The Challenges of Learning from Experience

The Challenges of Learning from Experience Yip and Wilson (2010) offered challenging insights into the well-quoted saying that "experience is the best teacher", notably by distinguishing the main event cluster of experiential learning to be challenging assignments, not the corporate staple of coursework and training. This prĂŠcis comments on the main precepts of learning from experience including Yip and Wilson's (2010) roadmap to help organizations on the journey of experience-based learning. The prĂŠcis argues that creating work environments that give everyone the opportunity to flourish in the age of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity demands more tailored and democratic approaches.

Olivier Serrat 24/06/2020

1 Through the lens of behaviorism—the theory that much in human and animal conduct owes to interaction with the environment, "many of the crucial aspects of learning can be understood as a relatively permanent change in behavior as a consequence of experience" (Haselgrove, 2016, p. 2).1 Unlike other living species, however, human beings are intensely aware that they need experience so they might learn, thence survive and thrive. And so, interest in emotional, mental, physical, and religious or spiritual experience is as old as mankind and the subject is ordinarily defined as first-person knowledge, practical wisdom, and skills derived from what one has encountered, interpreted, observed, practiced, repeated, or undergone.2 Render Unto Caesar the Things That Are Caesar's Remarkably, the earliest recorded version of the saying that "experience is the teacher of all things" owes to no other than Julius Caesar, who in Commentarii de Bello Civili (Commentaries on the Civil War) implied that the only way to learn is to reflect on experience (Caesar, ca 52 B.C.). It is fitting that Caesar should be the first on record for the word "experience" has Latin roots—specifically, "ex-", meaning "out of, from"; and "-perīrī", signifying "to attempt, to try"— which intimates that knowledge is gained by being put to the test. (The word "peril" is related.)

Predictably, there has been no shortage of variations on Caesar's ruling for the last 2,000 years, with sundry quips adding that experience is also the most expensive teacher or—more humorously—that it is the name men give to their mistakes (Wilde, 1880).

Coursework and Training ≠ Leader Development Artificial intelligence, asymmetric population growth and ageing, big data, climate change, digitization, financial crises, globalization, resource depletion, robotization, etc.: we are transforming our world and, evermore, the leadership industry promotes conferences, executive meetings, inspirational speeches, op-eds, training sessions, workshops, etc. so we might manage better. TrainingIndustry.com (2020) reckons that the leadership industry is worth about $370 billion globally, of which about $170 billion (or approximately 45%) is spent in North America: what share of that tidy sum relates to challenging assignments, developmental relationships, and coursework and training is not known—the intuitive "golden" ratio is 70–20– 10 (Lombardo & Eichinger, 1996)—but Gallup found a surfeit of coursework and training and— by implication—a deficit on the side of experiential learning, aka learning by doing (Ratanjee, 2018).

And yet, it has for long been known that the three organizational needs that are supposedly served by leader development, viz., performance improvement, succession management, and organizational change (McCauley, Kanaga, & Lafferty, 2010), are rarely (if ever) advanced by coursework and training; even where a modicum of success has been achieved and the gap 1

The act of introspection—the examination of one's own mental and emotional processes— suggests that suchlike definitions should also include a change in potential behavior.

2 Classical conditioning results from interactions with the environment and leads to learning through association; operant conditioning results from rewards and punishments and leads to learning through consequences; social learning results from observation and modeling to meet the demands of a particular environment; and individual learning, the difference between a first and a second moment, results from a change in behavior or knowledge from new information, a different representation of a situation, or a new strategy borne out of experience, instruction, imitation, reflection, trial and error, etc. Borenstein, Feldman, and Aoki (2008) proposed that the social learner–explorer represents another form of learning, which amalgamates social learning with exploratory individual learning to create and innovate in fluctuating environments.

2 between knowing and doing closes somewhat, participants habitually regress to pre-training levels because "the individuals [have] less power to change the system surrounding them than that system [has] to shape them" (Beer, Finnström, & Schrader, 2016). Put differently, "If the system does not change, it will not support and sustain individual behavior change—indeed, it will set people up to fail" (Beer, Finnström, & Schrader, 2016).3 Even so, the systems in which we operate cannot be blamed for everything: it is also a fact that coursework and training does not individualize and so can neither match leaders to what experiences are most needed nor consequently help them reflect so they might more effectively apply new knowledge in the future (Ratanjee, 2018). All told, "Too few programs can clearly define the experiences that lead to excellence in leadership" (Ratanjee, 2018).

