Learning as a Strategic Investment
I recently contributed to an eBook targeted to Pharma and Healthcare marketers. The book, intending to guide its audience toward where to invest their learning in 2010, is directly relevant to anyone in business. It begins with the famous Toffler quote
The illiterate of the 21stcentury will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
-Alvin Toffler, Rethinking the Future 1999
Since he wrote those powerful words, 9 years after the publication of Senge’s Fifth Discipline, web 2.0 has exploded, and the challenges of choosing where to learn and what to learn are bursting exponentially -changing patterns of trade and social power on the planet.
Jim Collins says it well in a Fast Company interview:
FC: What has changed if you’re building a business now, as opposed to 10, 20, or 30 years ago?
JC: The skills. You need to be continually learning. For example, if you accept the idea that work is infinite and time is finite, you realize you have to manage your time and not your work. You need a laserlike focus on doing first things first. And that means having a ferocious understanding of what you are not going to do. The question used to be which phone call you wouldn’t take. Now, it’s the discipline not to have your e-mail on. The skill is knowing how to sift through the blizzard of information that hits you all the time.
As a Business Anthropologist, I am fascinated by how social media are changing the world of learning. Sunday’s New York Times re-iterates how Twitter works as a learning portal – for approximately 10% of its users, according to a 2009 Harvard study. With over 1000 user-designed applications, no one has quite figured out how many people that is… a telling commentary.
Close to the beginning of the revolution represented by social media, I undertook a study of 50 top performers, asking about how they rejuvenate. They recognized that,
The ability to be a ‘beginner’ is a key factor in sustained top performance….Forty eight consciously keep their curiosity sparked through exploration and learning.
“What I’m doing now was totally beyond me 12 months ago.”
– Entrepreneur, age 72
In my 3 decades in the trenches with business leaders, nothing seems to have gotten easier. Most would agree that the changes of the past 15 months demand more skill than ever, and a new kind of skill: being nimble in the face of uncertainty.
I cast my vote with Senge, Toffler and Collins: the ability to learn is our single best strategic investment. The evidence goes back to the first human communities.
Our ancestors have done it for millions of years. We can do it again. How will you choose your strategic learning investments this year?
Filed under Business Anthropologist, Changing Economic patterns, Leading Through Inquiry, Resilient Enterprises, Social media | Comment (0)Navigating the Downturn: Resilient Enterprises are Vulnerability-Centric
Nervous about the current economic climate? Being nervous does not put the brain in shape to generate solutions. On the contrary, worry and fear shut down the fresh thinking needed.
On the other hand, the habit of seeking to address vulnerability is a time-honored leaders’ practice [here’s a lovely example]. Not only is it good commercial process; it’s an excellent antidote to fear. Brain juices flow when peoples see opportunities to help others. By leading employees to focus on shifting Customer vulnerabilities, leaders can both stimulate ingenuity and be rewarded with new solutions and improved morale.
No matter the size of your business, doing what you’ve been doing is not likely to work. Build resilience by focusing on new vulnerabilities - your own and others’. Sound counter-intuitive? Navigating this new economic reality requires creating new kinds of exchanges. The richest exchanges address both parties’ concerns. Those concerns are centered on vulnerability.
How are your most valued trading partners – key segments - viewing the vulnerabilities they face? Stay close to their thinking. Ask questions about how they see their world and what they’re anticipating. And treat them like partners by asking for advice about how your business might serve others like them – you may be surprised at how good their advice is and how much they like giving it.
Replace your nervousness with curiosity about how to serve. And stimulate others’ curiosity; opening new questions breeds the Neuroplasticity that will enable you, employees and customers to respond well to market shifts. And it will strengthen relationships all around, setting the context for more value to be generated.
By listening deeply and often to how key segments are thinking and re-thinking their vulnerabilities, it’s easy to move to:
- How might you add fresh value?
- What might you invent to make their prospects brighter?
High-performing business cultures are based on this practice. Knowing that they cannot control peoples’ interpretations and choices, leaders ensure that employees, customers and vendors step into inquiry. It makes everyone smarter.
Already doing that? Please share.
Not nimble enough to do that? Want a manual? C.K. Prahalad’s book, The New Age of Innovation is excellent.
Filed under Leading Through Inquiry | Comments (5)
The Power of Leading Through Inquiry
It’s extraordinary in so many ways to have a real leader at the helm of our country. His first TV interview as President - with Al Aribiya, a Saudi station – was magnificent in a number of ways.
At the foundation was the power of a question:
“…the bottom line in all these talks and all these conversations is, is a child in the Palestinian Territories going to be better off? Do they have a future for themselves? And is the child in Israel going to feel confident about his or her safety and security?
Who can be indifferent to those questions? The comments following the interview reveal McCain supporters joining middle eastern citizens in gratitude and optimism.
“And if we can keep our focus on making their lives better and look forward, and not simply think about all the conflicts and tragedies of the past, then I think that we have an opportunity to make real progress.”
I’m leading myself with questions, eg “What can I do to minimize the suffering in my community from the economic situation?” The question moves me away from concern about my own bank account and focuses my attention on commonweal: the real wealth. Like most living creatures, humans thrive – or not – in communities.
How are you stepping up to our many quandaries? Any powerful questions you feel like sharing?
Filed under Leadership, Leading Through Inquiry, Reflections | Comment (1)
