The stages of learning

As I have a bit of time on my hands at the moment, I thought that I would look back over some of my articles in my folders. I found one that I had cut out in 1999 from the Harvard Business Review. It tackled the stages of learning which of course relates to knowledge management. In 1992 I read a book by Charles Handy which changed my life called "The Age of Unreason" which drove me to realise that if I was to have a job that was sustainable for the rest of my working life, I would need to keep reading and learning and staying up to date with events in my field and beyond it.

Because of this the article argues that learning is to use my words sedimentary as it creates a foundation for tackling the next level. Learning is based on experience - but we need to be aware that we are learning a lesson and pay attention to find those lessons - but also have the time to reflect on them also.

Organisations like schools - think that there is only one way to learn. Does everyone like to sit in a room in say a law firm and listen to a support lawyer or an outside expert deliver a talk and chalk lecture. They have not learnt in many ways that there are other ways to learn that takes into account that people do have different learning styles. I enjoyed the way that I was taught on my MBA - in going away to read a case study and then discussion it with my colleagues in a syndicate and revelling in the interaction and new ideas that they came up with based on the different foundations. It made me feel that I was in control of my learning and not in the teachers control. It was a more adult way of learning.

Bust just remember this - no person can be forced up the ladders of learning - but then as WE Deming quipped - Learning is not compulsory - but then neither is survival.