How Enjoyable Should Learning Be?

Watch any episode of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (where the celebrated chef spends time with a failing restaurant to help them out) and you will observe some of the following stages of learning:

* Unconscious incompetence - the moments before Gordon arrives, when the owner/ chef is looking forward to Gordon "helping them out"
* Conscious incompetence - just after Gordon has sampled their food, when Gordon subtly informs the cook/ manager of how poor their restaurant is (watch their faces as they learn)
* Conscious competence - after days of changing the menu, redecorating as the team puts new ideas/ menus etc into practice successfully (if they get that far)

The final stage is unconscious incompetence, which will happen after Gordon has left (sometimes) - the sort of "do it in your sleep" capability that experts exhibit.

Now any of you who have watched this programme (or others like it) will recognise that few owners find this process either enjoyable or easy in the short term. As Gordon bluntly explains just how bad things are, they quickly reject the painful process of going from where they were to their new level of understanding (going from unconscious to conscious incompetence).

This is the real heart of the programme - the people reject suggestions, they argue that Gordon doesn't know what he is doing, they blame everyone else but their own incompetence. There is anger, tears, trantrums, you name it. What you are watching is the the painful process of learning how much you don't know. They demonstrate just how difficult transformatory learning can actually be.

It is very tempting as a facilitator to ensure that your learners enjoy themselves throughout your workshops/ presentations. Learning can be, and should be in many instances fun. But fun rarely gets your learners leaving their comfort zones (which by definition would be uncomfortable), nor will it transform their attitudes, knowledge or skills.

If you really want to create change, then you have to be prepared for your learners to be uncomfortable, to be challenged, to hear things that are difficult to hear.

If what you design leaves them enjoying their learning too much, they might learn nothing at all.

As William James once said "A great many people think they are thinking when they are just rearranging their prejudices". To me, the word thinking can be replaced with learning to describe that lovely safe learning experience where nothing much changes.

So go on, I dare you.
I dare you to create discomfort in your learners and move them into conscious incompetence.....

Leave Your Comfort Zone behind

The most amazing events that I have ever delivered were the ones when I felt nervous. I was going to do something new, something different, something outside of my comfort zone.

I was excited about the possibility of finding a new, even unique, way of creating a learning zone, whilst still nervous about it all going rather wrong.

For one event, I wanted to teach my students about communication through real experience. Instead of some dry exercises about words, or tone, or pace I wanted them to have a direct experience that impacted on their minds and challenged their perspectives. Before a break, I asked them to clear the room and place their seats in a circle then come back in silence.

Even those instructions changed their mood: they came back curious, attentive, charged up (which is no mean feat at 8pm after a very long day). We started with silence and darkness. And I let that experience be savoured before adding in anything else.

I then added in elements gently, one at a time. They listened to some music. We handed around a torch for them to shine beneath their face as they shared what they had experienced. Gradually we built in new elements - for them to feel first hand the impact of various elements such as light, music, images, video, sounds and language.

I gave them no handout for this session, asking them only to write a reflective piece for their own records. The results were amazing - their reflections showed how inspired they had felt and how it had shown them new and different ways of thinking about their impact on their learners.

I challenged every single element of this event - no plan, no notes, no slides, no light even, nor much discussion at first, as I wanted each of them to feel and be fully involved in their personal experience not that of the others in the group.

If you never feel nervous, never feel that you are taking a risk, never wonder if your new exercise will bomb or boom, then you are probably not being creative enough.

Creativity is a risk - but whatever happens you will gain greatly from taking that risk - in learning, in new skills, in new confidence, in a whole new approach.

So next time you are designing a learning event, don't ignore that amazing idea that you have (that gives you butterflies). Embrace it. Go with it. Leave Your Comfort Zone behind and soar.