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How lifelong learning gives you a competitive edge as a leader
In today’s global business world, the need for us to up-skill, improve and learn new things is essential: but many people do not have a model for this process of lifelong learning. As a leader, your ability to learn and improve your abilities and skills is crucial. So I would like to give you my model for learning.
Begin by asking yourself and your people this self-reflection question consistently from now on. Do you truly know something when you have watched a video? Attended a webinar? Been to a conference? Been part of a development programme? Many people can suffer from shallow knowledge, meaning that their ability to recall information, perform under pressure and pass on knowledge, when needed, is not fully there. We need to process information on a deeper level to bypass this.
Understanding the process of learning on a deep and sincere level, can offer these benefits to your organisation and to you personally:
You are more effective at helping newer and more inexperienced people
You can make connections across multiple disciplines
You can respond well to changes and challenges
You can take on new information well
You can respond skilfully to the needs of clients
You can create value for your clients beyond solving their problems or providing a service and products
I am going to help you to deepen your learning, by giving you an overview of a unique learning model. Applying this model will enable you to fully learn and process information at a deep and proper level.
Learning Step 1- The Net
Capturing your information- like a butterfly in a net
Give your brain as many ways to capture new information as possible: write notes, draw diagrams, flow charts, pictures, record videos, make models. Use different senses, if possible. Give your brain reasons to remember the information, such as linking it to how it will help you with something important to you. You can also add in memory stickers, such as using alliteration with words, using visualisation, adding in dates and times and anything novel or a bit strange, which you can add into your data collection at this stage; this will all help you to fully capture the information better.
Also, always give your brain an answer to the question, “Why?” “Why are we learning this?” This is something I learned in my teaching days: if you give someone a good, compelling reason to learn something, and make it exciting, their brains will be like a wet sponge, eager and ready to soak up and process new information. However, if what the person is learning is seen as meaningless or of little benefit, then their brains will remain uninterested and in low endangement mode. Give yourself and others compelling reasons why if you want real learning to take place:
Will it help them to do their jobs better?
Will it help to make their life more fun?
Will it help them to feel proud, inspired or excited?
Will it help them to make more money?
Will it allow them to have a positive impact on their family?
Capturing new information in a compelling way, will create a new neurological cluster of brain cells in your brain, where the information will exist in a shallow form. It is not yet deep knowledge.
Key learning point
Layer the new captured information by giving your brain as many reasons and ways to remember the information as possible. Make sure to include emotions and personal benefits, wherever possible.
Remember this equation:
emotional intensity + repetition
These are the two aspects that you must include, in order for your brain cell connections to grow, link up, speed up and strengthen. The emotional intensity and effort is your focus and/or emotional reasons for the learning. And the more you repeat the learning or practise the skill, the stronger the brain cell connections become. Think like an Olympic athlete amount of practise: thousands, if not millions of times.
Example – learning a new language: have lessons with a native speaker, text in that language, listen to its music, speak it with friends, watch content in this language, use apps such as duo lingo.
Processing your information- like uploading it to the cloud
Now analyse, edit and condense your information by: talking concepts through with others, condensing more words and data down into smaller more meaningful sets. Disregard unnecessary information, asking open ended, self reflective questions, using who, why, what, when, where, and if, related to the information. At this stage is can be very useful to have someone to help push your understanding through to the next level: a mentor, a coach, a trainer, a teacher, a trusted advisor. Speaking with them, speaking about what you have learned, filling in knowledge gaps and spending time in self-reflection will all help your brain to process and move you on to the next stage of learning.
Remember the equation of emotional intensity + repetition?
Stage 2 is where you put the reps in to process the information: again and again and again. And if you think you know it, do it again often more times!
This will allow the information within the neurological clusters in your brain to now interact with other neural networks. This will both make new connections and strengthen your neural pathways for storage, retrieval and recall of the information.
Key learning point
Most of the information that you hold in your brain will be at this stage. It is not fully processed and embedded yet, so do not get dis-heartened at this stage. Repetition and strong mental focus will help the information to move onto the next stage.
Example – you prepare a short presentation in your second language, using flash cards. You then seek feedback from peers, ask self reflective questions, and watch a recording back of your presentation, identifying what went well and how you can improve further.
Retrieving and using your information- from a huge place, such as a water tank
By this stage you can recall the information in the form of a knowledge set, skills, habits and mental processes without the need of any external resources. The information has been properly embedded into your long term memory.
Key learning point
If you can recall information, perform a task, demonstrate a skill or ability with no need for prompting, guidance, notes or the resources that you used in stages 1 and 2, then the information is now in your long term memory-in the tank-and you have it for life. Repeating the efforts made in stage 2 will solidify it even further and deeper into your knowledge bank.
Example – you can speak a language fluently. You can drive a car independently. You can cook a meal without a recipe. You can respond to a question immediately. You can play a musical piece from memory.
Watch out for these two learning traps
The first learning trap we can fall into, is to think that we have reached stage 3 too soon. Remember, you cannot move from stage 1-capturing, to stage 3- the tank, straight away. Your brain needs processing efforts, and time, and good sleep is a critical aspect to allow this to take place. A good test to see if something is truly in the tank, is to test yourself and see if you can use your knowledge without any notes or resources. For example, can you speak the languages? Drive car? Cook the recipe? Remember the birthday? If you can, then the information is in your long term storage, it’s in your tank, and you won’t forget it.
The second trap is that people often give up at stage 2, because they cannot see results and abilities straight away. Encourage your people to persevere, to remain committed; as once knowledge is in the long term memory, in the tank, they will have it for life. Remind them of their reasons for learning the information and the benefits that it can bring them: make more money, improve their career, have more fun, help their family etc etc. this can ignite the emotion necessary to help to encourage their brains to make the extra effort, which will result in stronger connections being made and resulting skills, abilities and knowledge. Millions of people give up on their dreams because they get stuck at stage 2- do not let this happen to you or to your people!
The effort is definitely worth it.
Remember, the more you learn, the more you earn!
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