Rarely the
announced goal of seminar day is to know less in the evening than in the
beginning of that learning session. I believe many of us would be surprised if
the keynote speaker would start a day by listing items which we will find much more difficult to grasp or act on, after the session has
ended. Someone might ask that what on earth is this program all about, is the
goal here to become wiser or dumber?
Certainly
our sincere goal is to move from unknown to known, from unclarity to clarity,
from incapability to capability. But what is the road that leads to knowledge?
It may not be as straight or smooth journey from unknown to known than what
seems to be the typical assumption. It may be bumpy road indeed. In fact, when we are talking about real
learning, some and often several bumps are guaranteed.
Hence it
may be perfectly possible that at the evening of an excellent seminar day you
know less than in the morning of that day. Similarly, it may make perfect sense
that after the intensive meeting in your organization you know less than when
people came together, or it is also very plausible that while working with some
vitally important project in your organization you start to see how you know
less and less. Sometimes the hope of smooth journey evaporates when ideas,
dreams and plans are put into action.
These all
are symptoms of negative learning*. The key idea in negative learning is that
things may prove to be much more difficult than what we have ever thought or
encountered. Hence it may happen that we are not moving from unknown to known
but we start to see how world is even much more complex that what we have ever
imagined. Also unclarity may not render itself into clarity but different and
even conflicting views just seem to
remain and may even grow stronger. And it may happen that we are forced to see
how high are the hurdles for us to overcome before we can proceed from our
present capability to our hoped capability.
The key
message here is that whenever we are talking, thinking and planning about real
learning we must always remember that there are two sides in this equation.
There is that positive side of learning to knowing more, the world of increasing clarity and the life
with new valuable capabilities. At the same time there is often the more
complex side of everything, the side where we may even feel that we are moving
backward, or we seem to loose the existing clarity or we have to admit that
there is really a lot more to do before new capabilities are in our beneficial
use.
At the same
time there is something positive in negative learning. The symptoms of negative
learning seem to relate to real action and to real effort to become better.
Symptoms of negative learning are avoidable if we stay in the thinking,
planning, dreaming phase. However revolving in those phases seldom create real
learning.
Real
learning means a setting where the possibilities and challenges of the world
are encountered. Real learning creates a basis for a change, something can be
done better in this world. The better action is based on deeper understanding
and clearer view of the elements which are elementary in any given situation.
Real learning is the thing that real MBA program is all about.
Safe and
most rewarding journey!
ari.manninen(at)jyu.fi
*I am
thankful to professor Tapio Aittola for the concept of negative learning. At
the same time this blog is my interpretation what that concept could mean in
organizational life.