How we learn

One of the questions that is asked in the introductory unit at Melbourne Business School is ‘How do you learn?’

On the surface it seems like a pretty simple question. You have an experience, observe what happens, reflect, adjust your approach and then try it. This is the basis of a model called ‘The Learning Cycle’ which was defined by David Kolb in the 70’s.

This both intrigued and bothered me a bit. I would consider myself an experiential learner, I don’t do particularly well with theory alone. For example when I was learning matrices in highschool it didn’t make any sense because I couldn’t see an application for it. As soon as I started having to plot things in 3D space and move them around (probably the most useful thing I got out of my 3D modelling subject!) it all fell into place.

But after thinking about it for a while, it wasn’t the model that was bothering me, it was my learning cycle. I agree with the general principal of the 4 steps but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that I don’t do the second step most of the time. Sure, when something goes wrong you take the time (or others take the time on your behalf) to analyze what went wrong and feed it back into the system but when things are going well, who really reflects… especially if you’re stressed or busy, it’s just one less thing to think about which is a bit of a relief. But in doing so we rob ourselves of 2 things:

1. The positive reinforcement of getting stuff right. At the most basic level, if you only reflect on things when you fail then you can end up in a pattern where all you can see is your failures because they’re the only thing you’ve trained yourself to observe. Setting up a system where you can recognize your achievements in private and reward yourself for what you’ve done is a key component of building a robust self image.

2. The chance to reflect and maybe do stuff even a little better. This one is sort of a ‘maybe it applies, maybe it doesn’t’ type scenario but when was the last time you looked at something that you do all the time and actually thought: is there something I could be doing to make this easier/quicker etc. For stuff we do routinely, maybe the routine is preventing us from optimizing that task. I was talking about this with a friend and he mentioned brushing his teeth. Every night he has a shower, then brushes his teeth, recently he started brushing his teeth in the shower. Saves him 2 minutes in the morning, 2 minutes at night, he just gained half an hour to do other stuff. We laughed about it at the time (and the obsessive-compulsive nature of engineers to optimize) but there’s a some sense in what he’s saying.

Maybe it’s time to start looking around and see what kind of feedback you’re giving yourself and what you’re learning (or not learning) from it.

Day 1: Orientation

So, yesterday we had orientation and I met the other 9 students who are doing the combined MMktg/MBA course as well as 150 or so Part Time students. Demographic was fascinating:

• Average Age: 32
• % of Women: 35 (which we were told was low for MBS but higher overall than standard)
• Can’t remember the exact breakdown of industries but it was something like
  • Law: 6%
  • Finance: 24%
  • Engineers (broken up by industry): ~15%
  • Scientists: 14%
  • A couple of educators, architects and a journalist

I’ll try and track down the pie chart because it’s pretty interesting in terms of breakdown.

One of the orientation exercises was a self assessment of the challenges we suspect that we’ll be facing and every P/T student I talked to was concerned about balance. Lots have families and even those that don’t are still in jobs that demand 50, 60 & 70 hours a week. I guess that was one of my reasons for doing the full time course; the opportunity cost is pretty big but the sustained effort of undertaking part time study for 3 or 4 years is a massive commitment. So much changes in your life in a year, I just can’t see the stars and circumstance aligning for me for that length of time so better that I get in, completely immerse myself, get the most out of it that I can and then get on with the next bit.

Time will tell whether full time or part time or one of the thousand other combinations that go to make up the overall experience were the right ones for me but from a macro perspective, this the the right place and the right time for me to do my MBA

Do You Need a New Job?

I’ve received my advanced preparation materials for the first unit: World of Management. This is the compulsory intro subject that you do before starting the rest of your course which introduces the content and baselines the requirements for being a manager. The material for the unit itself appears to be broken down into two main themes:

• the first explores the gamut of management and outlines what MBS considers to be the core of study giving an introduction to things like Organizational Behaviour and Business Accounting, basically so everyone is clear about the scope for the core classes
• the second component is the self analysis section: what am I good at, where are my weaknesses and from this, what am I going to study? This combines a few tools like motivation/skill set tests along with psych reviews and a blockage survey to help you clarify where you are at.

Reading through the prescribed text, it’s a bit like a paper extract, it throws out a couple of teasers and concepts to get you excited about a field of study. One that really resonated with me was in the self analysis section of the book and laid out some guidelines for conducting an ‘Occupational Analysis’ or in my mind: Do you need a new job? It’s not copied verbatim but the ideas are theirs, I’m just passing them on because I think they’re pretty useful (Dainty, 2008, p 141)

I like to think that I put a fair bit of effort into my personal relationships, if I’m feeling uncomfortable about something with someone I’ll try and discuss and drill down into why that’s the case and (I think) I’ve got some good models for identifying a problem and starting  discussion. So it seemed really strange to me that I had this structured and thought out process for my personal life but I’d never done the same thing with my job (which is a pretty important factor in my life). I wonder if other people are in this boat too and if they are, the perhaps this will help clarify which areas in your professional life you are having problems with and from there, whether they are significant enough for you to want to do something about them:

Consider the following in terms of your current role

Motivators:

• Are you paid enough for what you are doing?
• What are your opportunities for promotion? And is promotion important to you right now (next 12 months)?
• Do the hours you are working suit your lifestyle?
• Is the culture of the organization right for you? Do you feel like the company does the right thing?
• How is your relationship with your boss? What about the 3 people you interact with most?

 Capabilities:

•  How would you rate your skills and knowledge for the job you are doing right now? Are you interested in improving them? If you are, what have you done about it?
• What skills and knowledge do you need for the next job along the career path for you?
• Does your current role utilize your top 3 skills?
• Are these top 3 the ones you’d like to stick with or would you like to develop something else?

Interests:

• When was the last time you learned something new in your job?
• When was the last time you were challenged in your role?
• What percentage of your time are you spending doing things you don’t like (direct sales, report writing, attending meetings: whatever you don’t enjoy)?
• Are you satisfied by your work?

Looking back at my last job and answering these questions, it provided a framework for understanding why I wasn’t enjoying the role (despite enjoying the Company and the people I worked with).

 

Reference:  Paul Dainty & Moreen Anderson, 2008, The MBA Companion, Palgrave Macmillan

In the beginning

So it was my new years resolution to blog about my experience going through business school. It’s taken me approximately three hours to get two sentences on the page, the engineer is strong with this one!

I’ve resisted a blog for a long time, the Internet is filled with enough vacuous crap that I didn’t feel need to add mine and to be honest, the sum of my experience to this point, sometimes amusing and occasionally inappropriate has probably added up to half a page of Myspace content. Yep, that good.

There’ll be another precursor post, lets call it a backstory, which will explain how I ended up here, doing an MBA. But for now, all that you need to know is that I’m enrolled. When I started looking at going back to study I did what (I suspect) a lot of people do and threw a couple of search terms into Google to try and get a feel for what the hell an MBA was. The results were… uninspiring. That may have something to do with my skill as a googler but I also suspect a lack of information. So that’s what this is: a record of my time (approximately 18 months) spent working through case studies and learning the ins-and-outs of business.