Teaching Smart People How to Learn

I believe that this article should be read by every person that is involved with business. The lessons in this article can be taught to anyone in the business industry. The most important part of this article is the ideas behind getting smart people how to learn. Most importantly, understanding the reasoning behind the mental block that some people have, and helping them overcome it.

First loop learning - The best way to describe this in my own experiences is repetition. People get used to doing something over and over, and unknowingly create a mental block that adapts them to this first-loop learning. People can get used to this idea of repetition, and never think outside of the box. I believe that this type of leaning is the opposite of innovation in the workplace.

Double-loop learning - I see double-loop learning as the constant asking of the question "why?" When working on a certain task, some people just sit there and do it because its there job, but others might ask "why am I doing this?" And when they do ask "why", they should be thinking to themselves "how can I make this task better?" I believe that double-loop learning is a way of thinking outside the box, and being innovative in everyday tasks. This allows more ideas for improvement, and a better way to see things in the big picture.

How Professionals Avoid Learning - I believe that the "ego" of a person sometimes depends on their tendency to have an open mind. If someone who has been an expert at a certain subject for a significant amount of time, they tend to have a strong confidence in what they are doing. For someone to tell that person that they have made a mistake, that person denies it because of his confidence in what he is doing, and his lack of open-mindedness. Even if that person is right, they should listen to what that other person has to say, and not just shut-out all other ideas. In order to break this barrier, people need to communicate more in the workplace with their superiors, and the people below them. This way, they have a better understanding of the mindset that these people have for their own job.

Defensive Reasoning and the Doom Loop - When people do something wrong, they should fess up to it, but instead some people use defensive reasoning to justify there decision making. Even though they know that they are wrong, people will sometimes deny the fact that they have made a wrong decision. When subject to interrogation of a certain decision, people should accept the fact that other people might think differently about that decision. When people have a breakdown of there defensive reasoning, they sometimes might fall into the "doom loop." The doom loop would be the realization that he/she made a bad decision, and because of that decision, he/she is gong into a downward spiral. To overcome the doom loop, people should realize up front that a decision they made was wrong. By accepting that the decision was wrong, they can learn from their mistakes, and not fall into the "doom loop."

Learning How to Reason Productively - The senior managers must learn how to reason productively before the company as a whole can. The senior managers must have the specific mindset that creates productive ideas in the workplace. This way people can reason not just for the sake of arguing points, but to share ideas, and have a common ground to work with. Coming to a final decision does not have to be based upon winning arguments. In the work place, people should be able to build off each others ideas, and have insight to combine everyone's ideas and make final decisions based upon everyone's input.