Let's talk Transformation : The business leaders podcast #110 Transforming the future of learning with Michelle Parry-Slater
"I really value peer learning, thats where it all happens.. that's how culture spreads in your organisation"
A fun and insightful conversation with Michelle about the future of learning and the importance of creating impactful and interactive learning experiences.
Lifelong learning is essential in today's complex world and we need to understand what this means for us as leaders, and how we can equip organisations to create a sustainable learning culture. We delve into the dynamic shift towards digital and social learning environments in the workplace, and what that means for the concept of power and for practitioning - for the way we think, act and interact on a daily basis.
The challenge for leaders trying to pioneer a culture of learning is the ability to be vulnerable and demonstrate their own learning. Learning is currently not a KPI so is not ‘popular’ as such - in fact, it is one of the first budgets to be cut when organisations need to tighten their belt, yet it is part of what will maintain competitive advantage.. We need to understand how to embrace the new learning paradigm, tools and approaches and how to create the conditions for a culture of learning to become the norm. Only then can we expect innovation, business results and well being to happen at scale..
Michelle generously shares her stories, experience and research from working with academics and leaders around the globe.
The main insights you'll get from this episode are :
- A strategic practitioner and leader who values peer learning and is satisfying demand for how to do learning differently and apply it practically.
- Learning has evolved hugely, not least digitally thanks to Covid - digital learning has moved from e-learning to a much more interactive form to demonstrate that it works, and we can do things differently and better.
- The communication tool of Zoom became a learning tool as it transcended geographical boundaries, and we all had to immerse ourselves in a new environment - Covid provided a skills uplift / new skillset.
- Digital body language is important to read a room online - this is difficult for face-to-face practitioners, such as teachers, but has revolutionised coaching, for example.
- Teachers need training (‘lift and shift’, e.g. with generative AI) and the current exam system does not teach for future skills – the education system needs to look at the future of work.
- There is resistance to genAI as people worry about their jobs but its accessibility can be amplified by digital - face-to-face plus closed captions, personalisation, additional support and linguistic tools all make learning more inclusive.
- The challenge for leaders trying to pioneer a culture of learning is the ability to be vulnerable and demonstrate their own learning; learning is currently not a KPI so is not ‘popular’.
- Reverse mentoring, whereby a less experienced person mentors a more experienced person in any given setting, is useful as a means to show vulnerability and demonstrate how productive it can be.
- Openly talking about learning as a two-way process involving self-awareness and humility should be the norm, and everyone should have a learning KPI, e.g. 10% - this learning can also be from mistakes that are then spoken about.
- Good leaders are humble, curious and require both people skills and technical skills – flatter structures promote not only technical brilliance, but also take into account the softer people skills.
- Those on the edges are always looking for new ways of doing things, questioning and sense-making but transferring old-school thinking into a flat organisation does not work as personal agency and collective objectives are less clear.
- Schools are teaching skills for flat organisations, i.e. discernment, critical thinking, an understanding of cause and effect, but hierarchical organisations do not need them and young people are being ‘squashed’ by the system.
- Thanks to digital, younger people think more in systems terms, which is very useful for DE&I, for example - people must understand that they are both the problem and the solution.
- Making things personal helps them understand how they are relevant, where they are in the system and where their organisation sits in the bigger system/ society/ world.
- The triple bottom line with a people first approach eases friction and profit follows as culture, learning and organisations don’t exist without people - like sustainability, learning needs to be a buzzword to enable people to transform.
- The focus must be on people and making life real, unlike traditional management theory, which separates personal and work life, leading to a huge impact on mental health, the planet, etc.
- Digital does not equal environmentally friendly – we must question everything, change our habits and have the discipline to think and act differently, both individually and collectively, to change the system one habit at a time.
- Transformation and the opportunity to create new habits needs the permission, environment, culture, space and ultimately leadership to do so [cf. Learning Habits by Sarah Nicholl; Designing Accessible Learning Content by Susi Miller; Nancy Kline’s ‘thinking environment’].
- Vision for the future of learning: * eco-learning and working; * learning that embraces sustainability and openness; * collaboration with high-quality conversations and different models for leadership learning.
- Context is everything and must be understood, and you must also be fluent in the language of your business - dig for evidence, answer questions and find the model that works.
Find out more about Michelle and her work here :