Training Industry Magazine - Winter 2023 - 17

S
tudies have shown that
successful
organizations
have
leaders and teams that trust
each other, communicate well, engage
in healthy conflict and demonstrate
collaborative high performance as a
result.
The question is, how do they get there?
What is the secret sauce to enabling
these key traits and what role does a
learning leader play in them?
It has been observed that under these
key traits there are subtle microbehaviors
that contribute to their
success. These micro-behaviors include
contextual awareness, critical thinking,
adaptability, constraints management
and vertical development.
Throughout this article, we will explore
these micro-behaviors and how to work
them into your training programs.
Contextual Awareness
To be contextually aware, a leader, team
and each of their individual members
must be able to determine what is
happening and how prepared they are
for it.
The Cynefin Framework provides an
exceptional academic framework for
this, giving us five core domains through
which to assess the current state of
problems and decisions. These domains
include confused, clear, complicated,
complex and chaotic.
Take for example the subject of trust.
We might find that the meaning of trust
falls under the complicated to complex
domains when trust is being built; chaotic
when it is broken and distributed across
all domains when trying to be repaired.
Using an adaptive learning approach
to a subject matter like trust enables
content to be personalized based on
the knowledge and experience of the
learner. For example, you might ask
" how do you build trust with a new
team? " or " what happens at the team
level if trust is repeatedly broken by
underperforming team members? " " If
this, then that " type questions can trigger
richer conversations or retrospection
among learners during training.
Critical Thinking
If one does not stop to think critically
about the context they are in, or the
present impact it
is having, they may
only be able to draw from the past and
not grow toward a better future.
One exceptional way to help build on
this micro-behavior of critical thinking is
to incorporate the art of inquiry into your
adaptive learning.
This includes prompts for the learner to
identify what has already been done,
what has worked well, what could
be even better, what else should be
considered, what other questions they
might need to ask and answer, etc.
Take for example the subject of
communication. When you design a
standard course on the subject, you
might include theories on communication
styles,
communication
techniques,
communication practices, etc. An adaptive
course on the subject, however, might
incorporate branching activities where
the learner is forced to deviate from the
standard path and think their way into a
new action or response.
You can try this now, by asking yourself:
* What deviations have you experienced
in the workplace when it comes to
communication?
* What about co-workers? What
deviations have they experienced?
* What worked well in these situations?
What did not work well?
* How might you build those examples
into your course on communication?
TRAINING INDUSTRY MAGAZINE - WINTER 2023 I WWW.TRAININGINDUSTRY.COM/MAGAZINE
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https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/leadership/five-fifty-is-it-safe https://thecynefin.co/about-us/about-cynefin-framework/ https://trainingindustry.com/articles/leadership/4-tips-for-building-trust-in-a-virtual-workplace/ https://trainingindustry.com/glossary/adaptive-learning/ https://www.trainingindustry.com/magazine

Training Industry Magazine - Winter 2023

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