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Along with colleagues
at the University of Westminster I am developing a new part time MSc programme
in Strategic Leadership for experienced managers and professionals that
incorporates key elements of the SML approach.
From a development
perspective the most significant conclusions of decades of leadership
research make a good case for ensuring that any learning in this field
is self managed. For example, there are no clear generic definitions of
what makes for leadership effectiveness so the context of the individual's
development is of particular importance. Given that those most knowledgeable
about their development contexts are going to be the learners themselves,
the design of development programmes should reflect this. Further, one
might expect that any development programme will support the underlying
principle that the learning process itself should embody the intended
outcomes. If, as in this case, it is strategic leadership abilities that
are to be developed, then the learning process should require the demonstration
of strategic leadership from participants. Clearly, they would not be
served by a programme that presumed to tell them what they need to learn
and how they need to learn it.
Using a combination
of short workshops and regular learning group meetings, the MSc in Strategic
Leadership will operate within the University's modular framework but
in such a way that the learning will be self managed to match the requirements
for development indicated above.
The use of learning
contracts will be a key mechanism for encouraging and enabling participants
to adopt a strategic approach to their own development. Supported by appropriate
diagnostic activities, each person will create and agree their learning
contract with fellow members of their learning group early in the programme
as part of the Reflective Practice module that lasts for the whole of
the two years. This will be supplemented by the Strategic Leadership module
through which participants will clarify and enrich their maps of the strategic
leadership domain in the contexts of their current work situations and
their longer term aspirations. The major vehicles for the implementation
of learning contracts will be a Work Based Project module followed by
a Dissertation module.
There's much more
that could be said about this programme, so if anyone wants further information
or to discuss it, please contact me.
Ben
Bennett
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In a previous newsletter
I mentioned that Ian Cunningham, Ben Bennett and I are producing a Handbook
of Work-Based Learning for Gower. We see this as a useful resource for
those working with SML. It is yet another thing we can put in the hands
of people who come on SML programmes to help them develop the attributes
of an active learner, in the process of aiding the pursuit of their goals.
Introductory chapters
will set the scene, in terms of work-based learning in general, its relevance
to senior managers and to development specialists prior to sections which
will cover individual strategies, tactics and methods which can be used
for work-based learning. To illustrate the approach we are taking in the
handbook I have chosen one of the method sections.
Many of the strategies,
tactics and methods will be familiar parts of organisational life and/or
developmental approaches, to which we bring to bear the particular perspective
entailed in their use for work-based learning. The method that follows,
though, may be less familiar. An additional reason for choosing the topic
of writing is the hope that it might stimulate you to put pixels to paper
and produce something for this newsletter.
A lightly edited draft
of the writing section follows:
Writing
There are many times
when we have to do writing, be it for a report or merely a memo. Here,
though, we are looking at writing as a method of learning and development.
But this does not mean it can only apply when writing is a choice. One
of the advantages of intentionally taking a 'learning orientation' is
that we can also bring it to bear on things which are not of our choosing.
Frequently, people
are inhibited from writing by their idea of what might be expected of
the results (by them or by some unspecified other, often the ghost of
a school teacher past). Whilst there may be reasons for showing your writing
to others, here its purpose is for learning. Accordingly, it matters not
a jot whether others can read or understand what you have written; it
is not written for them, it is written for you. When writing for learning,
the only criterion your writing need satisfy is that it leads to - learning.
Examples
- Writing up a learning
log.
- Keeping notes on
what you have read.
- Qualification programmes
usually depend on writing to demonstrate what has been learnt.
Possible benefits
- Writing for learning
can release us from the stranglehold of scholastic writing. What it
needs is a change in the way we think about writing. John Morris is
fond of distinguishing between the processes of 'writing down' and 'writing
up'. We write things down in rough notes. We write them up when we impose
shape on our rough material and make it fitting for a reader. All too
often we eschew the first process, yet there are far more instances
where we can use the process of writing down than where it is necessary
to write up.
- Writing enables
us to sort out our ideas. It is a way for us to find out what we think.
This is using the process of writing as a way to explore a subject or
experience. School taught us to get our thoughts clear before we wrote,
but it is equally possible to fire our thoughts across the page in order
to discover what we think.
- Writing is one
way to reflect on our experience. The very process of writing can slow
down our racing thoughts. We can bring a new perspective or a new question
to what we are thinking of. There are always new perspectives and new
questions which can unfurl new learning.
- Much of our most
important learning is about ourselves and our life circumstances. The
process of 'freewriting'(explained more fully in Operating hints) can
be used in this exploration, and the research of James Pennebaker shows
that it has significant benefits in terms of psychological and even
physical health. Consistently, Pennebaker's results showed that when
people wrote fast, paying no attention to the niceties of spelling or
grammar, about what was troubling them in their lives or situations
they benefited from this.
- Whether or not
we have to write for others, whether or not our writing will be seen,
it can still be useful to write, on occasion, 'as if' we are writing
for others. This is especially the case when we are wanting to make
sense of a specific subject area. By writing as if we are explaining
the subject to a friend, or an audience of readers, we force ourselves
to organise our thinking, to marshal our argument and the facts that
support it. The result is that it becomes very clear where our understanding
falls short.
- Writing can help
us to integrate ideas. By engaging with them, they cease to remain on
the page as abstractions. We breathe life into them, and make them more
real, as we probe them with our questions and compare them with our
own ideas. Then what we gain from them becomes ours and can be put into
action.
Possible limitations
- The major limitation
of writing is that it is something that needs to be done, that is, it
takes time and it takes application. However, unlike formal writing,
freewriting requires much less effort; the process takes wing and our
thoughts can sweep us along.
- Writing cannot
be brought to bear when we are in the midst of a situation that is giving
us trouble. It can only be used to prepare for situations. However,
the same restriction does not apply when it comes to dealing with our
thoughts and feelings. Those we can tackle immediately, working with
what confuses or bothers us right at the moment we are being confused
or bothered by it.
Operating hints
The method of freewriting
can be useful in releasing us from thinking of writing in terms of school
essays. As developed by Peter Elbow, this is writing free of all constraints
but one. No consideration is given to spelling, to grammar, to coherent
argument, not even to sentences or paragraphs. The only constraint is
that one must keep writing and writing fast. You set yourself a time,
say, fifteen minutes, and identify what you are going to write about.
Then the only aim is to write continually, without stopping for thought,
without correcting, and to continue writing even when you think there
is nothing more to say. The end result may have many repeated ideas, many
times when all you have been able to write is that "I don't know
what to write" but, if you simply continue to write, new thoughts
do seem to come to mind. Sometimes those thoughts loop back to make connections
with things you rushed down earlier, and without being able to think through
the connections you write them in white-heat, off the top of your head.
This process pushes your thinking, pushing out those only half-coherent
or totally incoherent ideas, ideas you would never commit to writing were
it not for the freewriting context.
The process can be
used iteratively. Having written for fifteen minutes on the subject, you
can underline various observations and ideas that emerged. Then the clock
can be set again to write for fifteen minutes on those ideas. Again you
will find ideas get pushed forward, developed, find new connections. Sometimes
the ideas become clearer, sometimes their import becomes wider or they
take off in new directions. The process can continue and, if you do need
or want to bring it through to a finished piece of writing you can do
so by letting a structure emerge as you go. That structure, written down
and then written up at speed, often retains, even through the tidying
up process, a good deal of the spontaneity and liveliness of your freewriting
to produce an end result much more pleasing to the reader than one arrived
at by a constraining struggle between yourself and the page.
Graham
Dawes
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