Summer of Learning

SoL #8 Continue Your “Summer of Learning” into the New Season

Pamela Meyer

This is the 8th  and final installment of Pamela’s Summer of Learning Series.

Whether or not your household went through the annual back-to-school ritual, most of us are hardwired to shift into a mix of melancholy that summer in the rearview mirror and excitement that a new season has begun.

Small green backpack filled with school supplies

I know I am.

One way to renew your energy through this transition is to slow down and reflect on when you were most engaged through the summer months.

Was it:

  • Spending time outdoors?
  • Socializing and renewing connections?
  • Traveling to new destinations?
  • Learning or improving your skills in an activity or topic that brings you joy?

With your answers in mind, consider how you can carry the energy of these experiences into your new season.

Whether or not you joined me in my #SummerOfLearning series (and you can revisit the entire series here) you can start your new season with renewed energy and commitment to growth.

FIRST, this is a great time to create, review, and revise your Competence statement  (download a fresh worksheet here).

If you drafted a competence statement for the summer, ask yourself:

  • Is it still relevant to the challenges and opportunities on the horizon?
  • How might you refine your focus based on what you have learned?
  • How can I infuse my growth with the energy of my best summer learning experiences?

NOW, ask what resources and relationships you can tap into to help you sustain your agile learning habits more effectively.

NEXT, generate ideas for how you can engage and inspire your colleagues or team members to practice continuous learning and become more agile learners and leaders.

Guided by these questions, I’ll continue to connect with colleagues who share a passion and curiosity for staying learning agile. Whenever possible, I’ll be connecting in person and even better, while walking. In our current landscape, I’m also participating in and creating spaces for understanding differences of perspective and finding positive ways forward in uncertainty and volatility.

SoL #7 Turning Setbacks into Agile Comebacks: How to Maximize Success When Things Don’t Go as Planned

Pamela Meyer
This is the 7th installment of Pamela’s Summer of Learning Series.
I couldn’t have scripted this past year if I’d tried.
While training for my reclaimed passion for alpine ski racing in Colorado, I had a particularly harrowing crash and blew out my knee (ACL, MCL, tibia fracture—the works).
It happened almost on cue—just days after I had submitted the final manuscript for my book, Staying in the Game.
Even as I lay there on the mountainside waiting for what my fellow racers cheekily call the “meat wagon,” the irony wasn’t lost on me: Just as Staying in the Game was launching, I was pulled out of the game!
While none of us sign up for big setbacks, they often end up being opportunities to step back, regroup, and repriotize our energy and resources. Setbacks are also fertile ground for new learning and growth.
Here are a few of the biggest lessons I learned to help you turn your inevitable setbacks into even stronger agile comebacks:

Progress, Not Perfection

Thankfully, I found inspiration to start my comeback by reading the final proofs of Staying in the Game:
The director of the British cycling team, Sir David Brailsford, is legendary for his focus on “marginal gains.” He discovered that he and his team could exponentially improve results by making—and celebrating—1% improvements in a wide range of variables that impact performance. These have included sixteen gold medals in two Olympics and seven Tour de France wins in eight years.
If I made a little progress in some area each day or week (compassionately allowing for setbacks), I knew I would eventually achieve my goal of returning to snow.
Adopting a “progress, not perfection” approach to learning will help you maintain a growth mindset.
As you continue your leadership agility journey, continuous engagement is more critical than any illusory destination.
I say illusory because now more than ever, we know that whatever destination you set for yourself (e.g., understanding and integrating AI into your work) is like a mirage on the horizon—it will only change or move farther away as you get closer.

Celebrate Small Wins

We all need to see and acknowledge progress to stay engaged. This is especially true for long and complex endeavors that will likely include their share of setbacks.
“In their research of individual contributor and team engagement, Harvard’s Theresa Amabile and Steven Kramer found that even incremental progress toward shared goals and acknowledgment of accomplishments can make the difference between perseverance through obstacles and demoralized derailment.1  Acknowledgment of progress not only amplifies the meaning and purpose of our efforts but also makes it more enjoyable, two critical ingredients for long-term engagement.’ —From Staying in the Game.
The brain needs positive feedback to stay engaged. To support our learning success, the hypothalamus in the brain rewards us with a dose of dopamine, sometimes called “the happiness hormone.”

Find Hope in Other People’s Stories

On days when I was flagging or experienced a setback, I took heart in hearing and reading other people’s come-back stories.

I found inspiration in the queen of comeback stories, Olympic and World Cup Champion Lindsey Vonn.
Hearing the stories of other masters athletes who had recovered from far worse kept me going. The same applies to the inevitable obstacles and setbacks you will experience in your learning journey.

3 Ways to Make and Celebrate Your Progress

  • Ask for Help: When you encounter an obstacle or need a resource or sounding board, phone a friend, email a mentor, or post on your team platform. Not only will you benefit, but you will also give others permission to do the same and foster a culture of collaboration.
  • Make it Meaningful: Celebrating progress can be as small as raising a glass with a friend, announcing your milestone on your team call, or posting your success on LinkedIn. Most importantly, do it meaningfully while inviting people to cheer you on.
  • Pay it Forward: Now that I am fully recovered, I am keenly attuned to others in the rehab stage. If I see someone wearing the tell-tale post-op knee brace, I make it a point to engage and encourage them. Keep your eye out for opportunities to do the same for your colleagues. There’s nothing like hearing “it gets better” from someone who’s been there.

