What is Total Learning?
How often have you returned from a workplace development programme having enjoyed the experience but not applied the lessons that you learned? This happens frequently, and neither you nor the organization benefits when it does. Preparing the workforce for the future involves the development of its people collectively and individually. Aligning and synergising both takes applied learning to the next level.
The purpose, vision and values are promoted by most organisations, mainly in glossy posters pinned across the wall of your offices and workplaces. How often is your development specifically aligned to the organisation’s needs and yours? Most important, when the learning is evaluated, does it take account of what you deliver or produce for the benefit of your organisation or its customers or clients?
Our approach to learning is different. We promote total learning and focus just as much on your potential achievements at work or for your project as well as your individual understanding of the topics
Navigating your space
The traditional conception of the classroom as your main learning space is long losing its prominence. Our philosophy – as with leadership – is that learning transcends a range of different levels and involves all within an institution and its networks. An important component of working life in the first quarter of the 21st century is the wisdom of the crowd.
No longer is information the preserve of those who can afford education and hold expensive encyclopedia collections in their homes. Everything that we do in our personal and working lives involves relationships. This is not new but what is new is the immediate availability of information, how we deal with this and with whom we learn. Of course, information alone is not sufficient to create knowledge and, conversely, can easily lead to information overload. Information needs to be turned into intelligence and then, ultimately to wisdom. The notion that the “many are smarter than the few” (James Surowiecki, ****) is an important point to make. The critical question to answer first is the ‘why?’ and then second, the ‘how?’ before we consider the ‘where?’ and ‘when’ (place and timing) and finally, the ‘what?’ (subject matter) and the ‘who?’ (subject matter experts).
We help you to find your learning space and discover what you both need and want to learn. This will then help you to develop your leadership skills.
Within this space (which we have elsewhere referred to as the ether), patterns of energy coalesce and create more knowledge. We introduce you to your Applied Learning and Development Space (ALDS) which is where your consciousness for learning can be brought to life and to help you to lead. The ether is limitless and boundless, just like your capacity for learning. You learn through your intelligent inquiry, questioning and application. We support you but not as your teacher. We co-produce your learning. Your space is your ether. We help you to explore within this limitless space.
We take you to wherever your learning needs to go and from where your continuous development will emerge. Some of this will be applied through face-to-face learning and development but the subject matter can come from anywhere within the learning ether which is the blended learning environment that we offer to you and help you to navigate. Just like the perfect platonic solid of the octahedron (eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at each vertex) we explore the complex systems within which your learning and leadership interact in creating the change that you seek. We help you to find the patterns that exist, but which are not immediately visible.
