Accelerated Thinking for Sale
Too much focus in accelerated learning (AL) has been on how it enhances the training experience. Here Clive Lewis argues that the pressing need is for business users to start applying AL techniques to the everyday challenges they face.
So you are familiar with accelerated learning (AL), or at least some key elements of it. Good for you. But aren’t you missing the point? If you are a trainer or a training manager surely the issue isn’t about how AL can help you to run a more creative or engaging training course but how you can find ways to hand AL technology over to those business users who most need it.
That’s the focus of this article - the need for immediate transfer of accelerated thinking. And within that framework I am going to outline why there’s such a need for AL, highlight the key areas within accelerated learning and pinpoint exactly how users can apply AL to improve their productivity.
Overload and mental agility
It’s my contention that the single most important factor driving the need for accelerated learning is information overload. At this current time in history we are in an intense period of ‘message saturation’ and as James Gleick, author of Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything suggests, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. “Because technology lets us do so much, today we take on too much and end up feeling overwhelmed and never ‘finished’. We feel invaded by technology on all fronts, by the beeps of our pagers, cell phones, incoming faxes and those of others around us. We tote our laptops on vacation and our bosses expect us to carry sky pagers … we never feel true down time any more.”
It’s a fair enough picture and the costs are not only felt at a personal level. Businesses are clogging up too. However, the answer is unlikely to be that proposed by John Caudwell, Chief Executive of UK mobile phone business Phones 4u, who announced last September that he was banning his employees from using email in the office. This is the modern equivalent of trying to hold back the incoming tide and is surely destined to similar failure.
No, most of us accept that there are considerable advantages to be gained from ‘instant access’ and we accept the costs. However, what we haven’t got to grips with yet are the best ways to sort, absorb and handle all the information that comes our way. And this points us towards the requirement for improved mental agility.
In a recent project that Illumine Training ran at the Common Services Agency in Scotland Lisa King, Organisational Development (OD) Manager for the agency outlined the challenge she faced. “One of our core missions is to develop people so that they are ‘fit for purpose’, she explained. “People at the CSA don’t only work hard, they face constant change and that means continuously taking on board new ideas and information. Simply expecting them to work harder or longer to deal with this isn’t a long-term solution. They need to work smarter.
“The approach we are taking is to influence the culture and promote those values of self-motivation, personal responsibility and leadership which can make a difference. That’s what all of our core development programmes are aiming at - helping people to see that it is up to them to manage their working lives whilst, at the same time, supporting them by providing leading edge thinking and productivity tools,” she said.
What King points to here is the need for a proactive response from both trainers and individuals. It’s not about trying to reduce workload but about supporting and equipping people to manage the demands of the digital age. It’s not about trying to stem the flow of information but becoming more efficient in our self-management.
As for what these productivity tools are that can help people to improve their mental agility - these are the tools of accelerated learning of course.
The territory and our beliefs
Accelerated learning is all about improving the way we learn and because there is so much more information for us to handle these days that means it is something in which we should all be keenly interested. We need to learn faster and smarter so that we can keep up with change, call on new knowledge and apply new skills.
But what exactly is accelerated learning? One way to look at it is to think of a wheel with five spokes as follows:
1. Managing our resources. You need to manage your resources before you start learning and this refers to your own mental state as well as your environment. In essence you need to be ready to engage positively with new information as well as creating the conditions which foster learning. A sensory rich learning environment (for example with Mind Maps on the wall, relaxing chairs and play objects to pick up when you need some activity) is far more conducive to mental alertness than blank walls and a dowdy classroom.
2. Understanding representational systems. Representational systems refer to the preferences people have for information that it presented in visual terms (e.g. do you see my point of view?), auditory terms (e.g. are we speaking the same language?) or kinaesthetic experience (e.g. how can you handle this new information?). The clues to representational systems are often in the language people use and once people understand their preferences then it can make a dramatic difference to how effectively they learn. Language laboratories and audio tapes, for example, are likely to be ineffective mediums for learners who have a visual preference.
3. Addressing the seven intelligences. Similarly AL theory postulates that there are seven intelligences to consider. These include mathematical/logical, linguistic, visual/spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, physical and musical intelligence. If trainers only work in one field, say, the logical field then the learning will only stay at the theoretical level. The trick with AL is to work with breadth and depth. Mind Mapping® for example is an example of turning on the visual/spatial intelligence, group work will encourage interpersonal intelligence and reflection time recognises the need for intrapersonal intelligence. By addressing these intelligences learning becomes stimulating and is far more likely to stick.
4. Practising the skills. Allied to this notion of stimulation is also the notion of interaction and challenge. When we are learning we need to be given the opportunity to discover what it is like to practice new learning and get it ‘into the muscle’. Practise, as part of the learning experience, boosts our confidence, energy and skill levels.
