Learn and Lead

This month’s Learning Circuit’s Big question is on To-Learn Lists. It seems to be a very interesting concept. Some years ago we went through Personal Effectiveness Program (PEP) in our organization. This was loosely based on Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. As part of this program we were expected to create life’s goals in various areas of life. To me, the To-Learn lists are similar, perhaps not sounding as lofty as life’s goals but equally important. And if we can articulate this and track our progress on this list, it will force us to spend time on what we really want to learn.

Do I have a To-Learn list? Well no, but here’s my first list of things I want to learn.

• Learn to play the tabla. Have been wanting to for a very long time now!
  
• Learn to run a Rs. 100 crore company. I see my bosses doing much more with aplomb ease.
  
• Learn PHP !!! Actually not really ‘learn’ but knowing it will really help ever since I started messing around with Wordpress and other tools.
• Learn to dance such that my daughter doesn’t roll on the floor laughing.

There are few other things on the list but they seem to overlap with things I want to do in life.

Other questions asked in the Big Question:

• How does a to-learn list impact something like a Learning Management System in a Workplace or Educational setting?
• What skills, practices, behaviors do modern knowledge workers need around to-learn lists?

I would suggest that we leave LMSs alone for now. There are enough other things to be managed with all the informal learning and Web 2.0 mumbo-jumbo. Let’s not add To-Learn Lists on to LMSs. And do knowledge workers need to have any skills, practices around this? I don’t think what knowledge workers need would be any different from what anyone else would need. This is a ‘life-skill’ that we all need irrespective of our profession, to become a better person, a better human being.