Organisations have used SML in different ways. Cable and Wireless used it to foster development in a variety of regions of the world including Europe, North America and the Middle East. They also found that the approach was especially valued by technical staff, secretaries and administrators as well as by managers.
PPP healthcare similarly found that having launched SML with senior managers, their front line customer service staff valued having the same opportunities for development. On the other hand Arun District Council started SML with middle managers and then extended the process to all senior managers and Directors (including the Chief Executive). Sainsbury’s used SML as a basis for a major shift in the role of Personnel and all their over six hundred personnel professionals went through a nine month programme.
All the SML programmes in the Organisations mentioned had in common a carefully thought through design that had to be well managed. SML needs to be part of a strategic approach to development and it needs the focused commitment of senior people in order to make it happen effectively.
In a world where there is growing pressure for increased results from fewer people, Organisations have no option but to invest heavily in learning and development. The problem is that there is not always a correlation between expenditure on training and development and pay-off for individuals and Organisations. Also individual learning may not integrate with organisational needs. Yet it is essential that individuals should be ‘helped to take on greater responsibility for their own development and growth’ (to quote the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development).
The key requirement, then, seems to be to create a situation where learning
• is owned by the individual,
• is properly supported
and at the same time
• is closely integrated with organisational needs.
This is what Self Managed Learning provides.
Self Managed Learning (SML) is about individuals managing their own learning. This includes people taking responsibility for decisions about: -
• what they learn
• how they learn
• when they learn
• where they learn
and most fundamentally
• why they learn.
All of this is carried out in the context of live organisational needs. But organisational needs cannot be met without individuals feeling a personal sense of commitment to what is required by the organisation. You can compel someone to sit in a classroom - but you can’t guarantee what they will learn. As the old saying goes:
"You can take a horse to water - but you can’t make it drink".
Although everyone manages their own learning to some extent, it’s clear that just telling people to take charge of their own learning can be very inefficient. Research indicates that people who are effective at, for example, leading major Organisations, have managed their own learning very well throughout their careers. This does not mean, though, that they have been on more courses than others. Managing their own learning has meant the person using a wide range of opportunities for learning. These include: -
• learning from others around them
• travel
• reading
• secondments
• projects
• being coached/mentored.
The examples quoted are only a few of the many experiences we can use for learning. Self managing learners use a range to suit themselves. The problem is that unstructured, unplanned learning is very inefficient. Research on successful top managers and leaders shows that they set clear goals for themselves in relation to their learning. It is not purely random.
Self Managed Learning (SML) is a structured approach to learning which not only makes the process work more efficiently but also helps people learn things they would not otherwise learn. Some of its key characteristics can be summarized under the following ‘Seven S’s’.
Each of these is discussed below:-
SML demands that people take a strategic stance in relation to their own learning. Strategy here means thinking long term and with ‘the big picture’ in mind. Too often learning is driven by short term tactical demands - an exam to pass, a new computer system to learn about. There’s nothing wrong with such tactical learning - it’s just that on its own it is too limited for the complexities and challenges we face in modern organisational life.
Too often people focus on just learning skills related to narrow job requirements. These need to be balanced with attention to longer term needs such as preparing oneself for often unknown futures. Many of the people made redundant in the recent past had learned quite well how to do their current job. But when new technology or new organisation structures hit them they were ill prepared for the changes.
People may need to get a sense of their current abilities, qualities, values, interests etc in order to prepare for future career and life opportunities. Often it needs a context in which the person can get clear about these in order for them to become more strategic. For instance a person may say that they have problems with time management. However it may be that an underlying issue is the lack of balance between home and work. So one might end up addressing this bigger life issue alongside the specific job-related needs. In the process the person can become more effective in work and have a more balanced life style.
There is no required curriculum or syllabus in SML - the learning is driven by the real needs of individuals and their Organisations. Learners may need assistance to help them to make their choices of what to learn, but such help avoids authoritarian control.
As will be apparent in the example of time management mentioned above, the key is understanding the needs of the learner before being able to respond. The average parent knows that when they were raising their baby, they first had to learn from the baby before the baby could learn from them. The baby makes noises and movements which the parent must understand in order to help the baby to learn. And when the baby starts to develop language the parent must listen to the baby and encourage it. A tentative ‘Da’ is encouraged so that the baby eventually says ‘Daddy’ to the proud father.
