Having worked in the learning field in some shape or form for years, I have often been surprised and shocked at how closed many people are to learning new things.  My experience is that avid learners are few and far between. By learning I mean being prepared to have a go, fail a few times, admit you don’t know, be courageous and being honest with yourself about your levels of competence or lack of it. Small children have no problem with learning, If they did there would be plenty of teenagers crawling around the floor having not taken the risks, knocks and bumps of learning to walk – a very complex set of skills.

I don’t find such openness to learning in organisations. Nowhere near actually. I have only come across a  few executives who are excellent learners. I will never forget the comments of a former colleague in Chicago, He was a superb salesman and at the end of a sales training programme he approached me and said something like this “i have been a student of sales for years, and I learned some new ways of thinking and acting that I am going to experiment with. This course is the real deal”.  I guess I remember it because a comment like that was so unusual.

Of course there are a whole host of reasons why this might be. But the question I am getting round to is whether Gen Y are much more open to learning. I had a conversation today with my Gen Y mentor and he was relating to me some of the tough challenges he was encountering in his job. His openness to learning was so impressive. He is a super bright guy with a responsible job but he has just been promoted and has a lot to learn. I was so impressed by how willing he was to admit he didn’t know the answer, ask for help, work lots of extra hours to read books and pick colleagues brains. He told me that most of his colleagues were the same and that there was an atmosphere of excitement about learning. We had a discussion about whether he felt Gen Y are more open to learning than other generations. He thinks that they are.

I would argue that learning is a key capability for organisations if they are to adapt quickly enough to the fast changing business environment . For those who agree with that,  Gen Y presents yet another fantastic opportunity.

Sally

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