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TAKING CHARGE
Developing a Plan for Learning

YOUTH IS WASTED ON THE YOUNG, so it is said, and maybe education is, too. For most of us, at the stage in our lives when we had the most time for learning we also had the least appreciation for its benefits. Going to high school or college cultivates the mindset of blocks of years and plenty of time for learning. As people enter the workforce, develop personal relationships, and accumulate responsibilities, the need and desire for learning multiplies but the time available diminishes. We begin to sense that without a plan, we will never be able to learn all we want to learn.

When people take on a new job or project, or begin advanced studies, they often say, “There is going to be a steep learning curve.” They are referring to a simple graph that plots the relationship of learning and time:

Many people today are in situations that require significant amounts of new learning in a short period of time. Learning becomes a struggle: too much to learn and not enough time to learn it!

There are two good ways to meet the challenge of a steep learning curve. First, decide what to learn and make a plan for learning it. Second, when you get involved in some form of learning, make sure that you know how to learn so that you can get the most out of the learning experience. In this chapter you will learn how to develop a personal plan for learning. Managing your own learning begins with planning for learning.

THE BASELINE
Understanding Your Previous Learning

The place to begin in developing your plan for learning is with an honest analysis of your previous learning. Start with your formal education. Reflect on where you studied, the quality of the experience, the effort you put forth, and what you learned.

A useful way to analyze your formal education is to think about it in terms of proficiencies, conversancies, and specialties (Weingartner, 1992).¹ Proficiencies include such skills as reading, writing, speaking, and listening; interpersonal, group, or cross-cultural communication skills; critical thinking skills; quantitative skills in math, statistics, or computer science; foreign language skills; mechanical skills, or performance skills. These are the basic building blocks of further learning—the competencies you have now. They are things you can do.

Conversancies are the fields where you have a familiarity with basic information and ways of thinking. Think of them as areas where you can carry on an informed conversation within a general field or subject area. Knowing the main historical developments, major figures, key terminology, and central ideas in a field enables you to talk with others about that field and learn more within it. These fields include the basic subject areas we encounter in schools and colleges—humanities, social sciences, and sciences—but also professional and occupational conversancies: business, legal, medical, social service, educational, international, mechanical, agricultural, military, and technical. These are areas with which you have varying degrees of acquaintance.

In addition, you probably developed some special expertise in one or more academic, occupational, or professional areas where you studied in depth. In those areas you have developed more than a conversancy; you have gained the ability to find and understand information in that field, perform specialized tasks, or apply concepts from that field to practical situations. This special expertise might have been developed through an occupational specialization, college major, or through further study in graduate or professional school. These are areas where you have in-depth knowledge or well-developed, specialized abilities.

Your formal education is only part of the picture. Some people actually obtained very little from their formal education. They might have learned more through their informal education, through those things they learned on their own. Some people like to read, others travel, still others spend hours at the computer. Employees often have excellent opportunities for informal learning in organizational settings, as do volunteers. Many people have accumulated significant amounts of informal learning in areas unrelated to their jobs. Your previous learning consists of a blend of formal and informal learning.

PRIDE AND REGRETS
Assessing Strengths and Weaknesses

The important questions to ask as you try to establish your baseline are: What did you learn through formal schooling and on your own? What are your operational proficiencies, conversancies, and specialties? You can look at these as the strengths and weaknesses of your educational background, but a less threatening way to undertake this rigorous self-examination is to ask: What aspects of my formal and informal education do I take pride in, and what do I regret? In this way you have room to move ahead without blaming yourself or others. You can build on those aspects of your learning you take pride in, and remedy those areas about which you have regret. You are ready now to build a composite profile of your previous learning, a snapshot of yourself at this moment in time.

PROJECTING LEARNING NEEDS
Knowing What You Need and Want to Know

Knowing where you are now is a starting point, but you also need to know where you want to go. What learning will be necessary for you to survive now and maintain yourself in the future? What will the job demand? These are questions about performance. Many training programs in organizations focus on performance improvement, the skills needed to do a specific job more effectively and efficiently. Improving performance is important, but you also need to think about the development of your capacity. What do you want to be able to do in three, five, or ten years? What will your job be like then, or what new job would you like to hold? What learning will be necessary for you to get there? Developing capacity is important, but you also need to examine your interests. What do you like to learn? Is there something you have been wanting to learn for a long time now, but for one reason or another haven’t done it? Is there something you have a passion about learning? Do you have some dreams deferred?

The answers to your questions about performance, capacity, and interests need to be very specific. What exactly do you need to learn or want to learn?

To discover what kind of learning you will need for improving performance in your present job, consider the following guidelines.