In the 21st century, the leadership industry and the organizations it targets may need to recast and recalibrate their efforts at leader development. Why? Because the architecture of performance improvement, succession management, and organizational change that McCauley, Kanaga, and Lafferty (2010) promoted was designed for the brick-and-mortar outfits of the last century, specifically, the 1980s–1990s (if not earlier). What sense are we to make of it when (a) the average life-span of organizations is shorter and shorter (i.e., 33 years in 1964, 24 years in 2016, and 12 years in 2027, according to S&P 500) (Anthony, Viguerie, Schwartz, & Van Landeghem, 2018); (b) hitherto ideal types of hierarchy, market, and network forms of organizing are hybridizing across the public, private, and civil society sectors and call for context-specific modes, not styles, or leadership (Serrat, 2018); (c) more and more organizations outsource so they might hire on "as-needed basis"; (d) Millennials are not interested in careers; and (e) virtual teaming has been on the rise for some time (and has just been boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic)?

Learning from Experience It is not that theories of learning have underestimated the importance of reflective practice. Kolb (1984), for instance, promulgated a highly perceptive four-stage learning cycle comprising concrete experience (feeling), reflective observation (watching), abstract conceptualization (thinking), and active experimentation (doing), from which—along processing and perception continuums—he deduced different experiential learning styles for individuals having to do with, say, educational backgrounds, cognitive structures, and social environments.4 (The styles are not mutually exclusive but individuals typically favor one over the others: if possible, the art would be to match a learning style to the occasion.) Significantly, for Kolb (1984), "Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience" (p. 38).

And so, Kolb's (1984) learning cycle can be used to evaluate learning provisions and develop learning opportunities.

3

McCauley, Kanaga, and Lafferty (2010) meant to sell leader development but the realpolitik of ends and means signals that the concerns of an organization will always be given preference over those of its personnel when traditional coursework and training is the order of the day.

4 The learning styles that Kolb (1984) identified are (a) accommodating [concrete experience (feeling) and active experimentation (doing)], demonstrated by "What if?" type of questions; (b) diverging [concrete experience (feeling) and reflective observation (watching)], demonstrated by "Why?" type of questions; (c) converging [abstract conceptualization (thinking) and active experimentation (doing), demonstrated by "How?" type of questions; and (d) assimilating [abstract conceptualization (thinking) and reflective observation (watching)], demonstrated by "What is there to know?" type of questions.

3 More recent texts on leader development have also acknowledged that "Learning from experience is the number one way that leaders develop" (McCauley, DeRue, Yost, & Taylor, 2013, p. ii). The consensus is that "key experiences" push people out of their comfort zones, challenge their abilities, and stretch their skills to bring about faster learning and development.

Of course, key experiences are understandably specific to roles and will also vary by organization: but, they typically include such endeavors as, say, building a network of supporters; spearheading a cross-functional, mission-critical team; navigating a different culture, country, customer segment, or technology; salvaging a product or business; working on an outof-expertise project; and experiencing failure in any of these and learning from that (Ratanjee, 2018). McCall (2010), adapting from McCauley, Ruderman, Ohlott, and Morrow (1994), listed the core elements of powerful experiential learning to be (a) job transitions (i.e., handling unfamiliar responsibilities, having to prove yourself); (b) task-related characteristics (i.e., creating change, high levels of responsibility, influencing without authority); and (c) obstacles (i.e., adverse conditions, lack of top management support, lack of personal support) (p. 683).

McCall (2010) offered but one typology of the core elements of powerful experiential learning: there must surely be other taxonomies, the elements of which will in the real world often impact a would-be leader at the same time.

That said, even where it is realized that the change- and succession-related needs of an organization will not be advanced if the performance needs of its leaders are not and that coursework and training does not equate with leader development, it is also common knowledge that experiential learning must also somehow improved. So, how might (more) leaders be forged or, less hyperbolically perhaps, "simply" grow through experiences that matter?