The problem is that this process is reversed at about the age of five as the child goes to school and gradually is inducted into a system that goes from teacher to learner not the other way round.
The above does not, though, assume a totally passive role from the person assisting the learner. The best managers assume a coaching role with people who report to them, and such coaching is based more around questioning and support than around direction and control.
People have to take responsibility for their own learning - but this is not a selfish activity. Self managing includes the necessary and valuable interactions with others.
A simple model suggests that there may be four approaches to learning, and that often people go through these approaches in stages.
Dependent
In this mode learners may be highly passive, expecting others to teach them everything without them needing to take their own initiatives. Learners may also absorb uncritically what others tell them. This mode can be characterized by laziness and procrastination. It is clearly seen by some as a product of experiences in education.
Counterdependent
This mode is associated with rebelliousness, a rejection of new ideas, anti authority behaviours and high levels of criticism of anyone in a teaching role. Counterdependence is also associated with learners playing down the need to learn, not listening to others and often a tendency to passive-aggressive behavioural patterns. A simple way of characterizing it is to compare it with the teenager who says "I’m not influenced by my parents; I just do the opposite of what they say!"
Many trainers and developers would recognize both patterns of behaviour. Often individuals can flip between these so that they oscillate between dependence and counterdependence. One reason for this is that neither pattern is showing autonomy or independence in learning. They are both reacting to authority and can be seen as patterns that a person in the organisation has not grown out of.
Independent
In this mode learners are prepared to learn for themselves. They take initiatives, actively seek learning experiences, enjoy the pressure to perform well and welcome feedback on their work. This mode is one that organisations say they increasingly need and it is associated with a more entrepreneurial and empowered style of working.
The danger is that an overemphasis on independence can lead to a selfish self centredness. Therefore this mode needs balancing with the next one.
Interdependence
Interdependent learners are keen to learn from others, to support others in their learning, to share their own learning and to collaborate in teams. They listen to others, question others to find out new ideas and information and they enjoy engaging in dialogue with a wide range of people. They characterize the best of a learning organisation approach.
In reality the last two modes are also a balanced pair like the first two. Independence and interdependence at best go together. The person who can stand on their own feet and look after themselves is also going to find it easier to be open and sharing with others (since they don’t see others as a threat or challenge). So the distinctions are ultimately not showing two separate personalities. Organisations need people who can balance independence and interdependence.
This now leads back to the role of SML. SML programmes ideally encourage the balanced approach described here. By challenging people to come up with their own learning needs SML promotes independence. But the person has to negotiate their learning requirements with others and engage in processes to support other people’s learning, hence providing the interdependent balance.
This approach is not always smooth and easy. People can flip back into dependent and counterdependent modes. Hence SML programmes need careful design and a support structure that can address these issues.
The learning is located in a context. SML requires learners to connect with others and especially to integrate their learning with organisational needs. This, in part, comes via one specific SML structure, namely the use of a strategic learning contract as a means for each person to specify what they want to learn - and to share this with others.
strategic learning contracts
A strategic learning contract is more than just a fancy name for a ‘personal development plan’ or an ‘action plan’. Such plans often stay as interesting wish lists (the equivalent of New Years resolutions). A learning contract is different because
• it is a serious written document that is negotiated between the individual and relevant interested parties
• it is a living document that individuals refer to regularly
• it covers long and short term development needs and spells out a programme to meet these
• it has measures of achievement built in so that pay-off to the individual and the Organisation can be monitored.
The way to achieve the above is to get people to answer five questions - and to write down their answers to these.
Five Questions
The questions are taken in order and move the person from the past to the present to the future.
1. Where have I been? (How has my career progressed? What have I learned from past experiences?)
This question helps the person make sense of their past experiences. The reason for starting with this question is that we are today - any of us - a product of the past. We are 100% created by the past - either we were born this way (the genes) or we had accidents that changed us or we learned to be this way. Whatever the reason it’s 100% due to the past. So in order to move on we need to explore where our current capabilities, values, beliefs etc came from. And we may need to modify some of our ingrained habits if we are to move on.
