Create a Learning Environment That Fosters Self-Discovery - Part 1

The first part of Engaged Leadership is “building a relationship between people and their craft.” We explored this in the previous blogs. Over the next four blogs we will explore the second part of Engaged Leadership, “how to create a learning environment at work that fosters self-discovery.”

Lightening Bob Ludkie

One of my all-time favorite high school teachers was Robert Ludkie. We referred to him as Lightening Bob Ludkie. He taught upper-level math – trigonometry and calculus. I was ok at math, but not great. It didn’t come natural to me, so I had to work at it. What helped the most in Lightening Bob Ludkie’s class was his use of questions. He asked questions 90% of the time. If you got the answer right on a math problem, he wanted to know how you got the answer. If your answer was wrong, he wanted you to explain how you got your answer. He forced us to think through the process we used to get our answers. At first, his questions created anxiety. Having to explain how you arrived at a wrong answer could be a bit unnerving. I quickly discovered, though, that his use of questions helped me discover my mistakes rather than him simply telling me what I did wrong. By helping us think through our decision-making process he was equipping us to handle future test questions with greater logic. He wanted his students to be confident decision-makers when they took tests. The outcome was higher performance, especially for me. Forcing me to explain my thought process made me a more confident decision maker during tests. 

Lightening Bob Ludkie mastered the art of creating self-discovery. It wasn’t HIS math class. It was OUR math class. He just created the environment where we could learn faster and apply that knowledge on future tests. In his class, it was not enough to get the right answer. You had to know how you got the answer and whether you could replicate the process in different situations to still get the right answer. He also taught me a valuable lesson about building confident team members.

When people learn how to do something themselves, they are more likely to remember it and apply it in the future.

Push & Pull or Enable & Empower?

Thinking about Lightening Bob Ludkie’s class creates a relevant leadership question, “How would you rather spend your time as a leader?” Would you rather spend time pushing & pulling your team to meet expectations or equipping & empowering them to meet or exceed expectations?

On the surface it seems like an obvious choice. Most leaders say that they would rather equip and empower. Unfortunately, though, most of these same leaders spend more time pushing and pulling than equipping and empowering. Why do we say we want one thing but do things that create the opposite of what we say we want?

It’s complicated.

Part of the reason is the constant focus on tasks & goals that we all face. Deadlines take over and we shift into “get stuff done” mode. With short term goals it’s easier and faster to push and pull to get things done. How many times have you heard a leader say, “It’s just easier for me to do it myself.” Some leaders are also uncomfortable asking questions and dealing with the answers people give, so they just push & pull. Other leaders expect people to figure things out on their own.

Whatever the reason, when leaders push & pull instead of equip & empower there are bigger problems they are not facing. First, pushing & pulling conditions people to be obedient and compliant rather thinking, adapting, and innovating. That may have worked 25, 50, or 75 years ago, but it leads to mediocrity in the 21^st century. Second, many people perform up to the level leaders define as successful and then they coast, waiting on the next goal. In both these situations, performance becomes a roller coaster that is tiring for leaders and their team. The strange twist is that when the roller coaster happens, these same leaders complain about how frustrating it is to keep pushing and pulling their people to create higher performance. They never face the fact that they are getting exactly what THEY created.

In the next 3 blogs we will explore more about creating a learning environment that fosters self-discovery.