW.


Continuous learning is so important to success and the health of your brain is key. In recognition of BAW, let's revisit a couple of "fun" brain/learning posts from my archives.


In Improve Your Brain Power - Use your right brain I encouraged you to develop your brain by switching you mouse to your non-dominant hand.

In Learning to Use the Full Brain, I provided a link where you could experiment with the "Left Brain versus Right Brain test.

The full list Lead Quietly learning posts is here.



I'll focus on the brain in subsequent posts this week.

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

Don

It's All About Learning - Part Deux

Kevin Eikenberry contributed a compelling post to Jonathon Farrington's Leadership Turn blog entitled Why Learning Is A Leader’s Most Important Skill. It is highly recommended.

The essential hypothesis of the post was a single statement, "Highly effective, remarkable leaders must be continuous, lifelong learners."

There were a numerous of statements in support of the proposition that resonated with me. For example:

The status quo requires no leadership. ...learning is required to
continually adapt to and work under the changing conditions.

...leaders know that the mastery of these complexities is a lifelong journey with no defined endpoint. The result? The need and desire to be in a continuously learning mindset.

Kevin's assertion that leaders must "Model it for Others" caused me to reflect on the managers that I have had, some of who "got the importance of learning", and, of course, some who didn't. If a leader is an active learner, others will follow. I have had occasions to work for a managers who were active and continuous learners. They naturally encouraged learning and by far, the best leaders. I bet most would agree.

Although I believe that continuous learning should be organic and can occur without a school, course, program, or conference, the post also caused me to reflect on the number of times when I didn't spend my training budget in the beginning of the year. I'm sure many have the same regret when a mid-year change in the business resulted in second half belt tightening. What goes first? I guess I better make those plans!

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly.

Don

Lead Like a Good Teacher - Be Principled

Good leadership is similar to good teaching. You can also say that good teaching is really good leadership.

I have used the last few posts at Lead Quietly to draw links between the critical behaviors of a teacher to critical behaviors of a good leader.

Here is the complete list of the critical teacher behaviors and the same behaviors applied to leadership:

Five Critical Behaviors of a Teacher	Five Critical Behaviors of a Leader
Teach to an objective	Lead to an objective. Have clarity in your misison.
SELECT an objective at the appropriate level of difficulty.	Put people in a position and role where they can succeed.Pursue clarity in roles.
MAINTAIN the focus of the learner on the learning.	MAINTAIN the focus on the follower.
USE without abuse the Principles of Learning (Active Participation, Motivation, Closure, Reinforcement)	USE without abuse the Principles of leadership (Active Participation, Motivation, Engagement, Trust)
MONITOR and adjust.	MONITOR and adjust.

Guiding Principles

In this post, I focus on the the fourth critical behavior of teachers and leaders, where success in either area requires use of core guiding principles.

I am a fan of guiding principles. In my day job in information management and business intelligence, the domain's guiding principles drive good practice and propose an appropriate course of action for most design and application decisions.

Principles of Learning

Madeline Hunter's Instructional Theory into Practice model for teaching mastery proposes four key principles of learning that should be used. The principles focus on active participation, motivation, closure and reinforcement. An exploration of these four principles are beyond the scope of this article. However, I would like to discussion reinforcement and describe a teacher trick that I frequently use when presenting to my team or other group.

Most of us understand the basic principles of reinforcement from our studies in psychology where we learned about B.F. Skinner and positive and negative reinforcement. We generally understand that positive reinforcement increases the probably of response while negative reinforcement will tend to supress response.

Now imagine that you are presenting to a group and you pose a question to the group. For the purpose of this discussion you pose the question, "What is two plus two?" The first response that you get is "five." Five is flat out a wrong answer. And if you as the presenter say, "Wrong", you may never get another response from that audience member. Negative reinforcement will suppress response. It's not possible for you to say "Good answer!" So how do you neutralize the wrong-answer response that you need to give?

The teacher trick is to convert every response to a right answer. So when the audience member responds with the wrong answer "five," you can convert that into a right answer by saying, "Thank you. If I had asked 'What is two plus three?' the answer would be five. However, I had asked 'What is two plus two?' so "four" is the answer."

In this simple response, you converted the wrong answer into a right answer for a new question and made better use of the principles of learning.

