Hitting the nail on the head...

For a while, I've been trying to describe how I work... how I coach teams... Or at least how I have been for a while now anyway. I've said things like "I focus on values not practices" or "I help people understand what they want to achieve then help them find ways to achieve it"... or "I help teams ask questions of themselves that, with the benefit of hindsight, I would have asked myself". However, after reading Jason Gorman's post I realised that, completely by accident, I was doing much the same thing. Jason says:

Instead, I finally admitted that my real job is to persuade people that they want to learn. And not in any bulls**t manipulative way. I've focused the largest part of my effort on being a catalyst to help recharge people's interest and passion for what they're doing.

One of the things people often say to me is that my enthusiasm and passion is contagious... But, until now, it's something I just did without thinking about it. Now, thanks to Jason, I believe it's something I should focus on a little more.

Clearly, there's more to it. Once people do have an interest in learning, we need to help people find the best way of learning for them. I don't agree that everyone can best learn by picking up a book and reading it then trying it. I know enough people who find that difficult and learn more through engaging with other people... (or is that laziness? I don't think so - everyone is different). Furthermore, not everyone's personal circumstances leave them with room to learn much outside of work time (without sacrificing other important things that help keep them productive) and sometimes their employers discourage it in work time. That's no excuse though - there's always some time...

The BBC, albeit a different part, is also one of my clients (in fact I'm teaching a course there next week on behalf of Rachel Davies). About 2 years ago I was working with a talented team. They were beginning to discover how much they didn't know. One individual complained - how can we get these other guys to care? How can we get them to see how much there is still to learn? Being a big fan of peer-learning and having read several reports indicating that this is one of the most effective ways of learning for adults, I suggested he start a study group. This group would share learning that individuals had done and experiences of how they applied or grew that learning. This started out at 1 hour per week focusing on design patterns and was called the Design Patterns Study Group. Later, it grew to encompass Software Development as a whole - including everything from programming, testing and design. I helped kick it off and as far as I am aware, it is still running, every week or two. Bear in mind that 1 hour in a 35 hour working week is less than 3% of their time. Easy to justify that as regular learning time with any reasonable employer.

What seemed to happen was the group was initially made up of people who already cared... slowly but surely, it grew. More people were curious as to what these sessions were all about and started to come. It got people enthused and interested by what others were doing. It helped grow awareness of problems that other parts of the organisation had already solved and helped avoid duplicated effort... it also got more people to take an interest in their learning and start to do more in their spare time.

Jason's epiphany has given me some clarity on this dimension of how I too have been gently stoking the fires of enthusiasm of the teams I work with and guiding them to ways of keeping those fires burning. With this improved understanding, I can now focus more on getting better at this and perhaps driving what I do from this angle much more - rather than just doing it by accident. Thanks Jason!