The one really fascinating and also challenging aspect of chatbots using artificial intelligence (“AI”) and natural language processing (“NLP”) is their ability to continuously learn and improve. As we mere mortals seek to preserve our professional roles it is I suggest imperative that we move up the value change developing knowledge and experience in equal measure to provide our clients with added value. This I propose means that now more than ever we have to embrace a learning culture.
This article What is a learning culture? defines the concept as follows. A learning culture is where you naturally embed learning into all facets of the organization. A learning culture in the workplace extends to all levels of the seniority hierarchy. If your people are going to have the skills required for success, learning needs to be a strategic imperative. It then proposes learning operates at three levels
While this blog How Creating a Learning Culture Drives Customer Loyalty and Profit defines “culture” as “ a set of values, conventions, beliefs, practices, and goals relative to the current and appropriate environment and society. Culture in its broadest sense is explicit and implicit patterns of learned behavior. And a learning culture as one where the values, conventions, beliefs, practices, and goals are centered around training, education, and advancement. It advises Make a learning a company priority and ensure that leadership and management is not only on-board, but promoters of learning.
This commendably thorough and well thought through report by the CIPD (The professional body for HR and people development) Creating learning cultures: assessing the evidence provides helpful guidance including approaches to organisational, team and individual learning and takes the concept of learning culture a stage further concluding:
This report brings together the evidence on learning culture – a broad concept commonly used in practice to describe the ideal set-up for organisational learning. We suggest that reframing ‘learning culture’ as the ‘learning environment’ would provide a more practical and easily definable concept that learning professionals at all levels can implement, while still being an important element of learning culture. Learning culture can be more greatly influenced by professionals in leadership positions who have the ability to mould the more general culture within the organisation.
One of the challenges to continuing personal and professional development is that it is generally said to be harder for adults as opposed to children to take on board new things. As this blog Overcoming Adult Learning Anxiety says As adult learners, we are much more likely to suffer from learning anxiety, as the habit of daily studying, along with the pressure of tests and examinations, are no longer part of our daily lives.
Another impediment to continuous development that we as human beings may suffer from, which a software programme driving an AI platform won’t, is this phenomenon “learning anxiety”. This Harvard Business School interview The Anxiety of Learning - The Darker Side of Organizational Learning with Edgar H. Schein who was professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management proposes that: Learning only happens when survival anxiety is greater than learning anxiety so that Either you can increase the survival anxiety by threatening people with loss of jobs or valued rewards, or you can decrease learning anxiety by creating a safer environment for unlearning and new learning. He also says learning starts at the top - unless leaders become learners themselves—unless they can acknowledge their own vulnerabilities and uncertainties—then transformational learning will never take place. When leaders become genuine learners, they set a good example and help to create a psychologically safe environment for others.
Whilst I am not sure I agree with all of this approach, we maybe should as professionals have a measure of “survival anxiety” as we contemplate the age of intelligent machines, but more importantly we should recognise and overcome any “learning anxiety” and adopt a “learning culture” embracing continuous professional development.
As technology like AI marches onward at an exponential rate we as professionals should welcome and seek to learn and benefit from technological progress and not fear it. This requires an open mindset and a willingness to contemplate fresh ideas or practices and be prepared to acknowledge we don't know everything, accepting the possibility of failure. Trying new things outside of the workplace can assist learning in our professional lives by promoting a personal culture of continuous development.
I recently took up Tai Chi which is a soft martial art whose practice consists of forms which are really a series of movements relating to fighting positions and blows or blocks. The "short" form has 24 different moves of which I have learnt around 6 after several lessons. I have had to humbly accept how little I know and take on board the comments and demonstration of the sensei (or master). But even he admitted that he was still learning aspects of the short form after over 20 years practicing and teaching this and other schools of martial arts. Teaching also develops the teacher.
As Nelson Mandela observes “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world”.
