DECEMBER 11 — Why do different people observing the same event or listening to the same person often gain very different insights and value from their experiences? What distinguishes those who consistently learn more than others?
As a lecturer and researcher, I have worked with diverse groups of government leaders and officers from over fifty countries.
Consistently, the people who do the best and who are the most promising and insightful are those who give themselves permission to learn - all the time and from everybody.
What we get out of something depends a lot on how we approach it, our attitudes towards people and places and the experiences and memories we bring to the table.
We are used to learning from certain types of people because of their qualifications, roles or achievements. So, we often listen respectfully and deeply to senior leaders, professors, professional speakers, social media influencers and persons of authority.
We may not always accept or agree with everything they say, but we are more likely to be in “learning mode” – focusing our attention, taking notes (or simply taking note) and analysing their ideas.
Often, this is a reliable shortcut – seeking authority and expertise helps us deal with a confusing range of information.
On other times, this tendency causes us to ignore or miss valuable insights and lessons from peers, subordinates and people who are not conventionally seen as teachers or sources of learning.
Listener bias dramatically affects how we receive information – in several studies, audiences rated speeches read by men as being more credible and convincing than the exact same speech read by women.
Further, how many of us genuinely see people we perceive as “less successful” or “less educated”, or who have very different value systems or political leanings, as possible teachers and mentors, and actively engage and learn from them?
Keeping an open mind helps us find teachers in unlikely places. It also changes the very idea of who teachers are and what they do. To understand that teachers are everywhere is to go beyond traditional “teacher-student” divides.
After one session on economic development, a much more experienced and senior bureaucrat, nearly twice my age, shook my hand and said “thank you, teacher”. He was insistent.
“In our country,” he explained, “When we learn one time from someone, that person will always be our teacher”.
Instead of an attitude of seniority or arrogance, he showed receptiveness, humility and grace. Likewise, I have gained many valuable lessons from discussions with students and participants.
To give ourselves space and permission to learn, let’s put aside the idea that a teacher or leader must be the smartest, most knowledgeable person in the room. Let’s ask questions, be open about the limits of our knowledge and seek to improve. Each of us is always both teacher and student.
Learn everywhere
Most people are also more receptive to learning in certain environments, such as schools, training centres, libraries and workplaces.
Likewise, certain times and events – conferences, formal lessons, skills workshops, religious sermons – may be seen as obvious occasions for learning. This may be true, but classrooms come in all shapes and sizes.
Can we be open to and accepting of learning opportunities beyond the obvious? The best learning institutes take lessons outside the seminar room, replacing lectures and slideshows with site visits and learning journeys to observe neighbourhoods, community facilities and different parts of a country. Participants’ responses to these experiences are uneven and revealing. Some stand still, grumbling that a foreign country’s experiences are irrelevant to them, or complaining about the weather.
Others dart about, minds buzzing with curiosity, testing out hawker stalls, MRT ticket machines and service counters with equal gusto – observing, recording, discussing and questioning everything they see. It is little surprise that the second group always leaves with richer, more interesting insights and views.
Once, a workshop participant in Indonesia advised me to “be a sponge and a sieve”.
Being open and receptive, we can soak up experiences and information like a sponge. Great leaders in learning organisations like IDEO and Deloitte’s Center for the Edge are constantly observing, reflecting upon and adapting what they experience.
Planners at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital did not just consult the best practices of other hospitals, but drew insights and inspiration from sources as diverse as automakers, five star hotels, cruise companies and banking call centres.
Giving ourselves permission to learn from everybody, all the time, does not mean being indiscriminate. It is also carefully assessing and verifying what we encounter – sieving out that which has truth and value.
Another time, I watched two participants at a workshop conducted by a rather monotonous, dry speaker. The first was falling asleep, along with most of his colleagues. The second was carefully taking notes, even when the speaker had digressed to irrelevant topics. I approached her after the session, and she explained that she was considering how to improve her own speaking and presentation style, by observing what mistakes to avoid! Curious, active and engaged, she had clearly given herself permission to learn, despite her less than ideal circumstances.
By giving ourselves permission to learn, we recognise that the world is full of wonder and wisdom – and that often, the barriers and obstacles preventing us from enriching and meaningful learning are in our own minds.
We don’t need anyone else’s approval to broaden our horizons. Singapore’s education system is highly sophisticated, excelling in international academic standards and rankings such as Pisa.
What new vistas could we discover, if we truly nurture and cultivate the curiosity, enthusiasm and openness to see anyone and anywhere as a valuable learning opportunity? — TODAY
* Wu Wei Neng is an Associate Trainer at the Singapore Civil Service College, where he teaches and curates learning for public servants at home and abroad. He also works with the Centre for Liveable Cities, and at Freedom to Create, a nonprofit organisation that supports governments in developing countries. This piece first appeared in The Birthday Book 2017, a collection of 52 essays that examines challenges and opportunities for Singapore with the theme What Should We Never Forget?
** This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represents the views of Malay Mail Online.