Bonus Resource

Read More of my comeback story and 11 Lessons  Learned in the Year Following My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. NOTE: Some lessons are  ACL-specific but can be applied to any setback.

SoL #6 Why AI Isn’t Enough to Improve Agile Performance: And What You Can Do About It

Pamela Meyer

This is the 6th installment of Pamela’s Summer of Learning Series.

One of the challenges in helping leaders develop the 3Cs of agility (Competence, Capacity, and Confidence) is that the emPHAsis is often on the wrong sylLAble.

In workplace learning and development, the primary focus tends to be skills and knowledge or:

Know Whats 

and

Know Hows

Skills and knowledge are key aspects of competence development; however, without Relational Knowledge, there is a good chance your new competencies won’t translate into improved performance. This is particularly true in volatile conditions requiring novel approaches and learning agility.

Why 50-90% of Change Initiatives Fail

One of the principal reasons 50-90% of mergers, acquisitions, and restructurings fail is the lack of understanding and respect for the relational knowledge embedded across organizations.

In the rush to realize short-term gains, organizations often overlook relational knowledge’s role in how people make sense of complex situations and get things done: with and through other people. 

Relational knowledge is unique because it can’t be stored in the cloud, accessed via AI, or acquired through a training program.

Relational Knowledge: What It Is and How You Can Develop It

Relational knowledge is unique because it involves our experience with other people. Unlike “know-hows” and “know-whats” this type of knowledge cannot be passed from one person to the next.

Me and Judy at Our Annual Brunch

For example, I can spend hours telling you about my favorite teacher from 8th grade, Judy Schneebeck (whom I visit each year; see photo), and how she impacted me. While you may know more about her, you won’t have gained relational knowledge. That kind of knowledge requires direct interpersonal interaction and is co-created.

Relational knowledge builds trust and shared engagement at the core of sustained performance in dynamic conditions.

While skills and informational knowledge are as essential as ever in the AI era, success in learning and leadership development depends on how we make sense of and make decisions based on that information—in other words, how we interact with it and each other.

When things don’t go as planned, your relational knowledge can ensure success.

In my book, From Workplace to Playspace: Innovating, Learning and Changing Through Dynamic Engagement, I expand on the importance of Relational Knowledge in uncertain times (p.55):

 

Five Ways to Develop Your Relational Knowledge

To develop and sustain relational knowledge, the best approach is to learn with and through others. Many of these strategies overlap those for developing your learning agility because they help you get out of your comfort zone and build your confidence in unfamiliar situations:

  1. Informal learning, such as through volunteering
  2. Cross-cultural collaborations
  3. Interdisciplinary teamwork
  4. Mentoring and coaching
  5. Expand and diversify your Relational Web

Bonus Resources

Three platforms for building online communities and fostering relational knowledge:

  • Ning(a robust platform I have used for building and sustaining learning communities)
  • Newer on the scene for community engagement is Mightynetworks
  • Patreon(geared to creatives who want to build community among their followers)

 

  • There’s Still Time! If your colleagues and team members could use a boost of inspiration, please share the #SummerOfLearning “Learning Letter” sign-up link: Share SOL Newsletter!

 

SoL #5 Reduce Uncertainty and Boost Agile Learning Success

Pamela Meyer

This is the 5th installment of Pamela’s Summer of Learning Series.

