8    

Connect the Dots

You have heard the call to learn, you have a future vision, and you’ve found the learning resources and experiences you can use. Now it’s time to decide what else you need to support your learning, and how you’ll connect the dots to create a learning path. At this stage, you need to rate the learning challenge, name your path, mark waypoints, and equip yourself for the journey.

Rate the Learning Challenge

Sometimes learning is easy (you want to learn the new features that come with a software program upgrade), but it can also be very difficult (you are a novice team leader who wants to learn how to build and coordinate a diverse team). Difficult learning will take more time, resources, and grit than easy learning, so gauge the challenge ahead. Think about what it will take to reach your future vision, and start connecting the dots by rating the level of difficulty on the learning challenge continuum (Figure 8-1).

This doesn’t imply that difficult situations are drudgery, and it doesn’t mean that less challenging ones are more enjoyable. Difficult learning can unleash amazing energy and flow, where you become so absorbed in your learning that you lose track of time. Conversely, something that is too easy may not be challenging enough to entice your brain waves and neurochemicals (endorphins and adrenalin) into a learning state. You need to be prepared to learn no matter where you fall on the continuum.

Figure 8-1. Learning Challenge Continuum

Name Your Path

Your learning journey can take three different paths: learning in the moment, learning forward to a goal, and learning retroactively from experience. You may be on one or all paths, with different agendas, at the same time!

Path 1: Learn in the Moment

Day-to-day life is filled with in-the-moment learning opportunities. While 4.0 learners have a broad bandwidth for recognizing these chances to learn, most people miss them.

When you learn in the moment, you notice the opportunity to learn something and then follow your curiosity, getting the information you need, and perhaps doing something to be sure you remember a point or two. For example, you may be reading a blog and find yourself wanting to know a bit more about a specific topic. Or, perhaps something sparks your interest as you talk with others, watch a video, or face a challenge on the job.

Imagine you are a new team leader having a casual conversation with a colleague when you realize that she has successfully dealt with some recent conflicts between people in her team. You are working to become a stronger team facilitator, so your interest is piqued. You ask her how she handled those difficult situations, listening and making mental notes about how you can use some of her methods. It’s a short, in-the-moment conversation. But you learn something important to you that you hadn’t planned.

Note that behind these in-the-moment learning opportunities will always be one of the five calls to learn. That is, you will notice the opportunity because of some need in you, in your world, back from experience, forward because of a possible future challenge or vision, or pure joy and general interest in the topic. Every in-the-moment learning opportunity presents a sign that there you are being called to learn. Whenever you think, “Aha! Something interesting is happening here!” use the relevant mine for gold, learn to last, and transfer to life practices (which you will read about in the next chapters) to capture, retain, and use what you learn.

Learning opportunities lurk everywhere. Pretty exciting! It’s just further proof that you are made for learning; that the 90 billion neurons and 100 trillion connections in your brain are calling out to be stimulated and used.

Path 2: Learn Forward to a Goal

The second path is what most people associate with deliberate, conscious learning. It happens when you direct your learning toward a new future vision. This can be a complex path with many moving parts, but it can also be simple, such as becoming adept at a new version of software you already use. More complex learning toward a goal usually requires you to plan and re-plan as you progress. You plan what resources you will use and when, where to learn, what tools you will use, how you will fund some aspects (pay for a course), how you will make time, and where it will fit into your schedule. You’ll also have to anticipate distractions and decide how much support you will need from others, and how to get it.

For example, you may want to prepare for a role, develop a capability, or improve your overall skill and perspective in an area. Maybe you received feedback about a personality trait or want to get ready for a new role (you heard the call to learn). When you’re on this path, you will create a future vision, search for the best resources, and launch a learning plan with a timeline and a list of resources and actions you’ll take along the way.

Path 3: Learn Retroactively

Ah, the unmined riches of experience. People often look back on the past with regret or nostalgia, but another, often better, option is to learn from it. As a 4.0 learner, you can use your imagination to go back inside the experience to extract the lessons and the learning.

As you look retroactively into experience, you may uncover additional calls to learn. For example, you realize that your team misdiagnosed several problems because you didn’t have an agreed upon method for problem analysis or ways of bringing diverse views together. So you project a future vision of better teamwork and problem solving. Thus, what started as retroactive learning (path 3) becomes learning forward to a goal (path 2).

Military leaders require retroactive learning as part of all important actions and engagements. They call it an after-action review. But this very rich type of learning is available to everybody; there are vast veins of unmined gold lying in your past experiences. But it will take time and conscious effort to locate and extract it!

As a 4.0 learner, be ready to jump onto these three learning paths. There is potential learning all around you; you just need to become more conscious of it.

The seven learning 4.0 practices apply to all three paths, but in different intensities. Sometimes they are mere touchpoints that draw on one or two practices; for example, an in-the-moment call to learn may trigger a fleeting but conscious future vision that creates some future-pull. Other paths, such as learning forward to a goal or retroactively, take more conscious attention and draw on most or all seven practices.

