Learning in Action

1. Learning in Action AmarinTawata

2. About the Learning in Action? • Basic elements of and primary processes of knowledge workers for developing a learning organization

3. Learning organization • Requiring a framework for action • Learning is a process that unfolds over time and link it with knowledge acquisition, deeper understanding, and improved performance.

4. The learning process

5. Learning disabilities • Biased information • Flawed interpretation • Inaction

6. Biased informaion • Blind spots arise when scanning and search activities are narrow or misdirected. • Filtering occurs when critical data are downplayed or ignored. • Lack of information sharing

7. Flawed interpretation • Since the underlying processes are complex and poorly understood.

8. Inaction • An inability or unwillingness to act on new interpretations • A problem of incentives and the frequent lack of support for new initiatives • A certain level of self-awareness • Espoused theories vs theories-in-use

9. Supportive learning environments • Recognize and accept differences • Provide timely feedback • Stimulate new ideas • Tolerate errors and mistakes

10. Types of learning

11. Intelligence gathering Obtaining currently available information

12. Search • Using information from diverse sources • Cross-checking the findings • Ensuring reliability • Shifting smoothly between passive and active mode • Devoting effort to analysis and interpretation • Connecting with decision making

13. Inquiry • Providing choice of respondents • Carefully framing questions • Respondents as representative and appropriate • 2 forms • Descriptive • Focus group and structured conversation • Easy to summarize results • Exploratory • Using open-ended questions to elicit perceptions and needs • Respondents on their minds

14. Observation • Carrying out in real context • Acceptance of an observer • Attentive looking and listening • Suspending judgment and postpone analysis long as possible • 2 approaches • Passive observation • To record experience for later review • Participation and interaction • To clarify and refine understanding

15. Suitable technique • Search matches with settings of published information. • Inquiry suits to settings of identifying key sources. • Observation suits to settings of gaining insights by watching people. Combination of them provides intelligence of the highest order.

16. Experiential learning Drawing lessons from the past activities

17. Two distinct ways of experience • Repetition • Efficiently performing the same tasks over time • Exposure • Getting a new set of talent • Added skill by the exploration of unfamiliar engagement

18. Learning and experience curves

19. Reflection and review Taking time to reflect on experiences and developing lessons for the future

20. Single case or comparison reviews • Single case • Writing a report as practical advice • Distinguishing effective from ineffective process • Making recommendations for the future • Comparison • Assessments of success and failures • Contrasts of superior and average performers

21. Individual, Group, or Organizational reviews • Individual • To distill and disseminate effective practice • Group • To identify a few critical processes and procedures for keeping quality high, schedules on track and costs under control • Organizational • Studies on going operations (focusing on best practice for dissemination) • Assessments of change programs

22. Experiential learning • Reflection and review processes are weak due to late in game. • After-the-fact reviews as alternating periods of learning and doing • Focusing on tangible and result-oriented programs

23. A focus on problems • Problems or concrete challenges ensuring active participation • Real problems to motivate learners by putting them on the firing line • Simulated problems to offer a solution • Program design to share complexity, scope, an unexpected surprises.

24. Experimentation

25. Experimentaion • Try-it-and –see approach • Knowledge as provisional and conclusions as tentative • Designed activities to generate knowledge

26. Types of experiments • Exploratory experiments • To see what would happen if • Hypothesis-testing experiments • To discriminate among alternative explanations and confirm prevailing views

27. Exploration Lack of information leading to difficult to identity solution • Probe-and-learn process • 4 elements such as a starting point, one or more feedback loops, a process for rapid redesign and a stopping rule • Demonstration projects • On-line experiments • Large scale simulation

28. Hypothesis testing • Deductive rather than inductive • Disciplined rather than playful • Targeted rather than open-end • Generating data, validating theories, and ensuring new ideas to be accepted

29. A way of Thinking • Experimentation should be associated reasoning process. • Various names to make hypothesis testing less burdensome but to preserve insights and discriminating power • Quasi-experimentation • Adaptive experimentation • Field experimentation

30. Conducting experiments • Be clear about the purpose of the experiments • Begin with a hypothesis in mind • Ensure that all needed measures (pretest and posttest) are in place • Reproduce real-world conditions as closely as possible • Manipulate a single variable at a time • Use comparison groups or other natural controls • Involve diverse, complementary observers • Search for distinctive patterns • Employ multiple, repeated trials

31. Leading learning Methods that leaders use to work with people of an organization moving in the desired direction.

32. Teaching and learning • Concepts and ideas flow from the top down or the center out. • The focus is on knowledge transfer. • The effectiveness measuring by the degree of important information without distortion or loss • Learn how to learn for developing an organization

33. Creating the opportunity

34. Learning forums • To foster learning by assignments, activities, and events • Many forms • System audits • Cross-functional processes • Internal benchmarking projects • Studying mission • Shifting from a pure performance orientation to balance performance and learning goals

35. Exploratory assignments • To clear ambiguous problems • Challenging and setting enough time and space • Requiring exploratory assignments and atmosphere of give and take

36. Shared experiences • A learning process to mimic personal experiences • Understanding rationale • Acting a new behaviors

37. Setting the tone

38. Challenge and dissent • Creating warm and fuzzy cultures that lack tension and pressure. • Learning should be channeled and directed by executives. • Challenges as encouraging inquiry to generate open-minded discussion • Dissent as sense of security to create a more supportive setting

39. Open communication • Opening to access to information • Executives should send the signal that knowledge is to be shared. • Rewarding individuals if they share knowledge • Redesigning work processes as knowledge sharing as a form of behavior • Imposing policies and directives to managers for seeking help from others

40. Leading the discussion

41. Questioning • Motivating and forcing to develop an organization • Questions depends on the situation and current needs. • Questions can • Frame issues • Offer instructions • Solicit information • Probing for analysis • Drawing connections • Seeking opinions • Ratifying decisions

42. Listening • Real learning as active listening • Requiring attentiveness • Practicing patience • Executives must learn to listen for disconnects during discussion. • Effective discussion requires leaders who are able to listen at multiple levels.

43. Responding Executives should be able to respond. • Responding • Keeping the focus on the speaker • Injecting a supportive point of view • Injecting a negative point of view • Involving the open use of power or authority

44. From organizational to individual learning The first step in building a learning organization is a personal one: they need to develop their own skills as learners.

45. Openness to new perspectives • Leaders should accept the provisional nature of knowledge. • Curious or open-mind learners • Indicators of openness • Leaders’ attitude toward challenging questions • Amount of exposure in thought-provoking environments

46. Awareness of personal biases • Distinctive cognitive styles such as • Written form • Discussion • Pervasive learning disabilities • Trouble separating signals from noise • Poor to estimate probabilities • Relying on misleading rules of thumb

47. Exposure to unfiltered data • Leaders should improve their learning by contacting with raw or unfiltered data. • Finding ways of confronting the realities of organization life

48. A sense of humility • Recognizing that leaders do not have all the answers • Acknowledging that superior insights lie elsewhere • Learning is a profession of faith in the future.

49. Assignment • Select a mode of learning to develop your organization • Why did you select the mode? • How will the mode develop your organization? • Illustrate the learning processes in your organization