Learning vs Developmental Growth

I am currently working on the roll-out of a matrix organisation in a company that has historically organised around projects, and it is now transitioning to products. One of the outcomes we want from the change is the “ability for the individuals in the organisation to learn better and faster”.

Last week we started to discuss this outcome: what were the ways we thought we could enable faster and better learning. What kind of things would predict this outcome? Then a question emerged: What do we mean by learning better and faster? Can we be very specific about what learning truly means for us?

I am learning…

I consider myself a learner; it’s part of my core identity. I read an absurd amount of books and articles, attend classes regularly and watch conference talks like if they were back episodes of Dynasty. I love it. But I don’t fool myself into thinking all that can be considered personal growth.

Earlier this year, Michael Hamman’s Evolvagility made an excellent job of going down the rabbit hole of inner growth and detailing how it relates to learning. There’s quite a lot to unpack in the book, but the way I’ve been explaining it to people is (I think) quite simple.

Elio surely reads a lot… but is he growing or just learning?

…but am I growing?

I refer to learning as primarily the act of expanding skills and competence. But Developmental Growth only happens when I experience some shift that allows me to consolidate those skills in ways they stay with me for the long run.

So, I can read hundreds of books a year and attend tons of classes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I am growing.

The ideal learning / growth curve?

How do we get there? Part of the puzzle comes from the idea that the following conditions need to be met to enable growth:

1. A psychological challenge that can only be solved if you step outside your comfort zone
2. The support that makes you feel safe while attempting to solve the challenge
3. The tools that you need to learn whatever it’s required to be successful at solving the challenge

You can check the work of Bob Kegan, especially around Deliberately Developmental Organisations (DDOs) to learn more about environments that are trying to put this into practice.

A simple example he gives to illustrate this is the concept of grades in school. Children moving from one grade to another will typically perform challenges that are outside their current level of competence. They will (hopefully) have the support of teachers to provide support and learning tools-this is what makes it a developmental experience.

Development Ecosystems

I used to work for a company that was doing exceptionally well financially and took pride in providing plenty of learning opportunities. They would send individuals to all sorts of classes and offer access to all the resources you may dream. It was nothing short of amazing. But a lot of people in the organisation was somehow stuck in a routine. The work that the teams were doing was not particularly challenging for most and could become quite repetitive after a while. Under those circumstances, I saw very little development happening. For example, people would go to Lean UX courses with Jeff Gothelf. And I would never see anyone coming back with a drive to do hypothesis-driven development. It was learning that didn’t consolidate.

Tons of learning, nothing to show for it?

My personal experience with growth has been one of volunteering to lots of challenges to the point people think I am a borderline masochist. That requires me to go into the toolbox and to find some knowledge that maybe I didn’t have the chance to use until then. These days I only work for companies where I feel safe and supported. And I have accumulated the resources to approach those challenges, or at the very least, I think I have the means to acquire them. In that sense, I have created my development ecosystem. It works for me because I am naturally drawn to learning, and I love change, but what if it wasn’t the case?

How it often looks like for me

That’s another of the points developed in Hamman’s book. He advocates for the notion of developmental ecosystems where groups of all sizes can become deliberate about growth. It can range from finding yourself a learning buddy to creating Special Interest Groups that focus on solving some challenge that requires them to expand their competence. To accelerate learning and growth, these groups need to:

1. Establish the right conditions for it — such as challenges, mutual commitments, norms, etc.
2. Adopt practices that activate group development — for example, giving feedback to each other.
3. Create occasions to cement learning insights. Training events, for instance, can help. But I found that even just the opportunity to share learnings with the rest of the organisation makes for a great occasion.

With a clearer idea of what “learning better and faster” means for us, we can start generating hypotheses to create the challenges that best could stimulate the development we want… fun times ahead!