 I rediscovered this as I was doing some tidying up, c/ Mahatma Ghandi Most organisational learning involves an experience of identity.
I'm talking about our work role identity which is defined in documents such as position descriptions, organisational vision and mission statements, policies and procedures. Organsaitonal job descriptions, policies and procedures go some way to helping workers understand the work they are expected to do and the organisations expectations of their role. But these documents can be a long way from the reality of bringing that role to life. it is the person in the role who does that. And they bring all of their beliefs, thoughts, words, action, habits and values into the role. Our role in organisational learning and development is to help our people to learn how to bring themselves into the role and how to bring the role into themselves.
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 Neurons are the basis of all learning. It is the electrical firings and chemical messages (neurotransmitters) that run between neurons, the neural pathways, which produce our thoughts, feelings and interactions with our world. Hebb's rule: The neurons that fire together wire together Named after pioneering Canadian neurologist, Donald O. Hebb – one of the founding fathers of neuroscience, Hebb’s rule states that when two neurons fire together regularly or fire once with significant intensity, their connection is strengthened and they are more likely to fire together in future to the detriment of connections with other neurons. This action forms the basis of learning. We learn through repetition and recognition. Repetition creates well developed brain patterns (connections between neurons). Learning to drive a car is often used as a way of explaining learning in terms of moving from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence. That transition from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence is about the building of new neural pathways and the more you practice the easier driving a car becomes until you don't have to think about it when you're doing it. Some quick facts about neurons
Interesting article: How many neurons make a human brain? Billions fewer than we thought http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/feb/28/how-many-neurons-human-brain Turns out we still don't really know. Interesting that the generally accepted number is 100 billion however this article refutes that. And in the video below, The Woman Who Changed Her Brain, Barbara Arrowsmith-Young states we have 200 billion. I think the most important point for learning and development practitioners, is just to appreciate the enormity and complexity of the neurone numbers involved. How We Learn – Synapses and Neural Pathways The best explanation I have found about the physicality of how the brain learns comes from Lord Robert Winston, Professor of Science and Society and Emeritus Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College London:
When we learn, we are rewiring our brains: creating new neural pathways, reinforcing existing pathways and pruning others. Neuroplasticity The brains ability to change in response to our experiences, its ability to learn. The Woman Who Changed Her Brain: Barbara Arrowsmith-Young at TEDxToronto:
 How do you want your learners to feel? Engaged? Enthusiastic? Energised? Confident? Willing to have a go? When our learners come to our learning and development programs we want them to learn. This sounds like I’m stating the obvious and I have seen many trainers and facilitators focus on the content too much and assume that the learners are in the right emotional state for learning, they’re ready to go. So they launch head first in to the content via a fairly standard opening eg these are the objectives, this is the agenda, here are the ground rules…now lets get started. But creating a true learning environment is not as simple as that. People are emotional beings. They lead busy lives and are usually juggling multiple competing priorities. We want to get to: the learner’s executive brain, their prefrontal cortex
Our emotional brain, the limbic system. Our emotional brain, the limbic system, is an ancient part of the human brain. It supports a variety of functions including emotion, behavior, motivation, long-term memory and olfaction. Some basics about the Limbic system:
To give learning a chance you need to make sure your learners feel safe. They need to feel that they can admit to what they don’t know, share what they do know (be valued), be able to have their thinking challenged, feel uncomfortable some of the time (without wanting to run away) and know that they can take the risks they need to be able to learn.  Our Lizard Brain This is the oldest part of the human brain, our most primal brain. Controls the body’s vital functions eg heart rate, breathing, body temperatuve and balance. It includes the main structures found in a reptiles brain: the brainstem and the cerebellum. Our lizard brain protects us from threat and seeks reward - it helps us to decide what is significant at any point in time. Take care of your learners lizard brain.
