The futurist Alvin Toffler once wrote: 'The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn'.
In a world as fast-moving as ours, that warning feels more relevant than ever.
If you’re not moving forward, the world is moving past you – at speed.
The best leaders know this instinctively. They are relentless learners, constantly developing and encouraging themselves and others.
MIT senior lecturer Peter Senge explored this idea in his influential book The Fifth Discipline, which introduced the concept of the learning organisation.
Almost four decades later, the message has only grown in importance.
Imagine if your business had a genuine culture of learning where every person, at every level, was deliberately and consistently developing. Where each week, your team turned up slightly better than the week prior.
When that happens, magic occurs. People begin to push themselves and each other to grow.
The whole organisation starts to feel different. Energy builds. Confidence grows.
And results are achieved.
Creating that kind of culture doesn’t require big budgets or complicated programmes.
One of my clients started with a simple book club, where a small group read a relevant business title and met to discuss what they’d learned and how it might apply to their work.
The idea caught on.
Soon there were four or five book clubs running across the business. This was an engineering firm, and the enthusiasm even spread to the shop floor.
Another company introduced a weekly ‘lunch and learn,’ where staff gathered to watch a short video or listen to a talk from an expert on a leadership topic.
One made their Amazon account available for anyone who wanted to buy educational books. Another paid for access to an online learning platform for all employees.
No one was made to participate, but there was a clear expectation that everyone was responsible for their own growth.
And those who chose not to engage quickly realised they might be left behind when promotion opportunities arose.
None of this is hard or expensive to do. But the benefits of building a true learning organisation are immense.
So, what are you going to do about it?
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