Diagram 6.1: The Experiential Learning Model
“The illiterate of the 20th century was a person who could not read or write. The illiterate of the 21st century is a person who can’t learn, unlearn and relearn.”
— Alvin Toffler
When I think about the countless managers I have come across over the years, a clear and distinguishing trait emerges between those who continue to progress upwards in their career trajectories and those who soon reach their plateau. It is their learning agility.
People who grow from strength to strength are those who are able to learn faster and more effectively. This is not acquisition of more knowledge per se. Picking up an MBA, reading more books or journals, or attending more seminars will not make much of a difference.
People who possess learning agility seem to have a learning strategy, if intuitively. They understand that things need to change when they change roles or positions. And they excel in a lifelong habit of reinventing themselves through “learning, unlearning and relearning.”
Let’s pause awhile and consider. Why should we unlearn? Isn’t all past learning useful? If so, aren’t we better off learning, learning and learning? In other words, let’s simply pile it high, wide and deep.
Let’s review a case that speaks about this.
Li Wen had worked for three years as a sales representative. She had performed very well, consistently exceeding her quotas year over year. Her boss was very impressed not only by her flair for closing deals but also by the good relationship she had cultivated with her customers. The following year, Li Wen was promoted to sales manager overseeing five other sales representatives.
As a sales manager, her responsibility was to guide her team to meet the company’s sales objectives for the region that she was in charge of. She was no longer required to personally bring in the sales herself.
Talking about learning, unlearning and relearning, if you were Li Wen, what do you need to do to reinvent yourself for your new role?
Li Wen is great at sales and managing relationships with her customers. As a manager, this track record that she possesses is invaluable. Her team members will definitely view her with great respect. But she cannot continue to rely on her personal selling skills as a manager. Her new responsibilities will include planning, budgeting, strategizing and sales force management. These are areas that are new to her and she will have to learn all these quickly.
What does she need to unlearn? A consummate sales person such as Li Wen loves the adrenalin rush in closing big accounts. She also delights in establishing customer intimacy. Yet, she now knows it is not the proper use of her time to continue closing deals personally. That is not her job. What she needs to do more of is to set objectives for her people and then help them to close deals. She must now get her adrenalin rush from knowing that when her people are successful, she becomes successful.
I hear you asking, “Won’t it be a monumental waste of talent if she now tries to “unlearn” these skills that have underpinned her success?” Absolutely. However, that will be a misinterpretation of the notion of unlearning. Nobody is saying that she must now bury these unique skills. She can continue leveraging them albeit in different ways.
For instance, she can coach her sales representatives in the art of selling, closing deals and relationship building. This is in fact a key requirement of her job. By doing this well, she will multiply herself, so to speak. Imagine how much more successful her team will be if Li Wen is gradually able to raise the capability of each sales representative.
Another way she can muster her talents will be to occasionally provide “artillery support” for her people when they need to interact with the big guns, or more influential decision-makers, from the clients’ side.
Her skills will also come in handy within her own company when she needs to interact with senior management. Selling her ideas and thoughts to the big brass in the company is an important aspect of her managerial role.
Since this is now only her first year as a manager, there will be plenty of opportunities for her to relearn what she might have learnt previously. Let’s explore this a little more.
Have you experienced re-reading a book after a lapse of a few years? Sometimes, to our surprise, we find new and deeper meaning in the passages. Why? Possibly because certain events might have happened in the intervening period that occasioned some soul-searching. The words that we chance upon in that book merely flesh out the lessons that lie beneath the surface.
And so it will be for Li Wen. As a new manager, she will experience many successes and set-backs. Hopefully, these will lead her to re-examine assumptions and concepts that she has held as sacrosanct. The relearning will lead to greater maturity of thoughts and resilience of character.
As a first-time manager, you will need more of two kinds of skills: hard skills and soft skills.
Hard skills are technical skills such as budgeting, financial management, problem-solving and decision-making, forecasting, report writing, etc. What exactly these are will depend on the role that you playing. Talk to your boss and ask him for his advice. If need be, request for your company to send you for training to equip you with these skills.
You will also need soft skills. These are people skills. Some examples of soft skills are: presentation skills, negotiation, conflict resolution, delegation, coaching, etc. Many companies do have training programmes for these as well. As you settle into your new role, you will get a better sense of what training programmes will benefit you. Discuss with your boss and your learning organization or training coordinators about these as well.
Many, if not all, the people skills that you need will be EQ related. The rest of this book will be about people skills.
