Making a Difference: Learning How to Learn

 

This past summer my 15-year old son was doing a course on careers. For his last assignment, he had to interview someone about how they chose their career and how it had progressed over time, so he decided to interview me. His last question was “what single piece of advice would you give someone starting out in life and career?”

I thought about it for a bit, and realizing what I said could really make a difference in how he looked at his life ahead, I gave him a simple four-word answer – learn how to learn.

My answer was based on a few realizations that I had based on my own career as well as the great job market uncertainties and opportunities that face today’s youth due to IoT, AI, robotics, climate change, social upheaval, an aging population – the list goes on.

I’ve probably changed directions in my IT/PM career a dozen times or more. It  is highly probable that most people under the age of forty (and even those above) will need to change career directions multiple times in their working life. As I noted in my previous post, my career changes were sometimes out of necessity, and sometimes for fun. I believe that one of the reasons that it was possible for me to keep reinventing myself, was because I like to learn new things.

Truth be told, at times I’m probably a bit too obsessed with it, but I do think it is what has kept me relevant, engaged, worthwhile to others, and most of all, worthwhile to myself. I am fascinated to read people who get things at a different level and then see if it can be applied at a practical level. I like to find out where some of the great ideas of our time came from and how they have morphed over time.

It’s part curiosity, part sheer joy in finding out things I never knew. 

Another reason I gave my son those four words as my advice is because we can never know everything. As soon as we can accept that reality, we can also accept the need to always be ready to learn. We won't know where those opportunities are until they are in front of us. Knowing that we can be ready to learn at any moment, is actually quite liberating. We don't need to be afraid of what we don't know. We also no longer feel the urge to hide not knowing something - it becomes just another thing we pick up along the way as we need it. 

There has been much talk over the years about "the learning organization". Organizations are made up of flesh and blood people (at least for now they mostly are). It is the people who learn. So my take is that to say organizations learn is to accord them anthropomorphistic qualities. We shouldn't. It's just people trying to find their way.

Uncertainty and ambiguity is the new reality. Knowing how to learn, and always being ready to learn, equips us for that reality - no matter our age.

As I approach sixty, I am in awe of people like Russel Ackoff, who at eighty is still learning and making a difference. Search for “A Lifetime of Systems Thinking” and have a read of a brilliant mind (hey, you gotta do some work here and show you are least a little bit curious!).

Over the course of the 2017 PMI Global Congress, you’ll have a chance to learn from some other bright minds and from each other. Bright minds like my friend and fellow Expert Karen Chovan who will be talking about The Necessary Culture for Soaring Performance on October 29th at 4:45PM .

Learning how to learn is also becoming a "thing" that itself can be studied. One of the most popular courses on Coursera is Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects which I intend to take before Global Congress. I'll let you know in a future post how it went.

The world of projects is also undergoing significant change and this trend will continue. What is valuable today may be less so tomorrow. What is mere idea or not even known today, may be the thing of tomorrow. Reinventing ourselves can be scary or enjoyable. It's a choice that most people will have to make at some point if they want to continue to make a difference. Knowing how to learn can make it not only enjoyable, but gives us options and choice.

As long we as are willing and ready to learn, we get to continue to make a difference.

I'd be interested to hear the community's thoughts on learning and reinventing ourselves so we can continue to make a difference.

If you’d like to talk strategic intent, adaptive strategy, back-casting over forecasting, outcomes over outputs, any of the agilities, or pretty much anything you think I may be able to help you with in making a difference in your world, here is my availability during the conference:

• Saturday the 28^th from 1:30 to 4:30
• Sunday the 29^th from 3:00 to 5:00
• Monday the 30^th from 9:00 to 12:00