Workplaces are, again, useful informal routes to learning ? though in this case it is a question of learning from colleagues. You share ideas and experiences and find shortcuts to what is expected of you, rather than the more formal work-based learning and training programmes that teach you what management wants you to know and do.
In Section 3 you learned about different communities of practice, and you could find further opportunities for learning in this way by:
Either way, you can become acquainted with a wider range of thoughts, feelings and behaviours that you can observe, ‘try on for size? or discuss. You can open up your mind to challenging your own stereotypes and opinions ? and those of others ? and learn to value the debate and discussion that arises. You can sharpen your communication skills, while also acquiring new knowledge and information about the topic under discussion.
Neil Thompson (2005) has suggested that you can extend your knowledge and skills through six key routes: reading, asking, watching, feeling, talking and thinking.
Both fiction and non-fiction books (including self-help manuals, documentaries and biographies) can help us expand our horizons, provide new insights and ideas, and help us learn techniques that will save us time, so that we then have more time for further reading, thinking, asking and so on.
Sometimes, books (particularly professional literature or academic books) are written in a style we do not understand or appreciate, so it is a good idea to ask other people what they think about the ideas we are reading about. You can also learn a lot by asking other people ? inside and outside work ? how they tackle things and why they do things a certain way; what they have learned about what works and what does not.
There are at least two aspects to this: watching other people to learn different approaches to tackling things and watching carefully what happens when you do something new and then thinking about why it happened that way. Often we work on automatic pilot ? not really thinking about what we are doing. Opening up our attention and taking notice of what happens can be a useful learning opportunity.
Thoughts, feelings, attitudes and behaviours are all linked. We can use our thoughts to make sense of our feelings, and our intuition to guide our thinking. We will be coming back to this topic shortly.
Sharing ideas with colleagues, friends, family or members of an organisation you belong to is a good way of learning to understand a range of perspectives on a situation and to challenge your instinctive responses. Regular conversations can also help sharpen our communication and problem-solving skills.
Sometimes there does not seem to be enough time to really think about our lives and learning, but Thompson points out that thinking time is an essential, rather than a luxury, for times when you are not busy. If you put some effort into thinking about, and planning to avoid, crises, you can save time on fire-fighting problems in the future. You can feel more in charge of what is happening to you rather than feeling at the mercy of unforeseen events.
Using the whole range of these six approaches helps us to build up a more rounded picture of a topic or a skill that you are trying to acquire or develop. For example, reading an article in a magazine might lead to talking through the ideas with friends; asking how they might do things differently and why. This in turn might encourage you to think about the way you normally approach similar situations ? and then to try out a different approach. Further reflection on whether or not it works for you and why (or why not) can be a valuable source of learning.
We encourage you now to:
We hope you found this activity both interesting and challenging. It would be a good idea to make sure that you keep your notes for this activity where you can find them easily, as they may help as you move towards drawing up your action plan.
The next suggestion about keeping a learning journal for a short period of time should also help you to do this.
Copyright © 2008 The Open University
