Happy Monday!!! Last week we explored “Information” and the problem space of ABUNDANCE (in which discerning and digesting information is the capacity required for success).
This week, let’s explore “learning” as this is a closely related topic. Today let’s look at “learning to learn.”
One of my favorite article’s (one that I reread frequently and continue to glean new nuggets each time I do) is “Learning to Learn: Knowledge as a System of Questions” by Michael Ballé, Jacques Chaize, and Daniel Jones from the Society of Organizational Learning (SoL) Journal on Knowledge Learning and Change.
I love this article as it helps me shift from looking for the right answer to asking better questions. Some gems from this article [which explores the Toyota Production System (TPS)] include:
- “The trick to learning how to learn is in knowing where to look by asking the right questions.”
- “Inquiry has always been an important part of learning and knowledge...We generally find questions at the frontier between the known and the unknown.”
- “For TPS practitioners, the most common answer to any direct questions is ‘it depends.'” (This reminds me of “Contextual Thinking” one of Theo Dawson’s 4 mega-skills required for effective performance under VUCA conditions).
- “TPS is not a system of best practices but rather a structured system of questions that, once you master it, will allow you to correctly learn about any given situation. The knowledge is in the questions themselves, not in the answers.”
- “The point to these questions is not to find immediate answers but to steer you to discovering what you need to learn.“
- “These questions guide observation and discovery far more than they serve to clarify previously held knowledge.”
- “The idea of knowledge as a system of questions has the huge advantage that although questions can be set and context-free, their answers are local and thus context-adapted.“
What questions are you asking that are helping you discover what you need to learn?
[Want to read the full article? I was unable to find it available online anymore, but the authors gave me permission to make it available on the “Resource” page on my website.]