5. Reviewing over time. Finally AL emphasises the need for review. It is amazing how much knowledge gets lost when the review phase of learning isn’t built in to learning and, conversely, how much can be retained with simple review techniques. Reviewing is all about our commitment to make the most of our capacity to learn so that instead of losing around 80% of new information within 24 hours we totally reverse the trend and retain most of what we have learned over the long term.
So this is the territory for accelerated learning. It’s not a hard set of highly defined rules of engagement. Rather it’s about learning in the way that works best for us. It’s about stimulation and ease of effort. It’s about imagination and productivity. It’s about relaxation and speed.
Of course one of the barriers to accelerated learning can be people’s own experience and beliefs. Let’s take Mind Mapping as an illustration of this.
Mind Mapping is one of those developments in understanding and learning technology that has so many benefits that it makes you wonder why anyone, once they know about it, would ever continue to work in any other way. In essence Mind Mapping provides us with a visual technique which mirrors the way we think. As such it is brilliant for learning, for note taking, for creative thinking, for planning and a hundred other projects besides.
So how come it isn’t used everywhere, all the time?
The answer to this is that people are not taught from an early age about the power and value of Mind Mapping. Perhaps it is also the fact that in business bright colours and pictures (the mapping part of Mind Mapping) are seen as somehow less impressive than weighty, grey lists - even when those lists never get read or acted upon. The time is ripe to challenge such beliefs.
Structure supports spontaneity
So Mind Mapping is one example of an accelerated learning technology that could make a dramatic difference to business users - and the skills of such a technology can be learned quite easily through public training courses (find out more on www.mind-mapping.com). However it is by no means the only AL tool that can be transferred easily into business.
Another great AL technology which ties in with people’s needs for improved mental agility is speed reading. Around 30-50% of all our time at work is spent reading so who wouldn’t want to double or treble their reading speed as well as improve their retention of information? It’s possible with a little practise because we now understand how the eye and the brain works. For anyone who wants to become a master of the information age speed reading is an absolute must and can offer dramatic improvements in performance.
However the technique which I want to concentrate on most here is one which is less well known - and yet perhaps the most important of all - namely how to help people to think on their feet.
Now we all need to improvise on occasions. In sales or negotiation situations, in team meetings and during formal presentations it’s out ability to go off-piste that adds colour and impact. However most of us are not very good when we do ‘wing it’. We tend to go too far, become irrelevant, lose our thread and in every other way befuddle our audience. So what can we do about this?
Accelerated learning helps us here because it’s all about understanding how to combine right brain and left brain thinking. Left brain structure provides the framework for organised improvisation - much like a repertoire of chords supports the creativity of the musician. So when we are in situations when we have to present ourselves clearly we need to keep in mind that ‘structure supports spontaneity’.
Now although we can’t make people listen to us we can provide the sort of persuasive structure that will grab and keep their attention. The first step is to think more about their needs than our own - e.g. by reflecting on and presenting a theme that will engage them. Next we can break down our core ideas into manageable chunks and in this way improve comprehension and then, we can find a way to give our ideas forward momentum and energy i.e. we don’t get stuck on one favourite aspect of the story.
When we keep this overall structure in your mind - and stick to it - then we can use our right brain to add the colour. This, in effect, is all about delivery. It’s about the stories and anecdotes we tell, the metaphors we use, our pace and personal style. And by following this simple ‘flight plan’ we can build up tremendous self-assurance. We can, quite literally, think on our feet.
Now this outline provides the bare essentials of Illumine’s ‘Think on your feet’ programme. Further skills that we teach on this course help people to add punch and power to their presentations so that they know exactly how to win over their audience. But the key point here is that this is accelerated learning in action.
Thinking on your feet isn’t about having every single possible fact at your fingertips. It’s not about being super powered. It’s about becoming more efficient by using our understanding of how the brain works to significantly improve our performance. Often it’s about less rather than more. So we don’t try to cram everything into our presentations but rather we keep our message simple and clear and use appropriate colour to make it memorable.
So if you are suffering from the ‘information fatigue’ or what has been called the ‘paralysis of analysis’ don’t despair. Accelerated learning can provide real answers.
Remember the currency of the world in which we live is ideas and within this context what companies and senior managers prize above all is quality thinking. For those who have the productivity tools at their disposal this means that they know how to use information efficiently and in so doing gain a significant advantage over their rivals.
Mind Map® and Mind Maps® are trademarks of the Buzan Organisation.
MindManager® and Mindjet® are trademarks of Mindjet.
Tags: Accelerated Learning, Common Services Agency (CSA), Creative thinking techniques, Information Overload, Memory techniques, Mind Mapping, Time management