Developing Employees Who Love to Learn

Tools, Strategies, and Programs for Promoting Learning at Work

Davies-Black Publishing, 2000

15 min read

10 take-aways

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Learning doesn’t have to be regimented. Use informal teaching to create a workplace where everyone learns, all the time.

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Linda Honold describes a system for helping everyone in your company learn to become more creative, responsive, efficient and team-oriented. She describes various techniques, including methods for developing an interest in learning and self-knowledge. Her book covers individual learning tools, mentoring, coaching, group learning and peer learning. She pays particular attention to learning styles, drawing on the system set out by the Myers-Briggs personality test. Honold’s book speaks primarily to corporate managers who are trying to create serendipitous learning systems. Some may find the book dry and overly concerned with the details of systematizing supposedly informal learning, but getAbstract recommends it to HR practitioners and to knowledge management professionals who will find it productive. They will gain a lot from this theoretical – and practical – look at how people in companies actually learn.

Summary

A Learning Atmosphere

While formalized training programs usually dominate workplace learning, individuals learn better informally, through daily activities, than they do in a formal classroom. To encourage your employees to learn more, promote everyday learning. A few key concepts should shape the way people learn at work:

Learners should be responsible for self-directed learning.
Self-knowledge provides a beginning point for further learning. Use tools like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to learn about yourself and how you relate to others.
A flexible setting will promote your effort to create opportunities for people to learn.
Learning can occur through reading, reflecting, experimenting or engaging in activities. Often unusual activities are very educational.
You can’t know all the issues that may come up in a rapidly changing environment.
Employees should be able to apply their current tools to be able to devise solutions in unfamiliar situations.
Learning should be conscious. Accidental learning is inefficient.
People learn better when they are aware of the learning process and actively choose to...

About the Author

Linda Honold, Ph.D., president and founder of Empowerment Systems, is a human resource development and organization consultant focusing on employee learning and organizational transformation.

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J. S. 1 decade ago

for a 5 page summary this is quite heavy going which is a pity as there are some useful soundbites but it seems to make heavy weather of 70:20:10 approach to learning. It maybe that in the 12 years since publication this abstract is showing its age!

Linda Honold