Continuous Learning

© Copyright Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Authenticity Consulting, LLC.

Continous learning is NOT about continually taking courses -- it's about developing skills in reflection and inquiry -- it's about learning how to learn so that your life's experiences become your own learning lab. The concept of continuous learning has become quite prominent over the past five years. Organizations are changing rapidly. Therefore, it's difficult to find any approach to doing anything in organizations that doesn't soon become outdated. The concept of continuous learning has become important because it places priority on noticing, adapting and learning from change. .

Sections of This Topic Include:

A Basic Definition
Requirements for Continuous Learning
What Continuous Learning is Not
How Does One Know if They've Accomplished Continuous Learning?
Continuous Learning in Organizations
Some Other Perspectives

A Basic Definition

Simply put, continuous learning is the ability to learn to learn. Learning need not be a linear event where a learner goes to a formal learning program, gains areas of knowledge and skills about a process, and then the learning ceases. If the learner can view life (including work) as a "learning program", then the learner can continue to learn from almost everything in life. As a result, the learner continues to expand his or her capacity for living, including working.

Requirements for Continuous Learning

Peter Senge, noted systems theorist, explains that continual learning and personal mastery are very similar. In continuous learning, the learner continues to:

1. Recognizes priorities or overall values about themselves and how they want to live and work -- they have a personal vision
2. Takes an active role in the world and work
3. Continues to reflect on their experiences in the world and work/LI>
4. Seeks ongoing feedback about the world (including work) and their activities in it (which is why working in teams, using 360-degree appraisals, etc., are so important in organizations)
5. Remains as open as possible to the feedback (which requires a fair degree of personal maturity)
6. Makes ongoing adjustments, based on ongoing feedback, to the way they live their lives and conduct their work in order to more closely meet their priorities and values

Thus, important aspects of continuous learning are

1. Having some basic values in your life or priorities in your work
2. Doing something in the world, applying new information and skills
3. Taking the time to inquire and reflect about your life and experiences
4. Getting up-to-date feedback, that is, understood and useful information about yourself and your experiences
5. Removing personal obstacles to your accepting and understand the feedback
6. Having the courage and humility to change

What Continuous Learning is Not

Continuous learning is a way of being in the world. It is not staying busy by continuing to attend one course after another, gathering more and more information. Someone once said that neurosis is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to get a different result each time. (Those of us who have thousands of books in our library might think more seriously about this definition.)

How Do You Know if You've Accomplished Continuous Learning?

You'd know better than anyone whether you'd achieved continuous learning or not. No one can tell you if and when you've achieved continuous learning. On this point, I'm sure others will disagree. Identifying the "learning objectives" alone would be like trying to define the requirements for the "the good life". Philosophers have argued about this for at least 2,500 years.

I suppose one could measure the rate of change of some indicator over a period of time. For example, did your company's profit rate rise at some determined rate for some determined number of months? Did your salary rise at some determined rate for some determined number of years?

Perhaps Kahlil Gibran explains it best. In The Prophet, he wrote:

And a man said, Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.
And he [Almustafa!] answered, saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.

But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."
Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

-- from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Continuous Learning in Organizations

Organizations can establish structures and processes that cultivate continuous learning. For example, management can support a climate where feedback is freely exchanged. Employees have a clear, shared vision of the organization's goals and values. Organization members get time to inquire and reflect about what they are doing and why.

Planning is a form of learning. Goals are established. Strategies, or approaches to reaching goals, are implemented. Action plans identify who will be doing what and when. During implementation, the plan is monitored and modified as needed. Of course, plans can become ends in themselves, ultimately constricting progress of the organizations. However, when plans are seen as guides that can be changed, a great deal of learning can occur.

Some Other Perspectives

Continuous Learning
continuous learning as an aspect of the learning organization
Teacher's Learning: In Their Own Words

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For the Category of Training and Development:

Related Library Topics

Recommended Books

Basics and General Information

Orienting and Training Employees

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Basics and General Information

The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.

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Orienting and Training Employees

The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.

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Also See

Human Resources -- Recommended Books

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