Remember, learning is a process of discovery. On any path and at any time, you may discover something that will change your future vision, your decisions about resources and experiences, and the plans you will intend to follow. Learning is always dynamic, growth oriented, and about change.

Mark Waypoints

Learning is an exploration. So, imagine being an explorer. At this point, you should have a good idea about where you want to head (future vision), where you are, and the general path you are starting on (in the moment, toward a goal, or retroactive). You’ve learned what you can about the territory by scanning for resources and noting where your learning journey fits on the challenge continuum. You may even have a useful map and specific path to follow (such as if you are going for a credential or following a step-by-step learning program). However, it’s more likely that there is no clear route. So, how do you proceed?

You don’t have to create a detailed plan (step-by-step learning plans in today’s nonstop world frequently change), so waypoints on a potential path may be enough. Waypoints are important points (dots) you move toward on your learning journey; when you reach them, you take stock and confirm or revise your course. They include:

• specific learning experiences and resources, and when you plan to engage with them

• support from others, and when you will involve them

• major learning checkpoints

• steps you need to take to shape your environment or ensure you have the learning materials you need.

If you can, plot these waypoints as a visual flow, showing how you want to move along your learning path.

If you are on a retroactive learning path, your waypoints will include actions that pull learning from past experiences, as well as responses to new calls to learn that arise during your review.

Equip Yourself for the Journey

Explorers prepare by equipping themselves to meet the challenges of their unique quest and circumstances. This also applies to 4.0 learners. If your journey is going to take you into difficult or unfamiliar terrain, consider getting a Sherpa or coach. If the environment is going to make it difficult to stay on course, set up a safe harbor where you can do some of the offline learning work, or incorporate it by using real-life experiences as part of your learning process. If your learning goal requires you to master some difficult knowledge areas, note-taking approaches will help you see deeper patterns and organize and internalize what you want to learn. You may even want to create a special file on your desktop to store everything related to your learning goal.

Create a learning-friendly environment around you, too. If you are worried you will lose energy and motivation, set up some incentives or put your future vision somewhere where you can see it, like on your desk, computer, screensaver, or bathroom mirror. Schedule weekly reminders that pop up on your calendar and cheer you on. And make sure your learning materials are ready for you to use when you need them.

The atmosphere around you matters, too. Learning is a whole brain–whole body experience: Your brain and body are in constant interaction with the environment in and around you, sensing many subtleties that you are not consciously monitoring. If you can, avoid anything that is harsh, stressful, or distracting to your senses. For example, the colors around you affect your ability to concentrate: Blue and green are more supportive and calming than red and orange.¹ A certain amount of white noise can be a great asset for learning because it increases the levels your neurons are firing, without overstressing them. Imagine your neurons resonating with low-frequency sounds—such as river and ocean sounds or soothing music—in a way that helps keep you alert, yet relaxed enough to learn. An emerging field of research called stochastic resonance is exploring how to use soundwaves to supercharge learning in this way, so look for more insights about this in the future.²

A Word About the Social Aspect of Learning

When you select, organize, and connect your dots, think about getting others involved as co-learners and supporters. Learning always has a social element. Even when you learn on your own, you’re drawing on humanity’s entire evolutionary history as you use the language, symbols, and knowledge acquired through generations. Your learning sits within the cultural assumptions and worldviews you were born into. You use resources designed by others, and you interact with and rely on others at various stages of the process.

Sometimes this social aspect will be more, well, social. For example, you may have a shared learning agenda with a team, your family, or a partner. Or you may get help and guidance from others or provide that kind of support yourself. These are terrific opportunities to help everyone in your circle to upgrade to learning 4.0.

The social aspect adds color, energy, and motivation to learning. It’s also vital to your success if your learning goal is at the high end of the challenge continuum. Adding social waypoints can help you share, and thus minimize, some of the struggle. It also adds rewarding benefits of comradeship and good feelings from oxytocin bursts.

Connect the Dots, in Brief

Learning is a journey that may involve many resources and personal action steps. So you may have to select, connect, and reconnect many dots. Sometimes you have a good map with clear and obvious connections, like when your learning goal is part of a certificate or degree program, or when the path is designed by somebody else. For these journeys, you don’t have to spend much time finding resources or planning.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a nice, paved road for most of your learning journeys. You are on an adventure of your own in uncharted or poorly mapped terrain, where you have to select waypoints and connect the dots based on imperfect and incomplete information. While planning waypoints gives your learning journey some structure, you know that your path will continue evolving as you learn.

Whether the path is immediately clear or not, and whether you are in the moment, learning toward a goal, or learning retroactively, take some time to select and connect the dots that represent what you plan to do as you learn. And don’t forget that your path may change as you reconnect the dots on your journey.