By Cyndi Maxey and Barry Lyerly
Maybe it looks like a jungle out there, but nature is sustained through an orderly, delicate balance of many interacting elements: new trees spring from seeds sprouting on rotting logs, predators feed on creatures lower in the food chain, some plants thrive in sunshine and others in the shade of the forest, plant photosynthesis gives off oxygen, which, in turn, supports animal respiration. This natural balance ensures that each species occupies a special niche where resources are available for its survival.
Today’s business world resembles a jungle in many respects. As corporations downsize and the workforce shrinks, more is being asked of employees than ever before. Employees are on their own more than ever, because managers have less time for coaching and handholding. Face-to-face meetings are giving way to email, teleconferencing, and voicemail messaging. Organizational changes are occurring rapidly, and employees must be quick to adapt. Trainers are pressured to do more with fewer resources and to demonstrate results in less time. The heart of the workplace—its meaning and significance—gets lost in the chaos.
Nature overcomes chaos with balance, and so it is, too, with learning. Wise trainers know how to use their “natural resources†—themselves, their learners, and the learning environment—with the same balance and elegant simplicity inherent in nature. The trainer must help learners achieve and maintain balance in the business jungle by modeling an ability to discover answers and encouraging the student to be self-reliant and insightful. Employees and trainers can create learning “niches†by building partnerships for natural learning and, that way, counterbalance the seemingly chaotic, rapid changes in today’s work culture. These partnerships must be forged in an authentic, heartfelt manner.
Three Essential Elements
The three essential elements for building learning partnerships between trainers and learners are the trainer’s own insights and role, a climate designed for self-discovery, and a focus on applying knowledge. When these three elements are in balance, the result is satisfied learners, trainers, and organizations, but, in recent years, trainers and learners have become distracted by the potpourri of available training technologies and trendy programs. Although these innovations offer some answers, trainers can learn how to better utilize their most important and most abundant natural resources for effective adult learning: the people and the environment. The relationship of learning leader and learner must remain paramount, the center of balance.
The insights and talents of the trainer are the most immediate elements to assess. By assessing his or her own style, the trainer can more effectively lead students to self-discovery in the classroom and to a commitment-to-action at work. Learners who are encouraged by a trainer to get involved in their own learning and to make commitments for change will be able to maintain their balance and be successful even in today’s fast-changing business environment.
Next, trainers can focus on the learning climate, finding ways to identify, trust, and effectively use their natural presentation and facilitation styles. A good beginning point of focus is listening—one of the most important skills for becoming a learning partner. The trainer must be able to overcome emotional, physical, and intellectual barriers to effective listening as well as to ask questions to uncover the wisdom of the learners and elicit the collective insights of the learning team. Finally, to generate learning team alignment, the trainer can establish a friendly and collegial atmosphere, create team values, rotate leadership within the team, balance individual needs with team goals, and attend to the physical environment. When the trainer applies these team skills wisely, the results are whole-hearted participation of members, shared wisdom, and application of insights at work.
The third important element for partnership focuses on application. The partnership path leads to application of knowledge and insights, which begins with the learner’s willingness to commit to personal or professional development. The trainer can encourage commitment making by building it into the training design and by providing follow-up coaching, another effective means of ensuring that training transfers to the work place. By finding balance, establishing learning partnerships, and focusing on natural resources, the trainer will be flexed for the future, in shape to meet the challenge of change, and able to use new types of resources easily. The trainer can use new programs and technology and respond nimbly to changing workforce demographics through marketing and nonstop networking. These steps will ensure that the classroom is the beginning, not the end.
The Learning Partnership—A Delicate Balance
Most likely you have been conditioned from childhood that the teacher is the primary conveyor of knowledge. The teacher teaches and the students learn. Students are but empty vessels waiting to receive the wisdom flowing from one source: the teacher. This model has been so ingrained in you that it is difficult to shake. You have probably been on both sides of this equation. As a student you may have met with ridicule or derision when you were brave enough to challenge something the teacher said, and as a trainer you have been encouraged to act as though you were the sole conveyor of knowledge and insights.
That old, autocratic, industrial model of education has to give way to a more democratic model: the learning partnership. The learning leader who uses the democratic model recognizes and releases the unique talents and wisdom of students. The democratic model includes the trainer as learning partner. Knowledge power is shared not only for the benefit of the other students but for the trainer’s benefit, too. This shared power is what training from the heart is all about. Sharing power requires speaking and listening from your heart. When listening as a learning partner, the trainer is leading learners by empowering them to share their insights. When you listen in a way that signals to your students that their ideas have validity and worth, it encourages them to continue to share their wisdom.
The learning partnership is characterized by mutual admiration. That admiration often results in the teachers and students reversing roles during the learning process. The late, great conductor Leonard Bernstein was once interviewed on public television about his conducting classes at Tanglewood. He said that he often became the student during these master classes, making the point that great teachers are also great learners. Truly gifted teachers frequently exclaim to their students’ parents, “It’s a privilege to work with your wonderful kids!†or “I often learn from your sons and daughters.†These remarks represent a mental model that contrasts sharply with an attitude of superiority and condescension. Cougle (1977), a great mentor, once said about training, “Remember the answers are out there in the classroom, not in your head.â€
This trainer’s role as learning partner dovetails with a current trend. According to Drucker (1999), as knowledge workers enter our organizations, they want to be recognized and rewarded “…by satisfying their values and by giving them social recognition and social power … by turning them from subordinates into fellow executives, and from employees, however well paid, into partners.†In the classroom, they want to be treated as people who have useful technical, practical, or managerial knowledge to share. The insightful learning leader responds by tapping into that reservoir of wisdom. In fact, the way knowledge workers are treated today is a critical factor in recruiting and retaining them in organizations.
