Chapter 5

Things I learned in Chapter 5 - The Learning Environment

• Good learning environment fosters intrinsic motivation to learn, autonomy, positive support and positive challenges. and support learner-centric practices.
• Emotionally positive environment, that mitigates fear and anxiety
• Treat learners with respect, dignity, and trust
• Mistakes are a result of bad learning strategy or little effort
• Leaders and managers need to foster a culture that shows that they trust and care about personal development
• 360 degree reviews to measure learning behaviors
• Characteristics of high performing organizations
• High employee engagement
• Treat people with dignity, trust, and respect.
• Teamwork - sense of community
• Expressed core values
• Constant improvement
• Humble passionate leaders
• Level 5 leaders - measure themselves by organizational results.
• Cultural fit base hiring practices

Chapter 3 and 4

Chapter 3 focused on the role of emotions in learning. As discussed in the previous chapter the author argues that fear and anxiety are some of the leading causes that prevent learning and make for poor leaders. The fear of making a poor decision or looking foolish can prevent one from taking the necessary risks to be successful. Conversely, Hess discuss the power of positive thinking. If we can have a positive mindset, learning is much more likely. Additionally, the book mentions the power of high emotional intelligence. The power to recognize and ultimately manage our emotions is just as critical to success as traditional intelligence. I agree that emotions cannot be ignored. While reason is important in decision making, it is important to understand your emotions of the emotions of those in your organization to make sure everyone is in the right mindset to learn. Chapter 4 discusses one aspect of the formula for a high performing learning organization (HPLO) discussed in Chapter 1: the right people. The author argues that hiring and developing the right people is critical to HPLOs. Hess describes the "right people" as having high self efficacy as coined by Albert Bandura. Once again having high self efficacy gets people into the right mindset for learning. Hess also mentions that people that are intrinsically motivated are better learners and more successful than those that are extrinsically motivated. Also, I found it interesting when Hess discussed the concept of mastering vs. performing. People that wish to master something continually wish to improve and learn how best approach a situation or project whereas performers simply want to be recognized for their work. I would agree that being motivated to grow and learn for the sake of mastering something has better results that simply trying to complete a task to earn praise.

Chapter 2

Hess describes how we create stories to define the world around us. These stories become the foundation of an "operating system" that drives and informs our behavior. Essentially, it is how we define the world around us. However, our operating system or "mental models" are influenced by our emotions and conscience meaning we are not all right. Also, our ego defense systems clouds our judgement as we work to fit everything into the definitions we create for how the world works. Hess explains the theory of system 1 and system 2 thinking. System 1 thinking is described by our instinctual, reflexive thinking and system 2 as our deliberate and reflective thinking. He argues that we are confirmation-bias learners. To be efficient, we want to make new experience fit into our existing mental models. This makes learning difficult. I agree that a conscious approach to learning is important to avoid our "auto-pilot" approach. Developing skills such as mindfullness can make us better learners. Much of this aligns with what we have learned in AET. It is important to seek evidence and rational argument over seeking information that simply confirms our assumptions. To do this, we have to accept being wrong. In otehr words, Hess argues, we have to "overcome our humanness." Like anything else, to improve learning we have to practice and "learn how to learn."