Use but do not Abuse the Principles of Leadership

For nearly four years, I have written at Lead Quietly, about topics that I consider to be the essential principles of leadership. Readers of this blog understand my passion for principles like learning, collaboration, engagement, communication, community, balance, vision, and trust. I do not intend to reintroduce these principles in this post.

However, I thought I would reuse a visual concept that I first used back in a 2008 post, Lead Quietly, Can you state that in 25 words or less? where I used Wordle to present a visualization of Quiet Leadership. Here is my new visualization about the principles of Quiet Leadership that you should use but not abuse so that you can lead like a teacher.

My hope is that the visualization presents a reminder about leadership principles that should be used but not abused.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly with principles.

don

Mindset, it will profoundly affect everything.

How do you learn? You are voracious? Are you constantly learning, and seeking new opportunities to tackle new stuff? Do you find yourself saying, "I wish I had time to learn more?"

If you answer yes, your thinking about learning is aligned with a key quiet leader principle and you likely have a "growth mindset," a personal characteristic that Professor Carol Dweck says will "profoundly affect all aspect of a person's life, from parent and romantic relationship to success at school and on the job"

A Sunday NY Times article this past week (7/6/2008) summarized the work of Carol Dweck and her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. The Time articles was a good reminder of the Dweck concepts we first identified in Fixed or Growth, What's in your Mindset. In her work, Dweck identifies two basic mindset, fixed or growth. You want to have a growth mindset.

Are you curious about your mindset. Dweck provides this diagnostic test.

Read each statement and decide whether you agree or disagree.

1. Your intelligence is something very basic about you that you can’t change very much.
2. You can learn new things but you really can’t change how intelligent you are.
3. No matter how much intelligence you have, your can always change it quite a bit.
4. You can always substantially change how intelligent you are.
5. You are a certain kind of person and there is not much that can be done to really change that.
6. No matter what kind of person you are, you can always change substantially.
7. You can do things differently, but the important parts of who you are can’t really be changed.
8. You can always change basic things about the kind of person you are. Which statements do you agree with?

A person with a fixed mindset will agree with statements 1, 2, 5, and 7, while a person with a growth mindset will agree with statements 3, 4, 6, and 8.

If you find yourself in a fixed mindset, you can learn Dweck's four step recommendation for changing your mindset on the MindsetOnline.com web site.

Finally, I believe that the simplest, quiet leader interpretation of Dweck's work for leaders is to coach, mentor, encourage, and create opportunities for learning for yourself and the people around you. As Kevin Eikenberry notes in his book, Remarkable Leadership, "we must focus on continual lifelong learning as the cornerstone skill on the path to remarkable leadership." It's really all about learning.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly and learn, learn, learn. Never stop learning.
Don

Adopt a Green Mentality

I’ve written about the importance of learning in leadership often.  Those writings included:

The Learning Zone – Everyday Action for Learning

Learning: Make it Informal

Fixed or Growth, What’s in your mindset?

It’s All About Learning – Part Deux

Learning is an important element of leadership.  I’m not writing today to restate that fact.

However, I find it  interesting when there is a new twist to an existing idea and that is the notion behind my urging to “Adopt a Green Mentality.”

The idea came from Shawn Murphy (Twitter: @Shawmu), the founder of Achieved Strategies when he wrote, 12 Most Necessary Shifts in Leadership Thinking for Today. 

I love a good list of insight and definitions and the tenth item on Shawn’s great list was my favorite.  It immediately resonated with me.  Here are Shawn’s words.

10. Adopt a “Green Mentality”
A colleague once said about professional development:  “If you’re ripe you’re rotting; if you’re green you’re growing.” Professional development never ends. A green mentality keeps your mind sharp and your skills fresh.

My call today is for leaders to adopt a green mentality.  Join me and make it part of your everyday mission.

Thanks for reading.  Lead quietly and think green, be growing.

don

How do you know that it is working? You Monitor and Adjust.

Good teachers are always asking, “How do I know that it is working?”  Isn’t that also an essential question for leaders?”

I have used the last few posts at Lead Quietly to draw links between the critical behaviors of a teacher to the critical behaviors of a good leader.

