At lot is being said about the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) environment and it is clear that the winners in such environments are those who are extremely agile and can anticipate key trends and ride them. This is true for organisations as well as individuals.
At the Individual level, #learning agility and continuous learning is about expanding your #ability to learn by upgrading your knowledge, skills and attitudes to keep in sync with changes in the external environment. It is about seeing all experiences as learning opportunities and continuously re-examining the current ways of doing things.
Key strategies to continuously learn:
- Invest in your learning.
- Take ownership for your learning. Develop your own learning goals at home and at work.
- Understand your preferred learning style (e.g. learning by seeing, hearing or doing) and use it to the optimum.
- Understand your strengths and areas of development.
- Ask questions when you do not understand something. There are no stupid questions except the ones you did not ask.
- Expand your circle of interaction to include people from different fields. This will result in cross pollination of ideas.
- Utilise the resources available on the Internet (articles, videos, MOOC’s, webinars etc.). These can be free or paid.
- Seek out and attend learning and training programs organised by your organisation.
- Shadow experienced colleagues / learn by observation.
- Ask experienced colleagues about why they are suggesting a course of action to understand their thought process.
- Practice what you learn so that you develop it into a strong skill.
- Ask experienced co-workers for feedback / advice.
- Try to apply lessons learnt in the past to new situations.
- And most important, try out new ways of doing things.
Keep Learning !
Lovely Kumar is a facilitator, trainer, psychometric assessor and is co-founder at Larks Learning Pvt. Ltd. She has a unique background which combines economics, management, advertising, sales, teaching and training. She has worked with a range of corporates and academic institutions. Additionally she has obtained international certifications in training and psychometric assessments.
Learn more and reach Lovely Kumar for training workshops or DISC assessments at www.larkslearning.com, lovely@larkslearning.com or 91-9899108659.
