Name: Learn or Die
Rating: 4.1 (47 reviews)
Author: Edward D. Hess

What’s in it for me? Reevaluate how your company deals with learning and improve performance.

Established business leaders know that being able to learn is a key to success. But what does this mean? Being able to learn means improving and growing your skills – and in doing so, staying ahead of the pack.

An individual can learn; yet the bigger challenge is getting an entire organization to keep learning.

In today’s fast-paced business world, we either learn, or die. These blinks give you insight into the latest research that explains how our brains work – that is, exactly how we learn – and how you can then use this knowledge to reevaluate how your company operates.

You’ll learn how to build a successful, dynamic organization based on how the human mind works. That’s bad news for your competitors, and great news for your employees and bottom line!

In these blinks, you’ll discover

how Toyota deals with employee mistakes;
why you need a comfortable chair to learn effectively; and
how to think as quickly as a firefighter.

System 1 thinking says keep the status quo. System 2 thinking says shake it up; we can do better.

We learn as we observe the results of cause and effect in our environment. When dark clouds gather overhead, for example, you know through past observation that it may rain.

Over time, such observations become a way of interpreting the world. Our learning systems are somewhat like a computer operating system – that takes more work to rewrite. Yet it’s precisely our ability to rewrite what we’ve learned that is the key to productive learning.

The human learning machine consumes lots of energy, and because of this, tends to operate more often than not on autopilot – relying on instinct – to conserve fuel.

We call this mode System 1. It’s in this mode that you, for example, keep your voice down inside rather than yell and scream, based on the hard lessons you learned as a child.

Sometimes this mode can blind you, however. When you really need to think out of the box, such as when you’re trying to figure out why a competitor’s product is crushing yours in the market, you need to switch your thinking to System 2.

The ultimate goal of a learning organization is to overcome the preference for System 1 thinking. To do so, learning organizations must help employees to process information, especially information that challenges automatic assumptions.

System 1 thinking isn’t a problem with basic activities. Yet in business, it can cause you to miss trends or opportunities. A company stuck in System 1 thinking often can’t see alternatives to the status quo.

In contrast, System 2 thinking helps you reject automatic responses; instead, you’re able to consider new options and temper any bias.

Observing and managing the way you think is essential to actual learning. One way to get in the habit of using System 2 thinking is to simply reflect on what you’ve done during the day. This will help you to identify critical moments in which System 2 thinking could have helped.

Throughout the process, remember to keep an open mind so you can turn mistakes into learning opportunities.

Don’t deny your emotions, as they’re necessary for thinking. Spock should not be your hero.

We often – yet erroneously – separate our rational, thinking mind from our emotional mind. The truth, however, is that thinking is impossible without emotion. The areas of the brain responsible for emotions and thinking are closely networked, and even overlap.

Star Trek’s highly logical Spock is, after all, a fictional character. In reality, there’s no such thing as completely logical thought. Your emotions will always affect your thoughts, and vice versa.

Great learning requires great communication. Turn on System 2 to be a present, active listener.

Once you’ve found the right people and have created the right environment, it’s time for the third goal in creating a High Performance Learning Organization (HPLO): establishing the right processes.

The right processes are built upon effective communication. After all, learning is a team effort!

Find your own path and apply learning “best practices” to your organization.

Are you ready to apply these lessons to your own organization? Let’s look at a couple of real-life examples and see how others have succeeded.

Hedge fund Bridgewater uses drill downs to improve its learning environment. Essentially all conversations, meetings and interviews are recorded, and everyone has access. Sounds scary, right?

Key ideas in Learn or Die