Summary: Busy teams rarely stop to learn from everyday experiences, yet these interactions provide invaluable feedback. This article presents a four-stage learning cycle that helps managers and teams extract insights from everyday situations at zero cost. The framework guides groups through examining facts, reflecting on feelings, making sense of situations and committing to future action.
If, as an HR professional, you could wave a magic wand to unlock the potential you see in your colleagues and the wider organisation, what would it be? Ask ten people this question and you will hear at least eight answers.
Still, one point you and others no doubt will stress is that you have no magic wand and rarely any budget. All your colleagues, from the executive team to this year’s interns, are overstretched, and few have energy beyond the day job.
What if you could take advantage of this unforgiving reality to unlock everyone’s potential? In this article, I set out a simple framework that all teams can use to improve both ongoing work and future performance.
Value of everyday experience
Our busy days are made up of ‘experiences’: interactions with others, the activities we perform and the outcomes we achieve – or indeed fail to achieve.
These everyday experiences provide invaluable feedback on our performance, especially on the hard stuff – interpersonal dynamics, complex tasks and uncertain outcomes. Unlike classroom training, as situations and people evolve, experience yields up-to-the-minute, personalised guidance to answer real-life questions.
Crucially, when teams and individuals attend to their own experiences, they also become aware of others and how they think, feel, act and respond. The human complexity of the workplace is revealed: colleagues learn to be more thoughtful and reflective, which in turn fosters understanding and trust.
This learning is available to all, regardless of role or rank. The paradox is that everyone is so busy they rarely stop to notice what happened today before they move on to tomorrow.
Learning cycle of four stages
For 20 years, I have supported organisations with this hard stuff – how to secure collaboration through human connection, trust and dialogue. One way to ensure practice keeps evolving is to nurture a culture of learning from everyday experience.
The Marble Brook Connective Performance framework draws on Kolb’s experiential learning cycle and ICA International’s facilitation competencies and principles to emphasise awareness, learning and action.
We use a four-stage learning cycle to help individuals and groups look at complex, real-life questions and settle on practical ways forward.
As an HR professional, you can promote the fundamentals of this approach to enable managers and their teams to:
- Draw out the facts
- Reflect on feelings
- Make sense of the situation
- Look toward the future
Below are key questions to consider in each of the four stages.
Stage one: Draw out the facts
The first stage aims to examine a situation – perhaps a meeting with a colleague or other team, or the outcome of a project – and see what actually happened. Direct attention to the senses: what was seen and heard, for example.
This conversation yields a (fairly) objective starting point for the next three stages. Keep questions simple and, in a group context, allow all team members to express their recollections. Views will differ and agreement is not required.
Consider this example: Of the eight colleagues who attended last week’s team meeting, three were late; four said not a word. John’s update lasted over 20 minutes. No one asked questions.
Questions to ask:
- What facts do you know?
- What responses did you observe?
- What was the actual result?
Stage two: Reflect on feelings
Facts are only the beginning. In the second stage, examine intuition and how people relate to the experience. Acknowledge what individuals feel, which may simply be what they liked or disliked: not everyone wants to be ‘personal’.
Bring imagination and associations into play. Enquire how the situation reminds people of other encounters. Again, pose, or let colleagues ask themselves, clear questions. Invite positive and then negative reflections.
Example continued: Some attendees were bored, while two found John’s update engrossing. A few were anxious; the week reminded one person of when her boss was fired. Two were sorry they had been delayed.
Questions to ask:
- What do you feel?
- What is inspiring / boring for you?
- What concerns / encourages you?
Stage three: Make sense of the situation
In the third stage, build a shared awareness of the experience and its meaning. Find general principles. Discover what is possible as well as practical for the future. In a team setting, encourage all to articulate their thoughts.
The aim is to understand the significance of the experience for an individual or the group as a whole. It may be easier (and safer) to explore first the wider context before moving on to more personal considerations.
Example continued: Changes to the agenda and a later start in snowy weather may aid participation. The team is unsettled by news of redundancies across Europe. Home life and friction with colleagues are distracting several people.
Questions to ask:
- What is the central issue?
- How does this affect the future?
- What choices are available?
Stage four: Look toward the future
In the fourth stage, attend to deeper understanding and future action. This is where individual commitment to new practice emerges, or where members of a group settle on a direction or a decision. What experiments may be tried?
People need thinking time: whilst the process is simple, colleagues may find the four stages progressively harder. Where clarity cannot be established (usually by a group), reframe the issue or revisit the discussion another time.
Example continued: Everyone agreed to start the meeting at 9:30am, with a new chair each week. The director will clarify the impact of artificial intelligence. HR will look into claims of harassment. Team members will spend more social time together.
Questions to ask:
- What can we agree on / commit to?
- What will we try out or do differently?
- How will we talk about the change?
A no-cost learning solution
The intuitive framework reflects a natural human process of learning. Whilst individuals may focus on, or jump to, one of the four stages, the overall structure allows a thorough and inclusive airing of any question.
Everyone can, and should, learn from experience, especially where work is complex and human interactions dictate outcomes. Aside from time, this development strategy happily comes at no cost to the organisation.
Key takeaways
- Everyday experience provides invaluable learning, especially where budgets are tight and a fast-moving, complex world outpaces occasional development.
- The four-stage learning cycle is open to all: People in any role can, with time and thought, can tap into everyday interactions and performance.
- Collaboration improves: Reflection promotes consideration of others, shared understanding and an awareness of complexity.
- Growth is made easier: The four stages of experiential learning answer diverse concerns and lead to meaningful outcomes.
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