Of Haikus and Creative Thinking

Brenda and I were pleasantly surprised to learn that Ethan, our 6-year-old, had won a Top 10 position in the biennial Japan Airlines World Children's Haiku Competition (Singapore), out of a field of more than 5000 entries. These were submitted by primary school children aged between 6 to 12 years. A greater surprise was that he was the only 6-year-old in the Top 50 who were awarded Certificates of Merit. The top 10 entries from each of the various participating countries will be sent to Japan for shortlisting, to be included in a volume of haikus published by the JAL Foundation.

This year's competition theme was 'House', and Ethan's haiku was on a house of a different sort:

No doors, no windows,

No roofs, no walls and no floors -

House for a spider.

While I was roundly proud of the little guy's achievement, I was reminded again of children's ability to see things from a perspective, altogether different from adults. As students and teachers of 'better' thinking, sometimes it's marvellous to see the ease with which young children access a different mode of 'looking' at the world. It is even more impressive when one considers that Ethan had to frame this view-point into the strict 5-syllable, 7-syllable, 5-syllable structure of the haiku! (Of course, this is his dad saying so!)

So what really is creativity? Is it merely 'different thinking'? Creative thinking recognises the rules which are imposed by any given situation, yet simultaneously produces a solution that circumvents the very restrictions that the rules imply. The merit of Creative thinking and by extension, paradigm shifts in thinking, can only be decided within the boundaries of existing knowledge.

The question of children finding it easier to be creative is easily answered: they recognise less of the rules that form the basis of adult rationality and logic. As these rules have yet to impose themselves (through modern education system), children form very unique perspectives about the world and make connections that go beyond the logical boundaries of knowledge disciplines. Hence, making the connection between a house and a spider's web is not too difficult, considering that both have residents and serve the purpose of accomodation.

Perhaps, the vital question is not so much why children are more creative than adults, but rather how adults can retain their creative modes. That certainly would be a million-dollar question because the answer has implications in how corporations can leverage on creativity and innovation in pursuit of their business goals. More of this in a later blog entry.

Noel Tan

Resident Philosopher (And proud papa!)

(* All text is copyright of Trailblazer Trainers Pte Ltd)

Leading Learning, Unlearning and Re-learning in a Team

Leaders exist to help a group attain its mission goals. An increasingly important role of leaders that underlies successful Team Learning, is in helping team members engage in what futurist Alvin Toffler termed as learning, unlearning and relearning. Leaders have to take point in the learning processes that can help the team meet changes head-on.

• Learning

By far, for the individuals involved, learning is probably the easiest of the 3. Individuals will undertake the mastery of new knowledge and skills - essentially a 'new technology' - to overcome a team problem, if they are able to see a good reason for it. Do the new skills give better results? Save time? Increases the convenience level? Leaders will have to champion the new technology, justify why it should be adopted and finally, win over doubters and dissenters. It's easy to lead by 'decree' but authoritarian leadership behaviours do run a high risk of creating toxic workplaces.

• Unlearning

While learning something new is not a big deal for most of us, it is when we need to replace obsolete knowledge with the new, that issues arise. This especially becomes a case of new wine in old wine-skins - where new skills and knowledge, though learned, remain meshed with the old habits and attitudes, leading to continued poor results.

In addition, such a situation is a primary reason why training does not lead to discernible improvement, because the underlying causes for poor performance have not been solved. It's no small wonder, then that training budgets are often the first to be slashed in times of difficulty.

Leaders' facilitation skills are needed to build discussions to help team members identify the attitudinal factors and perspectives that limit performance at the individual and team levels. Further, the leader's EQ competencies such as empathy become necessary, when the team has to recognise that their progress can only proceed as fast as the slowest member.

• Re-learning

Re-learning requires the continued modification and manipulation of learned experiences and content to match the demands of the team's operating context. The pace of change in today's knowledge economy makes it critical that team members need to be able to engage in meta-learning - aka recognising how they learn and being able to incisively select information that is relevant for their mission success. The Team Leader has to merge the latest relevant information with the current intelligence and red-flag this for the Team to access and consume.

A team's capacity to attain its mission goals is dependent on the Team Leader's ability to engage members on the road to learn, unlearn and relearn. Now, more than ever, vital team leadership skills are required to ensure that teams and organisations can access and make sense of data - the currency of the Information Age - and remain nimble in the face of constant change.

Noel Tan

Resident Philosopher

(*All text is copyright of Trailblazer Trainers Pte Ltd)

Is Team Learning just a new-fangled word for Team-Building?

Team Learning is more than Teambuilding.

Teambuilding focuses on creating a higher level of collaboration and trust between team members, in order to effect better team results. Teambuilding aims at improving how the team communicates, makes decisions and solves problems. It focuses on improving the practices of the team, while Team Learning zeros in on how team members engage in enlarging shared perspectives of the Team.

Teambuilding and Organisational Development
In OD language, most Teambuilding activities would be considered 'single-loop' learning; ie the team learns how to modify their actions according to the difference between expected and obtained results. For instance, the Marketing team identifies that team members are experiencing poor results because they are quick to operationalise the first suggestions that surface during brainstorming. Through facilitation, they learn the rule-of-thumb that they should discuss further and not settle on the first suggestion thrown up.

