Learning new things may mean needing to unlearn some old things

 

In my recent webinar Are you an Agile Project Manager or an Agile Project Leader? I started off by talking about the fact that experience can be an encumbrance to learning. Learning is a continuous process that literally starts the day we were born and hopefully continues until we take our last breath.

And learning is not training - learning is an educational process of asking questions about why before we wonder about the what, and how, and when and whom. It's a process of reflection and introspection and being willing to look for why something might work before we start coming up with reasons as to why it might not.

A great practice we teach in our classes is called 3x24 that’s premised on a simple concept – the first time you hear something new, try waiting 24 seconds before you look for why it might not work. Then try making it 24 minutes and then try making it 24 hours. We need to give ourselves time to absorb the new idea.

Another great practice my mentor Rod Collins writes about is called clarifying questions – this one is great for when a colleague wants to present a new idea to the team. They get to present their ideas without interruptions. The first rounds of questions after they finish have to deal with ensuring those who are present properly understand what is being suggested – the idea. First get a shared understanding of the idea before looking for why it might not work or where in may have gaps. It’s a great way to learn – be open, make sure you fully understand the idea. It also makes the person presenting feel safe – which is a part of what agile is all about, creating a safe work environment.  

These simple practices can help us develop a willingness to embrace new ideas and be open to discarding old ways of thinking and working.

As PMPs, many of us cut our teeth on traditionally managed projects which mean we mostly used a waterfall-type approach. Agile is the complete antithesis of this approach.

If we want to be truly agile then we need to have an adaptive mindset. And that means being willing to let go of some things that we may still hold dear.

The world is not like it used to be. Traditional management and its accompanying models were predicated on the notion that we can use the past to predict the future. This was the era of 3-5 year business plans where change was slow and at times imperceptible and the problems we faced were often discrete. Our world has not been like that for a very long time.

Opportunities to learn don’t all have to occur in a classroom – we all work with smart people who have great ideas – we need to create an environment where they are willing to share them. To do that we need to be willing to allow ourselves to learn and in some cases to revisit some things we may have considered as basic truths that are no longer relevant.

Sometimes we need to be able to let go of old ideas so we can learn new ones. When we do that we are demonstrating our own personal learning agility. And if we can do that, person by person we can start to transition our organizations to being more adaptive and agile.