Changing The Paradigm: How To Thrive Within A Learning And Sharing Environment

An excerpt from the Heavy Chef Volume 4 - Education Edition. Read more here 

How To Thrive Within A Learning And Sharing Environment

Ouch, that was actually quite hurtful.

Well, only if you take it personally, she said.

Take it personally? How could I not! I thought, trying my best reverse these traitor tears swelling up in my eyes and replace them instead with a failing look of cool, calm and obviously not collected.

Fast forward to a few years later and I find myself saying those exact same words to a lip quivering, little lamb who, I am pretty sure, will continue giving me death stares for the next week and offer me ‘sugar free’ biscuits with my tea just to see me gain back those dastardly few kg’s and not know why.

Surely, there must be a less painful, more efficient way to change the way we are naturally hard-wired to think, act and learn that doesn’t require years of hard knocks and bruised ego rants.

Enter the wondrous learning & sharing environment – a place where talent is no longer treacherous, and the inconceivable I don’t know has a sunken spot on the couch. So how does a hardened, corporate ladder climbing junkie thrive in such an inconceivably nurturing womb?

I suggest it can be achieved by applying a change in personal pattern to enable an individual to embrace education in an organization and thrive within a learning culture to his/ her own personal benefit and that of the company.

• Identify the paradigms you are referencing at work

In the darling classic, 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by Steven Covey, the author gives the analogy of a man driving in a new city with the wrong map to explain what he means by this archetype. Irrespective of the man’s intention to change his behaviour or attitude, he stays lost. By following the advice of his manager to stay positive and try harder, all that changes for the lost traveller is that he gets lost twice as fast and is very enthused about it.

What paradigm are you using to validate yourself and your colleagues? In other words are you pre-judging yourself and others based on an external expectation formed by the societal norms we accept? The client is king and should be treated better than a peer, a manager will be right and an intern always wrong or an accountant could not possibly teach the marketer about selling an idea… If you change the pattern in which you assign roles and expectations, you will take the first step to open your mind to new way of thinking and engaging with others.

• Make the transition from independent to interdependent

Ah – indepenance; something we learn is the epitome of our classification of success from the time we tie our own laces to the time we realise someone has to pay for the shoes those laces tie. No longer dependant, but independent. I see my inner tyrannous toddler stomping two tiny feet and yell: I-CAN-DO-IT-MY-SELF!

Of course it is important to make the transition from dependant to independent and appreciate the work and effort it took to get there. And once you have patted yourself on the back for long enough, see how your talent and ability can be used in the sum to achieve a greater whole. Your true value and honest prosperity comes from achieving something bigger, with people that know better – than you. Lou Gerstner, legendary CEO of IBM, hit the nail on the head when he said that in the end an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.

• Cultivate your security from enduring principles

Does your validation still come from outward factors, for example the car you drive and the title you hold? I really believe the reason so many of us fear rejection, are afraid of public speaking, and even to the other extreme, over-compensate with brash statements and audacious assaults, is because our delicate, self-preserving sense of security is based on the external affirmation of those around us.

If you have the courage to become vulnerable on the surface of your life because you are in-vulnerable at your core, you will find that: It no longer hurts and it is no longer personal.