2. Where am I now? (What kind of person am I? What are my strengths and weaknesses? What are my guiding values and beliefs?)
This question locates the person’s current situation. The person may have evidence from a range of sources to help them address this. Sometime people want to leap straight in to the next question (on goal setting) but getting a secure sense of the present is essential as a baseline for considering the future.
3. Where do I want to get to? (What kind of person would I like to be? What strengths can I develop? What weaknesses do I want to address? What are my short and long term goals?)
This question focuses now on the future. People often find it useful to specify different kinds of learning goals. For instance they may identify short term job problems that indicate a precise narrow learning need. On the other hand the same person may want to set career goals which imply a broader, longer term orientation.
4. How will I get there? (What action is needed for me to progress from where I am to where I’d like to be? What learning do I need to undertake - and how will I do it?)
The answers to this question in essence provide the person’s own plan of action and is equivalent to a curriculum (in a traditional educational programme). The learner may draw on a whole range of methods to achieve their goals including the standard training offerings (e.g. workshops, courses, seminars and conferences) as well as coaching and mentoring assistance, learning packages, secondments, projects and so on. There is nothing that needs to be excluded except on the grounds of cost or Organisational policy.
At one level when the person is pursuing their strategic learning contract it can look like any other development process. The big difference, though, is that the learner will be working to a carefully crafted plan as created in the learning contract. They will not be randomly going off on courses or haphazardly ploughing through learning materials. They will have clearly identified strategic goals and they will be aware that they will need to show progress to those with whom they have entered into the contract.
5. How will I know if I have arrived? (How will I demonstrate the achievement of my goals? What will be my measures of achievement? What evidence will I be able to show?)
This last question is vitally important. The learner is contracting to learn against specified goals and they need to show that this has happened (after a period of time - typically six months to a year).
This question adds considerable bite to the SML process and is one example of a difference between strategic learning contracts in SML and less rigorous programmes that might use the label ‘self managed learning’.
Learners are supported in meeting the goals they set themselves in their strategic learning contract. One support structure is the learning group.
Learning group
The learning group is one mechanism that ensures some of the benefits mentioned above. In Self Managed Learning programmes individuals are grouped in ‘learning groups’ of about five or six persons. The group is the primary place where each person negotiates their strategic learning contract and reports progress on it. The group typically meets every four to six weeks and provides an arena for both support and challenge. Participants comment that the learning group provides a unique, cost-effective forum to push individuals to learn in depth and to solve real business problems at the same time.
So attending a learning group is not like going off on a course: meetings only work on practical issues that have a bearing on the business and the needs of individuals in the group. Indeed Shell wanted to ensure that the pay-off from the programme, in money terms, was measurably greater than the cost (which did happen). However most Organisations are clear that the major benefits come over time: individuals really do learn to take charge of their own development.
This not only enhances their performance but can reduce training costs. (It’s not that training ceases with SML, but rather that it becomes better targeted. In companies such as Allied Domecq - which has used SML extensively - training events were only put on if enough people had the need for them specified in their strategic learning contracts.)
One crucial support factor is the role of the learning group adviser. This person is present in the group to assist it to function effectively. The role may be played by someone in HR or training or an external adviser, but can also be effectively carried out by a good line manager or team leader. The reason for this is that the role is not one of teaching or training but of providing support for the learning group. Such support may at times be in the form of challenges to people to address tough learning needs, so it is not just a cosy facilitative role.
SML provides a rigorous structure in order to help learning - but the structure is content-free. That is, learners decide for themselves how to use the structure. SML is not a ‘free for all’; it operates within the real constraints of organisational life and requires self managing learners to work within resource and policy limits.
Some of the specific learning structures used have been described above, but they are not exhaustive of all the possibilities. SML programmes need to be carefully designed to suit the organisation, its culture, its strategic direction, etc.
SML is not an easy option. Some people think that managing your own learning via SML must be a laid back way to learn. It isn’t. The requirement to set goals and meet them is a tough-minded approach to learning - and having to meet regularly with colleagues to discuss progress means that learners have to keep to their agreed plans (or consciously change them).
The above provides an outline of some factors in SML. However experience shows that each programme has to be designed to suit each Organisation.