Yip and Wilson (2010) too shared that "When effective managers in organizations are asked to think back over their careers and identify the events that have had the greatest impact on how they lead and manage today, they are most likely to point to challenging job assignments, developmental relationships, and adverse situations they endured" (p. 63). But, beyond such commonsensical generalities, Yip and Wilson (2010) also averred that organizations should know what types of experiences are developmental and how they might be phased and synergized to intentionally fructify learning. Building on McCall (2010), Yip and Wilson (2010) isolated the main event clusters to be challenging assignments; developmental relationships; adverse situations; personal experience; and coursework and training in descending order of importance (with some variation across countries).5 Yip and Wilson (2010) explained that each event cluster affords a one-off context, that the outcomes of learning are not the same in each, but that challenging assignments dispense significantly more lessons to be learned than the other event clusters. Yip and Wilson's (2010) sober assessment of the contribution of coursework and training-based developmental experience is consistent with Beer, Finnström, and Schrader's (2016) reservations.

Recognizing that organizational initiatives are usually measured by financial return on investment, the returns from experience-based learning that Yip and Wilson (2010) advised 5

Per Yip & Wilson (2010), the event types that the first three clusters can involve are (a) challenging assignments—increase in scope, creating change, job rotation or transition, stakeholder engagement, and work in a different culture; (b) developmental relationships— constructive bosses and superiors, difficult people, and nonwork guides; and (c) adverse situations—crises, scandals, mistakes, career setbacks, and ethical dilemmas (pp. 66–67).

Personal experiences in early life or work, midcareer (or midlife) transitions, and traumas can create emotion-laden memories and influence a leader's values or approaches; and coursework and training can be self-initiated or organization-sponsored (Yip & Wilson, 2010, pp. 66–67).

4 organizations to consider spring from (a) mastery— the outcome of increased ability; (b) versatility— the outcome of increased capacity; and (3) transfer—the outcome of increased impact (at individual, group, and organizational levels) (p. 81).6 Taking the three-fold return on experience into account, but accepting also that experience does not automatically yield learning, Yip and Wilson's (2010) roadmap is that organizations should (a) sequence experiences to enhance mastery, taking care to align with the strategic priorities of the organization and with levels of responsibility; (b) diversify experiences to enhance versatility, taking care to cross organizational and cultural boundaries; and (c) integrate experiences to enhance transfer, taking care to leverage developmental relationships and learning management systems in support (p. 86–93).

Experiential Learning: Are We There Yet? "Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him" (Huxley, 1933, p. 5). Aldous Huxley's remark gives the true measure of the challenges of learning from experience. First of all, at the level of the individual, learning from an experience requires that: • The learner must be willing to be actively involved in the experience; • The learner must be able to reflect on the experience; • The learner must possess and use analytical skills to conceptualize the experience; and • The learner must possess decision-making and problem-solving skills in order to use the new ideas gained from the experience. (Kolb, 1984) Kolb's (1984) preconditions are testing: they demand that learners should become reflective practitioners who actively engage in the process of witnessing their experience: they must examine it, give meaning to it, and learn from it. Specifically, reflective practitioners must both reflect on action and in action with "What?", "So what?", and "Now what?" type of questions.

Attending to context, assumptions, actions, and results, reflective practitioners must create a habit, structure, or routine for reflecting on experience to extract adaptive, generative, and radical learning. The competencies that reflective practitioners need are critical thinking, emotional intelligence, inquisitiveness, and self-knowledge. Journaling; rich pictures; and learning before, during, and after are some of the tools, methods, and approaches that reflective practitioners use. Of course, none of this comes easy: recurring obstacles to reflective practice include (perceived or actual) lack of time, the undervaluing of reflection, the underdevelopment of competencies, limited experience of reflective practice, fear of feedback, anxiety about possible failure, and insufficient awareness of one's expertise (Britton & Serrat, 2013).

But, there is more: at group, intraorganizational, organizational, or interorganizational levels, frequent obstacles to reflective practice include the pressure to perform, the task orientation that pervades many organizational configurations, especially the machine (bureaucracy) organization; competency traps that dissuade investment in new capabilities; the undervaluing of reflection by colleagues (or leadership itself); the dearth of forums or structures for learning;

6

Hallenbeck (2017) offered a person-based counterpoint to Yip and Wilson's (2010) organizational returns from experience-based learning when he made out the four meta-skills that grow out of key experiences to be (a) learning agility, (b) self-awareness, (c) influence, and (d) communication. To my mind, the two perspectives are interdependent and there is no causality dilemma here.