Team Learning as 'double-loop learning'
While Team Learning is premised on the fact that a team already exists, it looks to the fundamental aspects of team life - developing shared vision, recognising and overcoming potentially destructive habits of thinking. Team Learning processes are 'double-loop learning' in nature; ie the team learns to recognise and correct the perspectives, values and norms leading to poor actions.

In other words, poor-quality actions and practices will be eliminated at source. To illustrate, let's take our same Marketing Team through Team Learning processes. The team learns that the reason why they are opportunistically seizing the first suggestion that comes along, is that
they are new to each other and do not wish to be perceived as the person who rocks the boat. Team Learning involves them recognising that such perspectives prevent innovative thinking from surfacing and encourages them to trust each other by first 'agreeing to disagree'.

Team Learning is a fundamental part of any team or organisational change and improvement effort. Only when the Team learns ie it changes perspectives, such improvement efforts are bound to be stymied. Furthermore, teambuilding will only be remembered as a fun day in the sun and people forget it's usefulness as a building block for Team Learning.

Noel Tan
Resident Philosopher

(* All text is copyright of Trailblazer Trainers Pte Ltd)

Is Team Learning the same as Team-based Learning?

Team Learning from an Organisational Development perspective, is not to be confused with Team-based learning. Team Learning, as created by Peter Senge of 'Fifth Discipline' fame is about getting different members of the team to align and develop the team's capacity to attain the results they want. It is about framing a common perspective built on developing a shared vision. It goes beyond academic-type learning that Team-based learning (synonymous with associated terms like collaborative learning, group learning) is involved with, in the mastery of subject matter.

What's this 'alignment business'?
Alignment is an important pillar of Team Learning, because a team exists only when a shared sense of purpose exists. Otherwise, it is only a group comprising individuals, masquerading as a team. Alignment allows team members to mesh individual goals and agendas to the team's.

Through dialogue, alignment sets up a tension within the individual as he begins to invest himself into the priorities of the team and the team members, while adjusting what's important to him to what's important to others. With skilful facilitation, alignment can result in new understanding. New attitudes and behaviours that support the team's shared vision, mission and goals, can then arise.

Developing Team Capacity

Team Learning involves aspects of meta-learning ie 'learning how team members learn', and learning about how and why team decisions are made and carried out. The learning occurs primarily in understanding how the team could be more effective, based on a cycle of:

• reflecting (eg on past action and results),
• connecting (eg establishing links between the reflections with hypotheses),
• deciding (settling on a course of action) and finally
• implementing that choice

Team Learning, with its emphasis on individual alignment to the team vision and mindfulness of the team members on understanding team experiences; provides a powerful framework where individual action and meaning are integrated with the team and the larger organisation.

Noel Tan

Resident Philosopher

(*All Text is copyright of Trailblazer Trainers Pte Ltd)

Learning and Daydreaming: Implications from Autism Research

"A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten..." W H Auden

BBC News recently reported on 15 May 2006 on a research study by the National Autistic Society and Research Autism, which found that people with autism do NOT daydream. Using fMRI scans, the study discovered that people with autism do not exhibit activity in parts of the brain that are associated with daydreaming processes.

Neuroscientists believe that daydreaming aids the processing of emotions and reflections. It was also reported that the absence of social skills in people with autism, is likely due to this lack of activity in the areas of the brain responsible.

While the findings are still far from definitive, this study at least opens up 3 implications for an improvement to learning processes that capitalise on these new insights about the brain:

• Opportunities for reflection, imagination and fantasy

After concrete instruction has taken place, educators should look towards creating reflection opportunities during lessons. These can be teacher-guided or fully learner-directed, depending on the audience. To aid the process, educators can apply accelerated learning techniques, for example, by using music to aid in learner visualisation of success in applying the learned principles, for instance. We particularly like Baroque and Mozart compositions.

• Sharing of 'Daydreamed' Reflections and Imaginations

Consolidation of learning should provide for opportunities for learners to interact and share their 'Daydreamed' reflections. These could range from peer and group sharing to active role-play. These form the basis for finer points such as unique perspectives and discussion points for future lessons to emerge and also allows the teacher to gain feedback. By creating a 'secure' environment in which sharing can be done, educators can hinge on the emotion-memory connection in the brain for increased retention of learning.

• Educators will need to develop a repertoire of assessment modes

Assessment modes should incorporate portfolio work or journals to record the learner's reflections on the subject over time. Portfolio items should include sketches, poems, short essays, photographs that focus on the student's 'daydreamed reflections' etc, to capture the learner's cognitive and emotional growth process.

There's certainly a lot more to learn about the Brain and how teaching and learning are impacted by each discovery. Educators should keep an open mind about neuroscientific knowledge and review their practice and where appropriate, adapt accordingly.

Noel Tan

Resident Philosopher

(*All text is copyright of Trailblazer Trainers Pte Ltd)