The first step to developing yourself is to be more self-aware. This was covered in Chapter 3. Find a quiet weekend and be by yourself without the distraction of friends and family members. Working through findings from your introspection and feedback from others, ask yourself what two behaviours you will need to focus on improving or developing so that you can connect better with others.
To answer this question, you will need to look back at recent incidents as well as other critical events in your life. There is no need to hurry here. Pause and reflect. Slowly but surely, you will discern a pattern in your style of interaction.
Some typical examples that arise are:
♦ I know I’m impatient and impulsive. This has led to a lot of ill-conceived decisions that I later regret.
♦ I don’t listen well and tend to interrupt people.
♦ My people are intimidated by me because I am so serious and unsmiling.
♦ I’m too nice. People take advantage of me because I can’t say “No”.
Be realistic. Start with one, or at most, two behaviours. Ask what you will do differently. For instance, to improve on your listening ability, you may decide on taking three actions:
1. Show patience and attentiveness when others are speaking;
2. Refrain from interrupting others; and
3. Show genuine interest in others’ opinions.
These actions will form the basis of your Personal Development Plan (PDP). Try completing Table 6.1 on page 65 yourself. Your next step will be to implement your PDP. Self-development requires hard work and dedication. Improving one’s EQ is not an intellectual exercise. It involves a shift in one’s behaviours and will not occur overnight. It will take months and sometimes even years.
Here is a four-step model that can serve as a guide for your self-development. We will use “improving listening ability” as an example.
Diagram 6.1: The Experiential Learning Model
Step 1: Act. When you interact with your co-workers, consciously apply 1, 2 and 3.
Step 2: Observe. Be aware of how others are responding to your actions.
Step 3: Reflect. When you find some quiet time, ask yourself, “How did they react to me? What have I done well? What should I modify?”
ACTIONS |
TARGET DATES |
KEY SUCCESS INDICATORS |
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SAMPLE To become a better listener |
1. When others come into my office, I will devote complete attention to them. 2. Refrain from interrupting when others are speaking. 3. Stay relaxed and show genuine interest. |
xxxx |
1. My co-workers feel that their opinions matter to me. 2. Mutual trust is enhanced. 3. Important issues are raised and resolved, resulting in greater teamwork and productivity. |
1.
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2.
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Table 6.1: Personal Development Plan (PDP)
Step 4: Modify. This means making some improvements arising from Step 3 and repeating Step 1.
They key to successful application of the Experiential Learning Model lies in learning from what you have done. While experience is the best source of learning, not everybody learns from experience.2 Partner with a peer whom you trust and discuss your experience. This is peer coaching. In Chapters 10 and 11 you will learn more about coaching. Having someone to talk with will facilitate your learning. Over many months, your new behaviour will gradually become second nature to you. People around you will notice the change and start responding positively to you.
It is important to note that you will be much more successful if you “play to your strengths.” Simply put, in all of us, there are a few things that we do very well in because they come naturally to us. You might say we were born with such a flair. Or past experiences might have given us such an edge. An example of a strength may be our ability to present clearly, confidently and convincingly.
Sure, there are areas we need to develop further. For instance, our grasp of financial management concepts may be inadequate. Hence, when we make a presentation to senior management, we will do a great job until we come to the financial part. That’s when we get a little shaky and uncomfortable.
So what do we do? It all depends on whether that inadequacy is a fatal flaw. A fatal flaw has to be fixed, no question about it. An abrasive style towards your co-workers, for instance, will be a fatal flaw. If you do not make real and lasting change in the way you behave towards others, your career will likely derail.
In other cases, the weakness may not be fatal. Returning to the presentation example, let’s say you are an R&D manager presenting a project proposal to a panel of senior managers. You have a good way of speaking and are very credible in the eyes of these bosses. Your biggest bugbear, however, is the financial part of the presentation. You’re just not good with financial data.
What can you do about this? In the past, you tried to bone up on the numbers portion. However, it didn’t help. In fact, you became rather edgy and nervous throughout the presentation, adversely affecting your overall delivery. You were effectively playing to your weakness.
So what else can you do to circumvent this weakness? One possible approach to consider is to ask one of your team members who’s financially savvy to partner you in the presentation. You will do the overall part while he’ll do the number portions. This is one instance in which you play to your strengths.
♦ As a first-time manager, hard skills are still important. Continue acquiring them with the help of your boss and the learning organization.
♦ People skills will be vital for your success. They are all EQ related. Understand and adopt the Experiential Learning Model.
Q1: What are your two key strengths?
Q2: What two leadership behaviours would you need to develop further? How will you implement your PDP?