Here is the complete list of the critical teacher behaviors and the same behaviors applied to leadership:

Five Critical Behaviors of a Teacher	Five Critical Behaviors of a Leader
Teach to an objective	Lead to an objective. Have clarity in your mission.
SELECT an objective at the appropriate level of difficulty.	Put people in a position and role where they can succeed.Pursue clarity in roles.
MAINTAIN the focus of the learner on the learning.	MAINTAIN the focus on the follower.
USE without abuse the Principles of Learning (Active Participation, Motivation, Closure, Reinforcement)	USE without abuse the Principles of leadership (Active Participation, Motivation, Engagement, Trust)
MONITOR and adjust.	MONITOR and adjust.

Monitor and Adjust

An effective teacher will include a check for understanding as part of every lesson.  Of course, a common check for understanding is a test.  However all of us recognize that our favorite teachers were the ones who offered different approaches and creativity to different learning situations.  These were likely teachers who were always monitoring, adjusting, continually tweaking their approach. 

Just writing about this takes me back in time to my junior high science class where we could count on the same daily lecture, that amounted to nothing more than a recitation of the textbook without comment, feedback, dialog, and certainly no check for understanding.  As delivered by this less than competent teacher, teaching was comprised of only lectures and tests.  Don’t you think that seeing half of class asleep be cause for some adjustment????

Contrast this experience to these frequently cited words used by Dr. Madeline Hunter in her work, Enhancing Teaching:

A creative teacher is one who has first acquired the necessary skills to practice the science of instruction and who continues to refine and supplement those skills in such a way as to capitalize on his/her own personal strengths, those unique qualities of the learners, and the individual features of the teaching/learning environment in which students and teachers find themselves.

 

Monitor and Adjust in Leadership

Shouldn’t a good leader always be asking, “How do I know it is working?”  Shouldn’t a good leader always be adjusting their approach to match the situation. 

Let’s take the sentiment of the Enhancing Teaching quotation from above and give it a Lead Quietly bias:

 

An effective leader is one who constantly hones the necessary skills to practice the art of leadership and who continues to refine and supplement those skills in such a way as to capitalize on his/her own personal strengths, the unique qualities of others, and the individual features of the community and the situation in which the individuals find themselves.

When you review the changes that I made to the quotation, it highlights the following elements of leadership that have been cited previously on Lead Quietly:

Leaders should be constantly learning about leadership in order to adjust and grow.  Remember, it’s all about learning. 

There is no single best leadership style.  What works best is going to vary because the strengths of the leaders and the qualities of others.  A good leader can adapt as needed.

Leadership is about community and the skills of the community and the context of the situation are key variables. Different situations and communities call for different approaches. 

Any leader who does not monitor and adjust will simply not be effective in the complexity of today’s environment.

Thanks for reading.  Please lead quietly and don’t forget to monitor and adjust.

don

Daily Learning with Life Hacks

I'm a fan of learning, continuous learning, at home, at work, anywhere. We should be always reading, listening, and exploring.

I'm a fan of Life Hacks, those little learning tips that make give you new insight, make you more productive, save you money, and keeps you in touch with new tools.

I'm a fan of sharing, a great way to build community.

I'm a fan of Google Reader, at home, at work (work related of course), on my phone. Its part of my daily subscription to learning. I guess I'm admitting that I am a citizen of the "Google Nation."

Putting this all together, I'd like to share my Google Reader "Don's Hacks" folder/label.

My Don's Hack folder in Google Reader includes the following subscriptions:

Digital Inspiration

Dumb Little Man - Tips for Life

lifehack.org

Lifehacker

LifeRemix All

zen habits

You'll see what shows in my Google Reader Don's Hack folder.




I'm certainly not expecting anyone to get really excited over the public page of my Reader's Don's Hack folder. Nevertheless, I learned and discovered quite a bit in this sharing exercise. And maybe the effort will allow someone to discover a useful "life hack,"

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly.
Don

Learning from the Age of Conversation 3 Authors - I'm Addicted

Last week when I posted about my participation as a contributor to the ebook, Age of Conversation 3, a challenge I made for myself was to visit the sites of as many contributors as I could.  From the start of this effort, I became addicted to the learning that was taking place. I immediately discovered new ideas, new tools, and great concepts from the AOC3 contributors.  It is an amazing group of writers, thinkers, and innovators and I wanted to learn and share my discoveries. Consequently, I started planning my AOC3 Learning Quest.

I wanted to accomplish three things in my quest. 