5 and cultures of blame (Britton & Serrat, 2013).7 In recognition of such limitations and inspired by systems theory, the voluminous literature on organizational learning and the learning organization has for long posited that we must proactively fashion "learning systems", meaning, institutions that can effect their own continuing transformation (Schön, 1971; Senge, 2006).

Yip and Wilson (2010): Wrong Conclusions from Right Premises Yip and Wilson's (2010) review of three decades of lessons from experience research is incisive and persuasive. The central message—that experience matters, that challenging assignments are the most developmental, and that organizations stand to gain the greatest returns from experience-based learning if they sequence, diversify, and integrate it—makes intuitive and imminent sense. Helpfully, Yip and Wilson (2010) sketched a roadmap to help organizations on the journey of experience-based learning.

Still, as another proverb has it, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink". In a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, the overwhelming majority of organizations—not the large "blue-riband" organizations that the leadership industry centers on—are hard-pressed to know what tomorrow will bring.8 In such circumstances, notwithstanding Yip and Wilson's (2010) implicit assumption that the words "leader" and "leadership" mean the same thing to the whole world,9 what chances are there that closedsystem, ideal-world, leadership mythologizing, technocratic, and unavoidably costly approaches will appeal when the organizational ecosystem that would entertain them is ever more topsyturvy?

When the future is no longer what it was, organizations must make strategic decisions that will be sound for all plausible futures: they must not strive for what they hope will come to pass.

Identifying developmental experiences, recognizing potential, delivering the right experience at the right time, increasing the odds that learning will occur, and developing a career-long perspective and a focus on transitions, the five leverage points for organizations that McCall (2010, pp. 687–702) delineated, make perfect sense in the well-ordered world that Yip and Wilson (2010) have in mind; but, the coherence, relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability of such resolute leveraging of experience is in question when top–down power structures and rule-based management systems à la Fayol (1916)—planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling—are less and less appropriate in ever-flatter organizations where leadership must be reinterpreted as an outcome of performance rather than an input to it.

7

Noting that "[d]efining roadblocks, however numerous they may be, is half the battle to removing them—it might make them part of the solution instead of part of the problem", Serrat (2009) gave details of 17 possible roadblocks lo learning at the level of the organization.

8 The United States thrive on small business. The United States Census Bureau records that there were 5.6 million employer firms in 2016 (latest data) and that firms with less than 20 workers made up 89 percent of these. If we add nonemployer businesses, of which there were 24.8 million that year, the share of American businesses with fewer than 20 workers reaches 98 percent (United States Census Bureau, 2020).

9 With endless variations involving followers, functions, goals, personal attributes, relationships, situations, styles, and vision, there may be as many definitions of leadership as there are leaders. To me, a "leader" is a person who makes the skills and capabilities of others effective and "leadership" is the capacity to see, think, and act.

6 Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity summon new ways of perceiving the world, new approaches to sense and decision making, and new modes and combinations of leadership (Serrat, 2019). Obsession with the normative (e.g., what leaders ought to do and how things should be) can only frustrate the adaptive and enabling leadership the new world of organizations need. In the 21st century, human capital truly is an organization's greatest asset: the right perspective on that is abundance, not scarcity. To make the skills and capabilities of others effective and thereby enhance the capacity to see, think, and act one must foster an environment that conduces learning: every area of a business must be deemed fertile ground because every area has its own needs and challenges (Beer, Finnström, & Schrader, 2016).

Tailored and democratic approaches must capitalize on individual differences and learning styles and convert them—from sources of conflict—into sources of diversity, strength, and improved results.

A propos human capital, the real issue facing organizations these days is not talent management but better self-development; however, even that requires new thinking, to wit, a vision of the organization as active facilitator of experience-driven development. As a consequence of the quickening mass retirement of Baby Boomers, I anticipate that organizations will be packaging experiential learning options that Millennials, the next generation of leaders, will canvas and strategically select from. In relation to this, Moldoveanu and Narayandas (2019) wrote of the rise of the "personal learning cloud", a 21st-century form of personalized, socialized, and contextualized learning journey that is anchored in "high-value experiences such as personalized coaching, project-based learning, and feedback-intensive group sessions" (p. 44). If only because virtual work environments are more and more commonplace, platforms and applications that customize content to a learner's role and his/her organization's needs may be the next best thing to challenging assignments in the rough-andtumble of face-to-face interactions.

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