Personal Learning and Performing

Dec 6 2010

Some things you can do right now to learn fast and improve your own performance today!

Many of us are aware of things like Peer Assists, U.S. Army After Action Reviews… proven techniques used by teams to learn before, during and after their work activities, tasks and projects. These are great ways to reflect, learn and transfer knowledge among and between groups of people.

But what about your own personal learning? How are you learning fast to improve your performance every day?

Listed below are some things I do to accelerate my own learning on a daily basis. To be honest, I wasn’t driven to do this on my own. As a leader of many KM teams over the years, my team mates were always pushing me to ‘walk the talk’ and ‘eat my own dog food’ when it came to KM. In response to their prompting and provocation, I simply modified the learning techniques we used successfully with teams to work for an individual and put them in practice. Here’s how they work:

At the start of your day or next task/activity, ask yourself:
  • What is supposed to happen & how will I know if I’m successful?
  • What knowledge do I need, and where can I get it?
  • Who else should I be talking to?
  • What else will this make possible?

In the middle of a current task or activity you are involved in, ask yourself:
  • What was supposed to happen so far?
  • What actually happened?
  • Why are these different?
  • What can I learn from this and do about it right

At the end of the day or a current task or activity, ask yourself:
  • What stands out for me that is new or different?
  • What should I repeat next time I do this, and why?
  • What should I do different next time, and why?
  • Who else may be facing similar challenges and might find what I’ve learned useful?


You might recognize some of the questions from the Peer Assist, Action Review and Retrospect methods embedded in the above. Sources for some of the other questions are Nancy Dixon and Brad Meyer, two of the most effective coaches and facilitators for collaboration and conversation I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.

Try these out for yourself today and start learning at the speed of change!

Comments

Very interesting article!!

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

More information about formatting options