Chapter 2. Experiential Learning: Just How Bad Are We?

Even in the discipline as explicit as the subject it denotes—and as important as it is—the record on how well and/or how quickly we learn from experience is not good. From Jean Piaget’s Einstein-applauded observations of how children learn to Professor David Kolb’s reflective process to transform knowledge has taken more than 80 years. Kolb’s own efforts have been around for a quarter of a century, with his weary statement that his experiential learning theory only started to be recognized empirically after more than 10 years. My own practitioner efforts have taken two decades. The fact that productivity growth has been declining ever since modern business education started in the 1960s (see Figure 1 in Chapter 1) suggests that not many decision makers are particularly good at learning from experience (Groningen Growth and Development Centre and The Conference Board, 2004). Even with the proven tools, we are slow on the uptake.