3 Ways to Make Learning Moments Part of Your Culture

I had sort of a weird epiphany the other day.

We’re always learning, whether we think so or not – even in those moments when we think what we’re doing is teaching.

akeg via Flickr CC

For even when we are explaining something, lecturing, training, teaching, speaking, or managing – if we’re present while doing these things – we’re actually learning how to do all of these things better.

There are times in my life when I’ve felt as though I was enduring a lesson from someone who was telling me how to do something that I clearly knew (or thought I did) how to do – perhaps better than they.

When I look back at these times through the learning lens I now see that not only was I learning an important lesson, the person conveying the lesson was learning how communicate as well. I’m going to take that lesson into every meeting I attend going forward.

I think there’s an immediate message in this for business owners. Every moment is really a both a learning moment and a teaching moment, but we’ve got to start to view it that way.

Businesses with strong, brand supporting cultures use this notion to intentionally infuse the business with life.

Nobody is born knowing how to run a business. We are always learning how to run our businesses. Our managers are always learning how to manage. Our staff is always engaged in learning how to operate process. Even those charged with teaching are learners.

And that’s how we need think about the people in our businesses. Below are three simple ways to make learning moments part of the every day culture of your business.

Teaching

Every employee should be given the task of teaching something to someone as a matter of course. It could be teaching members of another department how something is done. It could be running the all hands meeting to present the new advertising campaign. It could be outlining the mission of a not for profit partner the firm might help.

Everyone should be asked to teach because that’s how we learn best.

Being taught

Once a week every employee should have a 30 minute one on one meeting with their manager where the employee owns the agenda 100%.

The meeting could be the opportunity to figure out how to do something that is holding up a project or it could be the chance to outline a pet project they would like to take on or it could simply be the time to explore their life goals.

Managers learn how to manage when they learn about whom they are managing.

Planned learning

Once a week gather your team or department over lunch and just share. Make a new person play host each week and challenge them to make the session fun. You can make this a formal session or just talk about whatever you want, but everyone must participate.

You can share facts about yourself, teach a quick subject unrelated to work or read a poem that means something to you.

These weekly sessions are how you discover what everyone really cares about and that’s how you learn how to make the organization special. That’s how you generate commitment. That’s how this buzzword culture really comes to life – from the little, seemingly insignificant things we learn while trying to teach each other.

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