Riding the Learning Cycle

Jack Nicklaus and Learning on the Job

2009-04-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

In his book, Talent is Overrated, Geoff Colvin explains that the difference between ordinary performers and extraordinary performers is something called "deliberate practice." I've not yet finished the book, but deliberate practice sounds a lot like what I learned from reading Jack Nicklaus' book, Golf My Way. There, Nicklaus explained that when he practiced, he followed his normal pre-shot routine for every single practice shot. For every practice shot he had a specific target and the goal of hitting that target with a particular ball flight (high fade, low draw, etc.). After every practice shot he analyzed how well he had met his goals and adjusted his approach as needed for the next practice shot. And he often hit several hundred balls in a day of practice!

Paying attention to practice is the very essence of riding the learning cycle. It's in the paying attention that we adapt what we're doing to make improvements. These improvements might happen slowly or only in tiny increments, but they will happen. You may not ever be able to hit a golf ball like Jack Nicklaus, but you can practice new skills as deliberately as he did.

Watching the Learning Cycle in Action

2009-03-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

Learning on the job is an everyday occurrence - or at least it ought to be. In my case, putting this blog together has been a big learning project for me. I had to pick a blogging platform, learn how to lay out the page, and add essential elements like the list of other sites where you can find me.

Then I launched the blog last week with an email to all of my newsletter subscribers. Since the blog relaces the newsletter, I wanted all my readers to know about the blog.

But I forgot something important: newsletter subscribers are accustomed to getting the newsletter in the email inboxes without any effort on their part. It's as if their dog usually fetched their newspaper and now I was making them go out in the rain to get it themselves.

So it's not surprising that a few subscribers told me that they might not be keeping up with the blog as often as they read the newspaper. This experience told me that I had work to do.

Hmmmm....I want all the readers I can get so it's not smart to give up on anyone who already knows me. My feedback told me that I'd made an error and that the error bothered me.

So I reflected on the feedback for, oh about three minutes. Clearly I needed to adjust my approach to the blog.

Back to the blogger's drawing board, I had a problem to solve: how to set up the blog so that people could subscribe to the content and receive it in their email inboxes.

Like any visual learner, I started looking around the Web to read what I could on blogging subscriptions. I read several articles on the subject along with a half dozen or so help files from the Blogger site.

Result: I learned about and installed two different ways for people to subscribe to the blog. There's a direct email subscription and it's also possible to get my blog through an RSS feed (if you're among the techiest of folk you know what that means).

What we have here, is the learning cycle in action:

Experience: I put up the first version of the blog, without subscription options.

Attention: Some newsletter subscribers said they wanted to be able to subscribe to the blog. I got the message.

Reflection: I was disappointed at the prospect of losing subscribers.

Next: By recognizing the feedback from my readers as well as my ow response, I resolved to make things better. This meant planning for, and implementing an improvement to the blog: subscription options.

It's a simple thing really, this learning cycle. Just like when you're riding an ordinary bike, though, you have to keep pedaling to stay upright and in motion.

Keep pedaling.

It's Spring! Let's Ride the Learning Cycle

2009-03-11T09:44:00.000-07:00

Spring is coming shortly to Chicago and soon the streets and parks of my neighborhood will fill with people riding bicycles. Youngsters and adults alike will be celebrating the return of warm weather by pedaling their way around town, by riding their bikes to and from school, and by taking long rides on the bike paths that surround the Chicago area.

I don't think there are many people who don't enjoy riding a bike or who don't have some kind of fond memories of riding a bike as a child. Bikes give us freedom, speed, and fresh air. To keep moving on a bike, you have to keep pedaling. Unless you're going downhill, of course, and then you mostly have to pay attention to keeping your balance.

Learning is a lot like riding a bicycle. Just as turning wheels help move a bicycle forward and keep it upright, there is a circular motion to learning.

Imagine a circle shaped like a bicycle tire: it would be much like a big, fat "O." Now imagine that this tire-shaped circle is divided into four equal segments. At the top is a segment labeled "Experience." Moving clockwise around the circle, the other segments are "Attention," "Reflection," and "Next."

These four words represent the four stages of the natural learning cycle. That's what this blog is all about: exploring how we can get the most out of the learning cycle.

Just as you have to keep pedaling to stay upright and moving forward on a bicycle, we get the most out of the learning cycle by paying attention to our path around the cycle and actively working through each stage as we go.

In future blog entries, we'll explore the learning cycle in more detail. I'll also share interesting things that I find on the Internet about learning on the job, improving productivity, or job satisfaction.

Please feel free to comment on what you read here. I'll gladly join in the discussion.

Until next time,

John Labbe