• Analyze the job. Step back from the job and analyze what is involved in performing the job well. Develop hunches about what learning will be needed for the future. Think about what you need to know in order to be more effective in this job.

• Talk about the job. Discuss with supervisors, or others who hold this job, what directions it is likely to take and what new learning will be required. Identify what you can do to add value to the organization through this job.

• Change the job. Think about how to transform the job into a different job and decide what you need to learn to do that.

To improve your capacity for undertaking a new job, consider these guidelines:

• Read about the job. Most fields have trade magazines, newsletters, reports, and journals. What are the trends and new developments? What forecasts are being made about supply and demand? What will you need as a credential and what will you need to know?

• Build networks. Interview people who do this job or who are prospective employers. Find out what others believe you would need to learn to qualify for this job and perform it well.

• Project the job into the future. Imagine yourself or someone else doing this job in five years. What will they be doing and how will they be doing it? Think beyond what the job calls for now.

To identify your interests, consider these guidelines:

• Note career paths you almost took but rejected. What drew you to this learning in the first place, and what eventually turned you away from it? Do you have lingering interests in these areas?

• Examine leisure-time interests. Do you have hobbies or activities you enjoy more than anything else? What do you like to read or watch? Are these areas where you would like to learn more?

• Recall favorite learning experiences. What was your favorite subject, course, or workshop? What learning have you engaged in that was so much fun it hardly seemed like learning?

Generate information that will help you decide what you need to learn to be able to improve performance, develop capacity, or build on your interests. The goal is knowing what you need and want to know.

Your plan for learning also should include another important element: related learning, or learning beyond your field. It is important in an organizational context to identify the learning beyond your field that could have impact on your performance or capacity within your field. There are several reasons for branching out:

• You need to communicate laterally, vertically, and outside the organization with other people. Knowing enough to be conversant with the people with whom you work is important for good communication.

• You need to be an effective team member. You need to understand enough about the fields of other team members to work with them in a way that capitalizes on everyone’s knowledge and skill.

• You can gain new perspectives. By acquiring knowledge and skills from outside your field, you can view your own field in a new way and gain insights about how to be more effective.

• You can become more creative. Today, most breakthroughs and new insights are interdisciplinary; that is, they come about by synthesizing information from two or more fields, or by using methods from one field to study phenomena in another field.

• You can develop as a person. Some learning is needed just for renewal, so that you can be a happier, more enthusiastic, and more interesting person.

Include in your plan for learning the related learning you will need outside your field so that you can communicate better, broaden your perspective, and be more creative and effective.

GAP ANALYSIS
Comparing Current Learning and Desired Learning

The next step in the personal planning process is to compare your findings about your current learning with your desired learning. No doubt there will be some gap, big or small, that needs to be closed by learning. Some of the previous learning you identified as matters of pride may put you in a good position for learning what you need to learn next. Some matters of regret may not be important at all in terms of what you need to know, but some regrets may be exactly the point of focus for closing the gap.

Be specific about the kind of learning that needs to take place to fill the gap. The learning may include knowledge or subject-matter information, but consider also such things as skills, including interpersonal skills, or the reworking of feelings and attitudes. As we will describe in Chapter 3, learning goes well beyond accumulating information. As you think about the gap, contemplate the many different kinds of learning that might fill it.

It will be tempting, as you think about the gap, to want to plug it with a program such as an MBA (Master’s in Business Administration), a law degree, or a specific training program. You may eventually select more formal study as one means of filling the gap, but unless you have done a thorough gap analysis you won’t know which program best meets your needs. Similarly, if you are already enrolled in further formal study, you should consider which aspects of the gap will be filled best by your current study and which will require other means of learning. A thorough gap analysis will help you analyze what specific learning is desired and what blend of formal and informal learning is most appropriate.

GETTING WHERE YOU WANT TO GO
Developing an Action Plan

Now that you have a better idea about what you want to learn, begin to think about how you want to learn it. Be specific. What formal and informal learning opportunities will you seek? Where will you inquire about options? Who will you ask about opportunities? (See Chapter 13 for suggestions about finding opportunities for further learning.) If you are already enrolled in a formal training, certificate, or degree program, what choices can you make within that program—courses, projects, assignments—that will help you most to fill in the gaps in your learning? What steps must you take to carry out your plan?

Your personal plan for learning will grow out of your understanding of your formal and informal education, your areas of pride and regret about previous learning, your analysis of your learning needs in an actual or potential employment situation, your assessment of your interests and passions, and your needs for learning outside your field. The key to your plan is an honest and realistic gap analysis—a sincere reflection on the discrepancies between your current learning and what you need or want to learn. A personal plan for learning provides the mechanism for focusing on specific goals. By pursuing your plan diligently you can prepare yourself for greater success in this new era. Managing your own learning begins with careful planning.