Learning and Change--Individual Considerations

This post is a continuation of the post from February 20, 2010 and from an earlier post on February 21, 2010.

Learning and change need to take place on an individual level--even when teams, groups, and organizations want change as well.  Two additional meta-models have been created to explain how individuals respond to the need for change (see slide 2) and what happens to individuals as they build the skills they need to change successfully (see slide 10).

(Click on the picture to see it separately and completely.)

(Click on the picture to see it separately and completely.)

 As stated in an earlier post, learning and change are not easy and are often resisted.  The Shame Affect Decision Model (slide 2) shows how most of us discover the need for change--when something we relied on ceases to produce the positive results we expected.  If we retreat into our pre-existing comfort zone, we have four possible responses:  attack others, attack self, avoid, and withdraw.  If we choose to move to positive change, this is our opportunity to learn.

As we begin to learn, we move through the Personal Performance Change Curve (slide 8). Comfort Zones Mapped to the Performance Change Curve (slide 10) show how our performance level and comfort drop before we begin to integrate the new knowledge and skill we are learning.

The Learning Outcome Grid (slide 7) shows some of the results of learning activity.

(Click on the picture to see it separately and completely.)

Weighing Choices--Making Decisions--Assessing Results

We take these actions from earliest memory. Even babies are weighing choices--"do I do this or do that?"--making decisions--"I'll cry now because ..."--and assessing results--"I cried when I was uncomfortable (wet or hungry) and now I'm dry and full."

As we get older the weighing process becomes more complex as do the decisions and our assessment of results. Sometimes there are delays between our actions and the results we see. Have you ever decided to order something, then been disappointed in it when it arrived?

When we get much older, many of our choices and decisions and results have to do with health. My 94-year-old mother went to the eye doctor today who told her that a shot in her left eye would control the accumulation of blood caused by age-related wet macular degeneration. Mom loves to read and to use her eyes. While she knew the shot is painful (this was the sixth shot she's had over several years) she has already decided that, if something will help her preserve her sight, she'll go through the pain. She had the shot. Age-related macular degeneration doesn't get better. Treatments can at least slow down the vision loss and that was the choice she made today.

How do we weigh our daily choices. There are 168 hours in a week (24 x 7) and we get to choose how we'll use them. Most of us want to sleep some of them away. Some of us know the value of exercise in our lives and devote some of the hours to exercise. All of us want to eat some of the time, so we take time for that as well. Many of us work several hours a day. We want time for recreation--perhaps with our families. Whatever the choices, those are the hours we have to work with in any given week.

We make decisions, then assess the results--are we getting what we want? In some of my eating choices, I have chosen to eat (what or when or how much I eat) that caused me to gain three pounds this week. If I want to get that off, I have to change my eating and exercise choices this week and can check on the results a week from now.

Yesterday I read a newsletter article that talked about looking for work AGR ("after the great recession in 2007"). The author (at http://www.higheredjobs.com) said that we have to have a different approach to looking for work AGR. What we used to do no longer produces the same results that it did before AGR. (See the post about Spenser Johnson's Who Moved My Cheese.)

If you go to http://joelmonty.wikispaces.com/file/view/Meta-Learning-Affect+Models.PDF and go to slide 2, Shame-Affect-Decisions Model. It will give you a picture of some of what I am talking about here.

Social networking sites abound with the hope that people will connect with the right jobs (or dates or spouses or . . .) through their social networks. Some do and some don't.

All of us need to rethink our choices and decisions, the results I am assessing tell me that times have, indeed, changed and I (along with millions of others) need to change to keep up with the change.

Trust vs. "There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch"

Trust forms the essential "glue" that allows synergy and innovation to take place between people--in business and personal relationships. Without it we have isolation and maintenance of the "status quo" (and, in a growing organizm, the beginning of decay and death.

For a graphic that will help explain this concept, go to the link tied to the title of this post and to
http://joelmonty.wikispaces.com/meta-models and open the Learning Models.pdf file. Look for the "Trust Dimension in Team Performance" model.

People develop habits of trust and distrust--often with good reason. Just like learning to walk, we have to stand up and move (trust) one more time than we fall down (distrust). This is another case of common sense vs. common practice--see my earlier blog. Trust is absolutely essential for learning and change.

We are vulnerable when we learn. (Visit http://joelmonty.wikispaces.com/meta-models and open the Learning Affect Model Collection.pdf file. Look for the "Shame Affect Decision" model. (Small copies of both of these models are also on this web site: http://www.joelmonty.net/innovations. )

Because we are vulnerable we become concerned about the people we may be learning from. The common practice warning has merit--"There is no such thing as a free lunch." In most cases, when something is "free" there are strings attached. This is not always something negative and it doesn't always cost money. On the other hand, in e-mails, I have often found that the strings attached to many "free" offers cost more than whatever was being offered.

When we become jaded and start from a position of distrust, we can have a negative impact on real possibilities for learning and change.
What was in it for me? Is it really "free?"

Recently I had started a project with a group of member associations with the goal of helping their members identify the learning needs of their workforces.  I estimated the value of my contribution to this project to be in the neighborhood of $10,000 which I was offering for free to this group. Because I didn't know everyone who should be involved, I began by contacting people I knew were stakeholders and asked them to recommend others who should be included in the project. I would then contact the people I had been referred to and would mention who had suggested that I contact them about the project. To save lenghy e-mails, I provided copies of the e-mails on the web site used for the project and asked everyone to read the e-mails.

I never asked for money for my services in pulling the project together or for the expertise I was offering.  The purpose of this project was to benefit their members and their community and to be a pilot project for my firm which could be duplicated in other places.  I never intentially said that I was affiliated with anyone else on this project. 

Everyone I contacted at the beginning of this project was interested in participating.  The focus and goal seemed to be well timed and was of perceived value to everyone invited to participate.  One or two people were away from their office and could not readily be contacted, yet they were included in all the correspondence so that they would not be missing out on anything when they returned.

About three weeks into the project, someone who had been away read part of the correspondence and decided that, in some correspondence, I had misrepresented him.  While I had not done so, he made the assumption and proceeded to "poison the pool" of member associations and other stakeholders.

"My mind's made up.  Don't confuse me with the facts."

Even though I cleared up his misconception and that of one of the stakeholders, the brakes were on.  Instead of 10 organizations participating, two followed-through on our next meeting and we were left with half of the needed questions for the organizations. 

While the project could still be completed and still add value, the early momentum and trust had been lost--merely by someone making a false assumption and acting on it.

The project is dormant at present.  While it could be resurrected, at this point I can offer the same process to another group of stakeholders (remember, my free services for this project were valued at about $10,000) with as much ease as starting over with the previous group.

I appreciate the continued trust of the two professionals who continued to work on the project with me.  The community and their members lose out on the opportunities for learning and changes that could have been uncovered by the project.  Perhaps they will find the resources to do it on their own in the future.

Trust is worthwhile. It is important to start group work with trust and to bring questions into the open without acting on assumptions based on previous experiences. A lack of trust brings lots of consequences--including isolation and maintenance of the "status quo." Check out the graphic on the link connected to the title of this post. It is designed to tell a story without words. What does it tell you?

By the way, if you check out the http://drm-resources.wikispaces.com/projects page and know of another group who would like to work on a needs analysis, feel free to let me know.