The coming week, I am starting another series of our Knowledge Management course. Theoretically, I could have be feeling mixed emotions: Feeling happy that another fully booked course is starting; feeling delighted that another group is learning the subject, where we find so many amateurs; but feeling disappointed, as I have to repeat a task, in which I teach content so many times, over and over again. That is not the situation; the opposite: Dave Snowden, in his blog "The cognitive edge" shares us in his post "Musings between flights" how surprised he is, that he never gets bored, when he teaches some material, over and over again, Every time, he shares with us the readers, the audience changes his experience, and the ideas refine. I could not agree more. I gave the opening lecture of the course "Introduction to Knowledge Management", maybe one hundred times already, but it still is getting better almost every time. Moreover, not only the lecture; also my understanding of new insights to deal with people and organizations and how knowledge is to be managed.
We learn when we teach. The same, as we learn when we write an article or a summary on some topic. When writing or speaking up in front of audience, we have to organize our thoughts, and by doing so, we build another layer of knowledge on it (see Nonaka and Takeuchi "The Knowledge Creating Company", on internalization). When we give the lecture, and the audience asks questions or comment, they make us think; they sharpen our understanding. Teaching is an important instrument for learning.
Learning, even one must say, continual learning, is a significant part of the job of our employees. The changing reality, the developing technologies, and mass of information, puts us in a situation where our employees should learn and develop repeatedly, and suit the way they perform the job to as result of what they learn. Those who do not proceed, withdraw.
However, life is not that simple. How and when can we enable our employees teach as part of their learning process?
I will start from the bottom line. There is no one answer. This dilemma requires gentle balance: On the one hand, it is obvious that tutoring or giving lectures will definitely improve the workers' learning. On the other hand, when we stand before an audience, we want to give the best we can, and put upfront the experts, not the learners. Reality is even more complicated: Many of my employees know how to lecture, and even do it well. They know the materials thoroughly, and have day-to-day examples, which they have learned from their own experience. Nevertheless, the audience expects what they think is the best: The senior among all seniors.
How should we act? There is no only route.
External lectures and tutoring, I give myself, or with the help of employees who already are known as experts, regarding to topic spoken about.
I think that inside the organization, there is an opportunity to enable learning by teaching: in apprenticeship processes. When enabling employees, not only the managers and experts, share their knowledge with new employees, we profit twice:
Once, as already has been written, by enabling the teacher to learn by teach.
In addition, it is easier for the learner to learn. In their book, Deep Smarts, Leonard and Swap, explain that it is easier to learn from someone that the gap of knowledge between them and yourself is smaller. We are regular to think that it is best to learn from the experts, those that already have deep smarts. Vice versa; when we learn from someone close to us, he understands us better, and for us, it is easier to ask questions.
Such a process requires our control, as managers. We have to ensure that the learning process is indeed appropriate, and try not to stand in their way to much, trying to fix it to much.
So who said that our job as managers is boring?
Yours,
Moria
We learn when we teach. The same, as we learn when we write an article or a summary on some topic. When writing or speaking up in front of audience, we have to organize our thoughts, and by doing so, we build another layer of knowledge on it (see Nonaka and Takeuchi "The Knowledge Creating Company", on internalization). When we give the lecture, and the audience asks questions or comment, they make us think; they sharpen our understanding. Teaching is an important instrument for learning.
Learning, even one must say, continual learning, is a significant part of the job of our employees. The changing reality, the developing technologies, and mass of information, puts us in a situation where our employees should learn and develop repeatedly, and suit the way they perform the job to as result of what they learn. Those who do not proceed, withdraw.
However, life is not that simple. How and when can we enable our employees teach as part of their learning process?
I will start from the bottom line. There is no one answer. This dilemma requires gentle balance: On the one hand, it is obvious that tutoring or giving lectures will definitely improve the workers' learning. On the other hand, when we stand before an audience, we want to give the best we can, and put upfront the experts, not the learners. Reality is even more complicated: Many of my employees know how to lecture, and even do it well. They know the materials thoroughly, and have day-to-day examples, which they have learned from their own experience. Nevertheless, the audience expects what they think is the best: The senior among all seniors.
How should we act? There is no only route.
External lectures and tutoring, I give myself, or with the help of employees who already are known as experts, regarding to topic spoken about.
I think that inside the organization, there is an opportunity to enable learning by teaching: in apprenticeship processes. When enabling employees, not only the managers and experts, share their knowledge with new employees, we profit twice:
Once, as already has been written, by enabling the teacher to learn by teach.
In addition, it is easier for the learner to learn. In their book, Deep Smarts, Leonard and Swap, explain that it is easier to learn from someone that the gap of knowledge between them and yourself is smaller. We are regular to think that it is best to learn from the experts, those that already have deep smarts. Vice versa; when we learn from someone close to us, he understands us better, and for us, it is easier to ask questions.
Such a process requires our control, as managers. We have to ensure that the learning process is indeed appropriate, and try not to stand in their way to much, trying to fix it to much.
So who said that our job as managers is boring?
Yours,
Moria
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