Do we know how to learn?

Some of the people I work with are at the beginning of a steep learning curve.  Expats moving to another country need to process massive amounts of learning in a short period of time.  The cultural learning that I help them to understand and reflect on is one aspect of the learning about a country, a city, a workplace and a people that they are absorbing.  To help them with that mass of learning we also spend time discussing what is happening in their brain as they learn.  Understanding how learning happens can help us to support the process of learning. 

The importance of learning how to learn came to mind as I read the blogs from my fellow bloggers anticipating the upcoming AHRI Convention. Following on from the themes of the Convention, which will consider the period of profound transformation, we are currently facing, the blogs covered a range of topics that anticipate how that transformation is impacting and will impact on the world of work. 

They discussed the need for HR professionals to embrace an exponential rate of change.  Two separate blogs described the need to competently use technology in a way that enhances our lives and work.  One wrote about the need to adapt to careers that will span 17 employers, and another wrote about the need to prepare for lives that will span a hundred years.  

The one constant to enable us to adapt to these opportunities will be our openness to continuous learning and our ability to do so.

While academic formal learning will continue to be important, learning on the job and in the moment will become even more important.  The agents of learning may not just be the traditional trainers, supervisors, managers or leaders, but we also need to be open to learning from colleagues, collaborative networks, coaches, mentors and don’t forget the learning opportunities provided by mentees.  These will become our most common situations of continuous learning.  

We need to be aware of the processes we develop to support learning.  Understanding how to embed learning in previous experiences and knowledge will enhance the ease with which we learn.  Our ability to focus our brains and avoid distractions for short periods of intense learning will be important.  We also need the ability to space these periods of learning so our brain can absorb and embed the learning.  

And what I consider the most critical skill of all – the ability to mindfully reflect on all aspects of life and work to gain new awareness and insights – all of these aspects will help us learn and adapt to the workplaces of the future.

Many of these insights about learning have been gathered through research in neuroscience and that is one of the things I’m anticipating learning more about at the Pre-Convention Workshop at the AHRI Convention in Brisbane this week.  Dr David Rock from the NeuroLeadership Institute, a global initiative bringing neuroscientists and leadership experts together to build a new science for leadership development, will be presenting the workshop titled – “NeuroLeadership:  Rethinking how we learn and Breaking Bias. I'm looking forward to learning!

This blog was first published on the AHRI Convention Blog

Trisha will attend the Convention as a guest of AHRI.