Even before the information revolution created knowledge workers, many experts realized that students often possess unrecognized ability and insights. Bennis (1989) correctly states that, in many instances, students already have answers stored away. He indicates, as Plato recognized, that learning is often recalling information or remembering what is important. By becoming a learning partner, the trainer assumes that students are savvy and wise and uses dialoguing and facilitating skills to reveal their underlying wisdom. Suzuki (1977) captures the spirit of learning partnerships in a Zen quotation: “Even though you try to put people under some control, it is impossible. You cannot do it. The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. To give your cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good; that is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them. The same works for yourself as well.â€
Assess Your Readiness to Build Learning Partnerships
Be aware that when you create a “meadow†for learning, people are often a bit mischievous or at least creative. To point the way toward such a spacious meadow requires attitudes and skills that can be challenging for the learning leader. Are you ready to lead them from the heart?
Which natural resources would you like to use more? Which area needs more attention? The field of training and development attracts many types of people with different motivations, behavior styles, and approaches to learning. Why are you a trainer, anyway? Trainers should know why they are there. Learning leaders also become intimately familiar with the client’s needs, culture, and business. You can do this through formal needs analysis or informal information gathering. It is important to use every opportunity for intimacy, from observing how a receptionist greets people to being aware of how employees share their concerns. Intimacy involves nonstop assessment of client attitudes and beliefs. You can learn to observe and learn about clients’ resources so that you can use them wisely.
Learning is simpler when you become a learning partner in the classroom, when you acknowledge that students are savvy and insightful. Even if you possess intellectual knowledge that is useful to share, students are often more adept at applying that knowledge. Too often trainers underestimate learners, using a condescending tone that reflects an attitude of superiority. With the right focus, you can become an effective learning leader who uncovers the abilities of students and acknowledges the balance inherent in a learning partnership.
As a trainer, you bring your own approach or voice to your work. Reflecting that unique style, you can create a service motto to help you focus on the most important things. A motto is clear, concise and compelling. Your service motto can serve as a compass to steer you in the right direction. It also helps you set a tone for your students.
How do you use resources to achieve a climate for learning? You have a natural presentation and facilitation style. Experienced trainers learn to trust and to use that style over time, but beginners can develop their natural abilities sooner. First, you can analyze instances when you feel especially comfortable in the learning environment. Next, you can practice specific communication skills such as revealing personal stories, successes, and failures. Finally, you can refer to feedback from sources, such as videotape, peers, and mentors, to anchor your awareness.
Learn to listen, and listen to learn. It is a myth that good listeners are nice. Rather, good listeners are smart. The ability to listen is an underused resource. Trainers who can really listen are the most effective. Listening is tied to asking questions to uncover the wisdom of your students and the collective insights of your learning team. Insight and wisdom are revealed when you ask students openly and honestly about a topic. Great questions stimulate the natural curiosity that all learners possess. They provide a link to the real world beyond the classroom. Great questions naturally bond learner and learning leader. Questions send the message that you, the trainer, do not have all the answers but that you can draw upon the knowledge and skills of your learning partners.
Learning leaders know how to develop a team of learners in the classroom by listening powerfully, probing correctly, and balancing task and morale needs of the learning team. An effective learning team is like a jazz band improvising: Within a common musical framework, all the members are contributing their unique talents to the whole. To generate that kind of alignment you need to establish a friendly and collegial atmosphere, create team values, rotate leadership within the team, balance individual needs with team goals, and attend to the physical environment. When you apply these team skills wisely, the results are whole-hearted participation of members, shared wisdom, and application of insights at work.
We encourage you to think about the transfer of training to the work place. What is the point of training if there is no effect? The natural path leads to application of knowledge and insights. The classroom is the dress rehearsal for on-the-job learning. Focus the learner’s lens on after-class commitments. You can enlist existing natural resources, including peer and manager support. The measure of a successful training session is not how well it was received but what happens later at work.
Personal commitment is key to the natural way of training. After all, learning begins with one person’s willingness to commit to personal or professional development. You can encourage commitment making and attainment by building it into your training design. Elements of good commitment design include pre-work, preliminary commitment making, final declarations, and peer support at work. Commitments are pledges to take action in the future. They work.
Training is delivered in various formats, including one-on-one coaching. As you develop rapport with participants, clients, and organizations, they will naturally want more individualized coaching. Coaching varies from informal exchanges at the water cooler to formal executive coaching sessions. The effective coach applies his or her coaching skills with integrity and honesty and assumes that the person being coached is able and wise, not needy and dependent.
The Internet, technology, and the changing work force have greatly influenced how and when trainers deliver training. If you are truly flexed for the future, you are in shape to meet the challenge of change, and you will be able to use new types of resources easily. You will be able to provide current or updated programs. You will be knowledgeable about how technology has changed delivery and communication in today’s business climate. Because you are in great shape, you will be able to respond nimbly to changing workforce demographics, through marketing and networking nonstop. You are flexed for the future so that you can consider reinventing your role as a trainer.
The New Balance of Nature
Breaking out of the old way of operating is worth the effort. The concept of a learning partnership acknowledges that students are more than empty vessels waiting to receive the wisdom flowing from the teacher. The new model flows from the idea that teachers can learn as much from the students as students can learn from the teacher. The result is more self-reliance and confidence for the learners and greater satisfaction for both leader and learner.
As you continue to focus on the three key elements of role, climate, and application, you will uncover your natural ability to forge learning partnerships with your learners. You will begin to use your natural resources more creatively. Those resources have always existed—in your own mirror and in the hearts and minds of your students and coworkers. They just need you to bring them to life as you continue to check your own trainer heartbeat.
