Teams That Team - Learnt to Learn

In my most recent newsletters, I shared the four most significant shifts teams made to transition to become more high-performing, collaborative teams:

1. They discovered their power of purpose.

2. They made it safer by being braver.

3. They teamed to learn (rather than learnt to team)

4. They aligned on what they team to achieve

The fifth most impactful shift teams made was they learnt to learn. They recognised to change, required being open and committed to learn.

Teams that learnt to learn did 3 things, they:

1. Identified their ‘enemies’ and ‘allies’ of learning – they came to see how they hindered themselves as learners – how they prevented and limited their learning. They recognised the distinction between their ‘blindness’ (don’t know what they don’t know and ‘ignorance’ (know what they don’t know). Most significant, they identified their ‘enemies and allies’ of learning.

The most common ‘enemies of learning’ included:

• Confusing ‘knowing’ with having an opinion or information

• Too busy to learn – don’t have the time

• Self-doubt and the lack of confidence

• Fear of not knowing

The most enabling ‘allies of learning’ included:

• Acceptance and patience – they declared, “I can’t know it all, so let me keep at it.”

• Shifted their mood to curiosity and wonder, “I wonder what could be if I were to…”

• Declaring themselves a learner, “I don’t know and I want to learn.”

• Courage in accepting not knowing or not having the answer.

2. Understood the distinction between ‘knowledge’ and ‘wisdom’ – the most significant shift was not to learn to have the answers but to learn by accessing the collective wisdom through the power of their questions. They shifted from arrogance to curiosity. As Julio Qlalla, a preeminent executive coach, once said, ‘Knowledge is finite and wisdom is infinite. Knowledge is a love affair with answers and wisdom is a love affair with questions.”

3. Adopted the 4C’s sequence to learning – they practiced making it permanent:

• Connection – they connected to their intention in learning. They aligned to their ‘allies of learning’.

• Context – they recognised their insights; they accepted their opinions, assumptions, and beliefs represented their truth, not the truth.

• Content – they opened themselves to new information, new ways of seeing, thinking and doing things.

• Commitment – they initiated learning in action – they explored new possibilities and experimented with new ways of doing.

INVITATION

Learning and leadership are indispensable. As leaders we rise on our relevance to others. To be relevant, is to be open to learn.

Invite your team to reflect on and share your insights:

• What’s my greatest enemy of learning?

• To be the best learner I can be, what’s my most valuable ‘ally of learning’?

• What’s important I learn, using the 4C’s to enable me?  

May you flourish.