While Albert Einstein commented “I never teach my students, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
And for a great concluding comment “The single biggest driver of business impact is the strength of an organization’s learning culture,” Josh Bersin the research analyst, speaker and writer formerly with Bersin by Deloitte and now The Josh Bersin Academy.
This article What is a learning culture? defines the concept as follows. A learning culture is where you naturally embed learning into all facets of the organization. A learning culture in the workplace extends to all levels of the seniority hierarchy. If your people are going to have the skills required for success, learning needs to be a strategic imperative. It then proposes learning operates at three levels
- organisational
- team
- individual
While this blog How Creating a Learning Culture Drives Customer Loyalty and Profit defines “culture” as “ a set of values, conventions, beliefs, practices, and goals relative to the current and appropriate environment and society. Culture in its broadest sense is explicit and implicit patterns of learned behavior. And a learning culture as one where the values, conventions, beliefs, practices, and goals are centered around training, education, and advancement. It advises Make a learning a company priority and ensure that leadership and management is not only on-board, but promoters of learning.
This commendably thorough and well thought through report by the CIPD (The professional body for HR and people development) Creating learning cultures: assessing the evidence provides helpful guidance including approaches to organisational, team and individual learning and takes the concept of learning culture a stage further concluding:
This report brings together the evidence on learning culture – a broad concept commonly used in practice to describe the ideal set-up for organisational learning. We suggest that reframing ‘learning culture’ as the ‘learning environment’ would provide a more practical and easily definable concept that learning professionals at all levels can implement, while still being an important element of learning culture. Learning culture can be more greatly influenced by professionals in leadership positions who have the ability to mould the more general culture within the organisation.
One of the challenges to continuing personal and professional development is that it is generally said to be harder for adults as opposed to children to take on board new things. As this blog Overcoming Adult Learning Anxiety says As adult learners, we are much more likely to suffer from learning anxiety, as the habit of daily studying, along with the pressure of tests and examinations, are no longer part of our daily lives.
Another impediment to continuous development that we as human beings may suffer from, which a software programme driving an AI platform won’t, is this phenomenon “learning anxiety”. This Harvard Business School interview The Anxiety of Learning - The Darker Side of Organizational Learning with Edgar H. Schein who was professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management proposes that: Learning only happens when survival anxiety is greater than learning anxiety so that Either you can increase the survival anxiety by threatening people with loss of jobs or valued rewards, or you can decrease learning anxiety by creating a safer environment for unlearning and new learning. He also says learning starts at the top - unless leaders become learners themselves—unless they can acknowledge their own vulnerabilities and uncertainties—then transformational learning will never take place. When leaders become genuine learners, they set a good example and help to create a psychologically safe environment for others.
Whilst I am not sure I agree with all of this approach, we maybe should as professionals have a measure of “survival anxiety” as we contemplate the age of intelligent machines, but more importantly we should recognise and overcome any “learning anxiety” and adopt a “learning culture” embracing continuous professional development.
As technology like AI marches onward at an exponential rate we as professionals should welcome and seek to learn and benefit from technological progress and not fear it. This requires an open mindset and a willingness to contemplate fresh ideas or practices and be prepared to acknowledge we don't know everything, accepting the possibility of failure. Trying new things outside of the workplace can assist learning in our professional lives by promoting a personal culture of continuous development.
I recently took up Tai Chi which is a soft martial art whose practice consists of forms which are really a series of movements relating to fighting positions and blows or blocks. The "short" form has 24 different moves of which I have learnt around 6 after several lessons. I have had to humbly accept how little I know and take on board the comments and demonstration of the sensei (or master). But even he admitted that he was still learning aspects of the short form after over 20 years practicing and teaching this and other schools of martial arts. Teaching also develops the teacher.
As Nelson Mandela observes “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world”.
While Albert Einstein commented “I never teach my students, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
And for a great concluding comment “The single biggest driver of business impact is the strength of an organization’s learning culture,” Josh Bersin the research analyst, speaker and writer formerly with Bersin by Deloitte and now The Josh Bersin Academy.
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