1. Visit the contributor's web site and learn.
2. Follow the author on Twitter.  I created a AOC3 Twitter List if you want to follow along.  Click to access.
3. I wanted to share specific new discoveries at my other blog:  MeshingUp.com

Of course, being a data guy in my day job, I had to organize this information, keep some records, and keep score.   This link will take you to my  my AOC3 Learn Quest Dashboard where I keep track of my progress.  There is a lot of learning from my fellow authors.  

Thanks for reading.  Please Lead Quietly and remember, it's all about learning.

Don

 

 

Posted via email from Meshing Up

Great Leaders Act Like a Teacher - Lead to an Objective

In my previous post, I drew parallels between leadership and teaching. I have deep regard for the skills of a good teacher and good leaders seem to naturally apply their skills. Here are the five critical behaviors of a teacher and the same behaviors applied to leadership:

Five Critical Behaviors of a Teacher	Five Critical Behaviors of a Leader
Teach to an objective	Lead to an objective. Have clarity in your misison.
SELECT an objective at the appropriate level of difficulty.	Put people in a position and role where they can succeed.Pursue clarity in roles.
MAINTAIN the focus of the learner on the learning.	MAINTAIN the focus on the follower.
USE without abuse the Principles of Learning (Active Participation, Motivation, Closure, Reinforcement)	USE without abuse the Principles of leadership (Active Participation, Motivation, Engagement, Trust)
MONITOR and adjust.	MONITOR and adjust.

In this post, I focus on the the first critical behavior of teachers and leaders who act like a teacher and employ the objective as a leadership tool.

When a teacher teaches to an objective, it calls on the teacher to not only formulate an objective before instruction begins, but to also declare the objective as an element of each lesson. There is a planning element to the objective but it is also important to communicate the objective not only at the beginning of the lesson but also to restate the objective at the end of the lesson.

In my own role as a teacher, this eventually became a natural element of my instructional approach. Interestingly, as I watch training lessons in the business world, it is common to see a trainer dive into the content of a lesson without the statement of objective. Most "amateur" trainers are more concerned about the content and forget the packaging, i.e. the statement of objectives at the beginning and end of a lesson.

In "Act like a teacher" fashion, it also falls naturally that leaders should lead to an objective. The primary purpose of this post is to explore of the "objective" as a leadership tool. I have chosen to explore the use of objectives in three areas:

1. The objective as a planning tool.
2. Using objectives as a meeting agenda.
3. Using objectives to organize communication.

The Objective as a Planning Tool

Just as the objective is part of a teacher's lesson plan, the statement of objectives is a useful and influential part of the planning process. The process can start as simply as asking the question, "What are we trying to accomplish?"

In the business world is is very common to find conversations about problems that start with solutions. It is kind of like doing software development without requirements. It is easy to begin "solutioning" before the objectives are actually stated. As a leader, you can influence the conversation by simply stating, "Let identify what we are trying to accomplish here." This leads to your list of objectives.

For teachers, learning objectives describe "what students should know or be able to do at the end of the course." (MIT Teaching & Learning Labratory) and are distinguishable because the begin with an action verb like demonstraction, report, compare, etc.

For the the purpose of business planning, I feel that your objectives, stated as little more than a bulleted list of what you are trying to accomplish, is often adequate. A simple bulleted list might be DUMB (doable, understandable, manageable & beneficial) but still can add direction to the conversation. Many objective-setting experts propose that you improve your objectives by making them SMART, i.e. Simple, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. In a quiet leader manner, I propose that any objective used in planning and that answers the question, "What are we trying to accomplish?" is a significant and leaderly step.

Using Objectives as a Meeting Agenda.

In business, we participate in hundreds of meetings every year. Unfortunately, many meetings start and end with no statement of purpose or agenda. People leave those meetings frustrated and wondering why the meeting was needed.

It is very simple to state the objectives in the meeting the meeting invitation and restate the objectives at the beggining of the meeting. In prefer a statment of objectives over an agenda. Whereas, an agenda would provide a sequence of topics, a list of objectives can do the same while also providing purpose and direction to the meeting.

The meeting experts at the Effective Meeting site offer Six Tips for More Effective Meetings where they state the importance of meeting objectives in tip number two, immediately behind their first tip where they propose that the best meeting sometimes is no meeting. In talking about meeting objectives they state,

One benefit of setting objectives for the meeting is to help you plan the meeting. The more concrete your meeting objectives, the more focused your agenda will be.