In August 2014 I had the privilege of co-facilitating a concurrent workshop at the 17th IAF Asia Conference Singapore, http://iafasiaconference.iaf.sg, in collaboration with Belinda Lowing from Effective Conversations. Our topic: Facilitating self while facilitating change – the challenges of applying process facilitation in an organisational learning & development context, http://iafasiaconference.iaf.sg/facilitating-self-while-facilitating-change-the-challenges-of-applying-process-facilitation-in-an-organisational-learning-and-development-context/ We saw this as a great opportunity to share and explore two key issues we’ve been grappling with as process and learning facilitators:
So what is facilitation? Facilitation is any activity that makes tasks for others easy, that helps people do their best thinking and their best work. 'A facilitator is someone who uses knowledge of group processes to formulate and deliver the needed structure for meeting interactions to be effective. The facilitator focuses on effective processes (meeting dynamics) allowing the participants to focus on the content or the substance of their work together'. http://www.iaf-world.org/Libraries/Facilitation_Articles/ASQ-IAF_Facilitation_Primer.sflb.ashx Facilitation and learning Each time we facilitate an experience we are also facilitating learning, whether learning is the primary purpose or not. Transformative Learning Theory First expressed by Jack Mezirow from Columbia University, transformative learning theory explains learning as ‘making sense of our experiences’. Transformative Learning offers the opportunity for deep learning – looking at what it takes to move from knowing what you know without question, to moving to looking at the assumptions about what you know Transformation is about coming out different to when you went in. Transformative learning is focussed on the kind of learning where you change your view of the world, where you end up seeing things differently. And by changing your worldview you’ve changed how you make sense of your experiences, how you make meaning about the world you inhabit. This can happen as the result of a life-changing event, a disorienting dilemma. It can also happen as the result of a series of smaller transformations over time leading to be major shift in thinking. Transformative learning can be as a result of the work that facilitators do helping groups to do their best thinking and work. Managing self while managing change The role of the facilitator can be a dedicated one as described earlier. However often times in organisations people take on a facilitative role as needed e.g. run a meeting, do business planning, collaborate on a strategic approach, have 1:1 meetings with staff or work with a team to solve a problem. This means that managers, team leaders, staff, colleagues are, at times, stepping into the role of a facilitator. Facilitators can wear many hats:
"The intentional, accepting and non-judgmental focus of one's attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness_(psychology) Facilitators must be ever mindful of the responsibility and power that comes with their role and the impact of themselves on the work that the group is doing. Conference Slideshow Here is the SlideShow we prepared for the conference: http://www.slideshare.net/jbasslearning/faciliating-self-hudson-lowing-workshop-b3-050814 Find out what Jane and Belinda do http://www.jbasslearning.com http://www.effectiveconversations.com.au
Finding Facilitators Rank Through Drum Circle/Rhythm Activity, 16th IAF ASIa conference toyko 201323/2/2014
I chose this workshop because I am a musician so I was fascinated to learn more about this facilitation technique, which I’d never heard of. We had great fun. Kaoru started by asking the group to stand in a large circle, she then handed each of us some kind of small percussive toy and asked us to pass the toys around the circle in time with the rhythm she was playing. Lots of laughter as Kaorus’ rhythms got faster and we tried to keep up = toys started flying everywhere. The next activity, we sat in a circle and Kaoru placed a pile of ‘boomwhackers’ on the floor asking each person in the group to choose one. She then divided the group in half and gave each half of the group their own rhythm to play – now we’re jamming! J How good is that? People were listening and observing (and getting a bit adventurous with their rhythms!) – and in the process we are creating connections without any words needed (=the power of music), building a shared understanding of the group. To finish the workshop, Kaoru debriefed the group using a short paper point, encouraging us to reflect and share our learnings/thoughts. Here are the notes I took:
This was very much an activity based workshop, so not many notes …didn’t even have time to take any photo.  So here is a photo of the Day 1 Lunch (food is always important) J
Heading to the 16th IAF Asia Conference Tokyo 2013 in a couple of days - really looking forward to learning more about facilitation, meeting new people, having time to reflect on my own practice http://www.iaf-asia2013.com And then, of course, a bit of frolicking before heading home. The 4 sessions I've chosen to attend are:
And a bit of jazz while i'm there...
...thinking some music making is on the list at Intro in Takadanobaba, http://www.tokyojazzsite.com/content/intro as well as a shochu and pizza at Samurai, http://www.tokyojazzsite.com/content/samurai |
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