Historical approaches to both leadership and learning have changed due to global developments in technology, workforce requirements and customer demand. 

Organisations are finding it tougher to find their competitive edge, and to seek the best people to deliver it. 

It's much harder to recruit into organisations at the levels required, so we need to focus efforts on developing internal talent to deliver the largest impact. 

The ‘skills first approach’

To do this, we need to start taking a ‘skills first approach’.

We can create the environment for our teams to evolve so we can continually deliver results. 

We can no longer just ‘keep up’ with change; but must be able to create the conditions for teams to thrive and flourish in a non-linear, tech centric environment.

We need to focus efforts on developing internal talent to deliver the largest impact

Fostering learning agility

Navigating these changes will set you up for success with developing learning agility in your team. 

Having people who can be swift and nimble with new skills and processes is key to working in an uncertain environment, and at pace.

Learning agility is still a relatively new concept. 

We ... must be able to create the conditions for teams to thrive and flourish in a non-linear, tech centric environment

Remaining undisrupted in the age of disruption

In 2019, the World Economic Forum described it as one of the three key skills for the ‘age of disruption’. The other two being resilience and grounded optimism. 

They describe learning agility as, ‘the ability and willingness to learn and then apply that learning effectively to prevail even in unfamiliar situations’. 

The seeds of lifelong learning come from curiosity. 

Curiosity is the ... spark that drives us to explore, discover, invent and reinvent

Always remember to nurture curiosity

Curiosity is the innate urge to know, the spark that drives us to explore, discover, invent and reinvent. 

Today, as we get older, most of us don’t make a point of nurturing our curiosity. 

But we will have to do it and get better at it. 

If we don’t learn, how will we evolve? If we end up with a fixed mindset, it will be harder to adapt, evolve and excel. 

The seeds of lifelong learning come from curiosity

Creating super learners for success

I, however, like to keep it simpler than this, and have described it as ‘creating super learners who can help your organisation drive competitive edge’. 

If you have team members who are confident in trying something new, happy to fail and learn, have a growth mindset and can support others in their super learner development, you have a winning combination.

So how do you create these ‘super learners’ in your team? 

If we don’t learn, how will we evolve?

Developing and deploying learning agility

Understand that developing learning agility is a key toolkit for managers and should be deployed through coaching and development. 

This takes keeping your own mindset in check, and supporting that of others. 

Challenging yourself when you catch yourself saying something is fixed, you can’t do something, or any other negative comments, and turning it around to believe that you can grow and develop, is the solid foundation of learning agility.

Developing learning agility is a key toolkit for managers

Identifying and assessing core capabilities

Identifying the core capabilities of learning agility in your team, and assessing these is fundamental to knowing where they are and where they need to be. 

I list these capabilities as:

• Confident in their ability to try something new, being there to support each other
• Positive they will achieve the optimum outcome, even if they must try a few times to get there
• Comfortable in making mistakes, knowing their manager will help them learn without fear of embarrassment or concern. These can play out in different ways, however you’ll know them when you see them

Learning agility ... should be deployed through coaching and development

Presenting opportunities

Creating opportunities for your team members to develop those capabilities. 

This can be via a development plan to formalise the journey (to include training, coaching, new projects or processes), or creating more informal opportunities such as shadowing, observations or just having the space to try something differently.

We can continue to develop our skills through practice and reflection

Prioritise psychological safety

Ensuring psychological safety in the team – this is the big one. 

You want your team to feel safe to innovate, and this often means trying something and it not working. 

If you flinch when a team member tells you something along these lines, you must check yourself and work on your ability to step back, release the control, and build trust in the team. Easier said than done, right!?

You want your team to feel safe to innovate

Maximising impact

These are starting points to help explore the super learner skills and hopefully you will start to think about maximising your team’s impact across your organisation too. 

And just as any continuous improvement model demonstrates, we can continue to develop our skills through practice and reflection. 

Think about maximising your team’s impact across your organisation

L&D never ends

Ongoing learning and development is one of the keys to success, for you, your team and your organisation.

If you’d like to learn more about learning agility, check out the latest reading from the World Economic Forum.  

I’ve also created a LinkedIn Learning course about this very topic. It will take you about 45 minutes to complete and has lots of practical tool and download resources. You can find it here.

If you enjoyed this, read: The four Cs of humane leadership