Staying curious in Learning

The Four Strategies to Staying Curious in Learning (Part 2)

13	Jun
	2013

Future of Learning

In my last post, I explored how the “learning curiosity” stage of the continuous learning circle helps you make the best use of the resources around you to gain what you need to push your career in a new direction. Four key strategies will help you put together resources and a community to support your efforts. But these are not sequential steps; they overlap and should be undertaken simultaneously.

Strategy 1: Read Everything and Take Names

This “big picture” phase is based on the self-assessment you do, where you use your hard and soft skill needs and strengths analysis as jumping-off points for a wide-ranging information survey powered by your curiosity. Explore everything from relevant articles and books to bloggers and comments. Pick out the gems, the information, courses, training links and names of people worth pursuing further. Keep diligent notes about what and whom you find and their value. Don’t overly edit your search; let your curiosity guide you.

Reach out to friends and potential new colleagues on social networking sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Don’t leave any stone unturned. All are fair game: anybody quoted in an article on the gap you’re researching; anyone a friend recalls from a lecture who talked about the subject; any casual comment online or offline that appears to demonstrate an interest in the topic – all are grist for the mill.
Strategy 2: Engage Experience and Ultimately Join
Online. Sign up for online courses or training sessions that are targeted at the skill you want to develop – and then start filling in the learning gaps. Sites like Learning Annex, Skillsoft and Better Explained offer a wide range of courses. Don't miss education site Coursera.com, for sure. Also, iTunes offers dozens of educational podcasts covering a myriad of topics. Or take a look at Quora, a Web site where you can “follow” people and topics, and ask questions others can respond to.
Whatever you might think you want to explore, there is something out there. Virtually every vocational topic that attracts more than a dozen people has an association these days. Do you love apostrophes or are confused by them? The Apostrophe Protection Society provides examples of apostrophe misappropriation, games to test your knowledge, and rules for how to use the punctuation mark. Ha!
You can also form your own community on Facebook. It will be challenging to keep your group active, so recruit friends and peers who will be highly engaged and spread the word. Be sure to stay active and post highly engaging questions and content. Your group will be a community where you can generate conversations around your focus, your strengths, your gaps and where to find learning resources.
Affinity groups. Co-workers and affinity groups are a worthy source for your exploration. Gallup research found that close friendships at work can boost productivity and job satisfaction by almost 50%. For some gaps, clubs can be the answer. For example, if you want to improve your public speaking ability, the Toastmasters (around since 1924) provides members with a friendly, nonjudgmental atmosphere to practice. But that’s not the only answer: One young man I met who worked for a Fortune 500 biotech firm contacted Harvard professors who specialized in these skills to come to his work and speak on the importance of communicating. Two agreed to do so, gratis. In one fell swoop, he had gained material for his learning community and a future mentor for his learning network.
Strategy 3: Assemble an Accountability Team to Keep You on Track
Your accountability team can be composed of trusted friends or coworkers, a spouse or mentors. This caucus of advisors should act as a “truth squad.” Report back to them regularly on what you’re learning. These allies act as “academic advisors” with whom you share the feedback from your learning experiments. Make sure to ask them to keep you on task! And they can introduce you to interesting reading materials, valuable Web sites and engaging people.
I’ve learned that there are three types of pitfalls that you (and the people advising you) will confront at this stage:

• Mission creep: You’re not focused enough on the primary skill gaps and, instead, waste time on inconsequential and unconnected goals. Overcome this by discussing with your team the reasons that the initial goals made sense, and then recommit to those ideas. Goals are not just skills gaps – they are where you want to go.
• Belief gap: You’re losing faith in yourself, so you end up in a skills-gap paralysis. Address this by discussing with your team the gains you’ve made. Designate a lead member of the accountability team who will push you to keep working the steps – you’ll convince yourself that you can learn to take huge leaps again.
• A sudden slump: Your motivation is flagging. Your team can offer you encouragement and support – or they can help you take a break to get the juices flowing again.

Strategy 4: Refine Your Goals and Your Roadmap
This is the never-ending aspect of intentional learning: You may think that you lack a certain skill, but as you learn more about yourself and your skills, it is not unusual to realize that your shortcomings are not what you initially thought they were. For that reason, you should always be open to the possibility that your goals, gaps and strengths – and your learning roadmap – will change from one stage to the next.
This process takes work, energy and commitment. Most of all, it requires that you maintain your curiosity about aspects of yourself that you’d, frankly, rather avoid. That discomfort you are feeling is the residue of complacency leaving the system. As Mark Twain wrote, “A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”

*This story is an excerpt from the forthcoming Ferrazzi Greenlight book The University of You. To make it as impactful as possible for organizations intent on moving to intentional, self-directed learning for their employees, we plan to customize the book with stories and examples drawn from the learning paths of the leaders and individuals in each organization. Contact us at info@ferrazzigreenlight