Editorial
The pace of change is killing us: Employees are exhausted and burnt out.
There is an energy, engagement and productivity crisis in our workforces that has nothing to do with not being in the office. There’s turnover, shifts caused by the pandemic,changing RTO policies, new companies entering the market, layoffs, AI and the rise of“side hustles.” All these things have increased uncertainty and decreased trust, collaboration and knowledge sharing.
And yet we're asking people to be efficient, productive, innovative and curious and to learn, adapt and thrive amid this chaos and uncertainty. Most organizations aren't doing anything to help their employees, but employees are expected to comply, or else.
How do we motivate continuous learning in this world?
How do we recognize the value of people, of humanity in a world that seems to only value efficiency and effectiveness, productivity, and technology? Not emotions. Not compassion and empathy. Not the things that make us human.
Continuous Learning Today
Organizations seem to hire based on a static knowledge base and seem to assume that people can’t, won’t or shouldn’t have to learn on the job. But what if we don’t need to learn something once and apply it for the rest of our lives? What if we need to continuously learn, building on what we’ve learned before, and sometimes forgetting it (like the myth of left brain = analytical, right brain = creative — the sooner we forget that, the better) to make room for the new (like the importance of art in all that we do).
Continuous learning is an idea that has been around for several decades and underlies many organizational cultures. It encourages employees to prioritize ongoing learning and improvement and is the basis for organizational learning and development and knowledge management programs. Continuous learning happens through various formats, including formal courses, informal learning, shadowing teammates, training programs, one-on-one/group coaching and casual interactions.
While the learning and development function oversees the more formal areas of learning, knowledge management is often responsible for the just-in-time aspects of continuous learning and contributes to creating a culture that shares its knowledge and learns as part of the execution of people’s duties.
Back to the question of how continuous learning can be facilitated and even enhanced in the workplaces that exist today?
ABIs and Continuous Learning
Introducing arts-based interventions (ABIs) into organizations addresses these issues relating to burnout, mental health, wellness and connection. It enables us to value emotions, empathy, compassion, teamwork and collaboration. It builds the creativity skills that are so critical to knowledge creation and problem solving. There are at least a dozen use cases for ABIs:
- Culture Change
- Innovation
- Wellness
- Getting unstuck
- Sustainable leadership
- Team building
- Collaboration
- Problem Solving
- Amplify Learning
- Transformation
- Create Community
- Employee Engagement
Neuroscience backs all of this up, yet we ignore it because it doesn't fit the models that were formed in the industrial age and formal educational systems that have taught us to be efficient and effective like a mechanical production-line.
Those systems indoctrinated us with the idea that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. In two-dimensional worlds, this is true. However, knowledge work is not two-dimensional.
It often has multiple dimensions, making it complex or chaotic. It requires a different way of working and requires time to observe what happens when we do something: does it do what we thought, or do we need to try something different?
The key to continuous learning lies in adopting the playful, curiosity-infused behavior of artists. How better to learn those behaviours than by incorporating ABIs into our daily/work activities?
Related Article: The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves: Why Work Feels so Toxic
Try It Out
Let’s take a moment to consider what ABIs can include.
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Examples of ABIs are painting, drawing, photography, improv, music, theater, sculpture and can include doing them yourself, as a team or group or even going out to partake in an event or a performance. All of these count.
When we are the creator (the one doing the art, not just observing) it is important to keep in mind that it is about the process, not the result. We are not trying to create the next Da Vinci, Bach, or Cary Grant/Katherine Hepburn; we are having the experience of creating, and that is where the benefit comes from.
The best way to bring ABIs into everyday work is to start small with activities that take five to ten minutes to complete and can be done at the beginning or ending of a meeting. Larger interventions are best reserved for strategy or planning meetings that may take hours or days. Regardless of how you integrate ABIs into the organization’s activities, they will benefit the culture and people’s motivation to continuously learn.
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