You can lead with objectives by using objectives as a meeting agenda.

Using Objectives to Organize Communication

A few years ago when I was teaching a college critical thinking class for IT students, it was common for these new students to submit papers that were unorganized and meandering. The writers would often jump directly into the content discussion with no statement of purpose or hint about their plan. My primary message to those students is essentially my recommendation in this post. Leaders can use objectives to organize and more effectively package written or verbal communication. A simple declaration of your objectives or purpose in either a written paper, memo or presentation goes a long ways to organizing the communication and giving it a purpose.

I could not have stated this any better than white paper specialist Jim Lodico in his post, Ten Days to a Better White Paper – Day 1: Define Your Objectives where he writes

One of the most important yet most overlooked steps in creating a white paper is to clearly define the goals and objectives of the project. ... The paper may provide valuable information and truly solve an industry problem but without a clearly defined objective at the outset, the white paper doesn’t work.

The same message can be made about presentations. A statement of objectives adds direction and purpose to your presentations. It also gives the presentation a teacher-like quality. This idea is validated by presentation specialist and author, Andrew V. Abela at his The Extreme Presentation(tm) Method blog. Speaking of presentation objectives he writes,

Your objectives should not be about what you—the presenter—intend to do in your presentation. Those are not objectives; they’re an agenda. Your objectives should be about how your audience will change as a result of your presentation: how will they think and act differently after they leave the room.

You can avoid unorganized and meadering communication by adding a statement of objectives to your written communications and presentations.

The primary purpose of this post is to explore the "objective" as a leadership tool. Just like a teacher, quiet leaders will benefit by leading to an objective in planning, meetings, and communications.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly with objectives.

don

Are you a Super Learner? Do a self assessment.

Are you a super learner?

My recent exploration at the intersection of learning and leadership exposed me to the concept of a super learner. It's a role to which I aspire. I certainly have my share of weaknesses and my opportunity for learning is endless but I wanted a simple list of characteristics that could help me assess my progress.

Here are the characteristics that I would use to describe a super learner:

• You live in wonder and have a insatiable curiosity and will to learn.
• You are humble and clearly recognize your knowledge gaps and weaknesses.
• You are a skilled critical thinker and good at synthetic thinking. You look to connect the dots at the intersection of ideas.
• You are patient. Super learners understand that there are no shortcuts or quick fixes.
• You accept mistakes as simply a part of learning.
• You are self-reliant, self driven and self-motivated. You believe that learning is worth doing for its own sake.
• You are media savvy. Super learners live in a state of constant exposure to social media and the associated knowledge. You are well aware of the power of social technology to connect people to people.
• You are social and group-oriented. You are able to build networks for collaborating. You are quick to share knowledge.

How did you do?

My eight characteristics were summarized from these resources:
Mission to Learn blog: 5 Traits of the Super Learner
Harvard Magazine Article (pdf): Secrets of the Super Learners
Accenture Video: Super Learners

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly.
Don

Curiosity as a measure of passion

Learning and curiosity is one of the key elements of quiet leadership as defined on this blog. My personal carnival of learning at Lead Quietly would include these posts:

• It's All About Learning
• It's All About Learning - Part Deux
• Fixed or Growth, What's in your mindset?
• Mindset, it will profoundly affect everything.

I was intrigued when Steve Roesler, a fellow Best of 2008 Leadership Blog nominee at his All Things Workplace blog took a different twist, a better perspective on the work of Dr. Carol Dweck that differentiates between a Growth versus Fixed Mindset. I have discussed this concept previously.

In Curiosity, Passion and Leadership, Steve elevates the value of curiosity, by proposing that a curious mind-set that can be used as a yard stick to measure passion. As he writes,

Leaders value people who display a never-ending curiosity for the many facets of the business. Similarly, successful employees of every ilk display a never-ending curiosity that emerges as "passion" in a meeting room filled with people.

What better measure of passion than curiosity?
You can see it's presence or absence in interviews, meetings, telephone conversations, or luncheon chatter. You can display it and you can discern it.

Steve encourages leaders to hire and promote people with passion where you measure passion by sensing their curiosity.

As leaders, we should show our curiosity, it comes across as passion. And when asked, "What's in your mindset?" Show your curiosity and passion.

Thanks Steve for the new insight.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly and show your passion, ahhhh, I mean curiosity.
Don