Embarking on any new endeavor can feel risky and scary. Fear of failure, looking stupid, not fitting in, and more keep many people from venturing out of their comfort zones.
Over the years of facilitating agile leadership events around the globe, one thing stands out:
Meaningful and transformative learning is relational, not transactional.
This is especially true when we are stretching to be more agile.
Whether responding to the unexpected and unplanned or tackling a new opportunity, we are entering new territory.
To be effective when we experience uncertainty and its companion, anxiety, we must challenge ourselves to become more comfortable being uncomfortable.
Research and your own experience show that one of the best ways to accomplish this is by venturing into new territory with a trusted friend or colleague.
If you have ever been lost traveling far from home, you know a fellow traveler can make the difference between an incredibly stressful experience and a delightful adventure. The same is true when we navigate the uncertainty of new territory in our work: Find a fellow traveler or learning buddy to reduce uncertainty, share your discoveries, and grow your confidence and engagement.
The Superpower of a Learning Buddy
After years of helping others take such learning risks, I wrote about the power of finding and participating in Community, in Staying in the Game.
The people in such communities can be your learning Superpower.
Find the Right Fellow Traveler for Each Trip
As I embarked on my Summer of Learning, I’ve paired up with my longtime friend and colleague, communication coach, Mari Pat Varga.
With her ever-evolving work in business and social impact, she is the perfect learning buddy for the journey into the world of AI.
Once again, I’ve found the value of not going into uncharted territory alone.
With my fellow traveler, getting lost is simply part of the adventure. We each have someone to ask “dumb” questions, share the results of our latest experiments, and attend workshops, and debrief.
Four Learning Success Strategies
Whether or not you have joined me on the #summeroflearning or simply want to renew your commitment to being learning agile, here are four reminders to support your success:
1. Find a fellow traveler who can be your learning buddy.
2. Commit to regular check-ins to swap discoveries and stay accountable to making progress.
3. Review the competence statement you drafted at the start of your journey (here is the template if you missed it).
4. Use the Embodied Reflection and Action framework to help you translate your insights into action (complimentary with your copy of Staying in the Game).
Bonus Resources
Here are a few more resources to help you build your learning agility:
  • My piece on the value of Tapping Your Relational Web to reduce uncertainty and boost your agility capability.
  • Interesting research showing how interpersonal relationships can affect perception (for example of how steep a slope is), with insights into how fellow travelers can help you be more effective in stressful situations.
  • Restoration and Inspiration. I’m a huge fan of sculpture parks to spark awe and wonder and renew my faith in humanity. My favorites so far are on the grounds of the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands and Kistefos outside of Oslo, Norway. Here is a list of 10 More to Add to Your Bucket List.
  • If your colleagues and team members could use a boost of inspiration, please share the #SummerOfLearning “Learning Letter” sign-up link: Share SOL Newsletter!
What are your sources of inspiration and restoration?

SoL #4 What my Mother Taught Me About Resiliency and Perseverance

Pamela Meyer

and 6 Ways to Build Your Learning Agility

 

This is the 4th installment of Pamela’s Summer of Learning Series.

Witnessing my mother’s resilience shortly after my father left was one of the biggest influences in my life.

Note My Mother Wrote to Inspire Herself

My brother and I were both teenagers and my mother, knowing she had many productive years ahead of her made a radical choice for the time. 

Her prospects were limited because she had been out of the workforce for most of her adult life.

Rather than react out of fear and take the first job she could get, she chose to do something for which she had no role model. 

At a time of incredible financial stress, and in an era when it was rare for adults to return to college, my mom dove into the uncharted waters of graduate school. 

I watched as she carried her books back and forth to the library, pre-internet, and set up shop each night on the kitchen table with her Underwood manual typewriter. 

On the home stretch, as she researched and wrote her graduate thesis, she posted a note on the bulletin board above the kitchen table to cheer her on, “Three pages a day!” it read.

The number was substantial and yet manageable. 

I watched each night as she set herself up and clack clack clacked out those three pages. 

And, when she finished, I cheered the loudest as she crossed the stage to accept her diploma and continue to a thriving professional career, that demanded two major geographic moves in midlife.

My Mom, Thriving After Grad School, and Me

Years later, after she passed, I came across the “Three Pages a Day!” note again when packing up her house. 

 

I’m sure she never imagined that it and her example would cheer me on to be resilient and persevere in my own learning and writing, three advanced degrees and five books later.

Perhaps not by coincidence, I have spent many years working with clients across industries, and mentoring adult graduate students as they chart their course through scary and rewarding new beginnings.

Whether or not you were lucky enough to have someone model learning agility, you can learn to make it a habit today.

Whether it is committing to your own “Three Pages a Day!” or any other seemingly small steps toward building your agility capability, trust they will add up to a big impact for yourself and those who share a stake in your success.

6 Ways to Build Your Learning Agility Habit

Learning and adapting in unfamiliar circumstances is the very definition of learning agility. It may seem counterintuitive to make a habit of learning agility, a capability we tap in the midst of the unexpected. However, as learning becomes a habit, your confidence in your ability to continue learning as conditions change will grow, too.

The manual Underwood typewriter model my mother used

Whether or not you were lucky enough to have someone model disciplined learning, you can be that person for yourself today. Here are a few lessons I learned:

 

1. Name and Claim Your “Why?” 

Our ability to name and claim our purpose as humans guides us through our most challenging times and can keep us motivated through disruptions large and small. 

When your commitment to your learning flags, pause to reengage with your reason for doing it in the first place. Your initial reason could be pure survival (as it was for my mother when she returned to graduate school). And it may also evolve, as I have seen happen for countless agile learners as they continue their educational and professional journey, who discover that the intrinsic joy of learning motivates them to keep going. 

 2. Make it a Priority

It’s as simple as that. I interviewed masters athletes to find out how they stayed healthy and fit enough to continue to compete long past the time their peers had retreated to the couch. The answer was simple and consistent: “I make it a priority.”

 3. Focus on Manageable Chunks

For example, Three Pages a Day was a small enough number to be manageable for my mom while writing her thesis, and yet they quickly added up. Determine what is manageable for you. Is it a set amount of time, a specific skill or topic you want to cover, a set of exercises you want to practice, or other experience you want to incorporate into your life?

4. Block Learning Time on Your Calendar 

Treat your learning time as important as your other commitments. I set a reminder that ensures I am available for my blocked time. It also gives me time to reschedule my learning block if something urgent needs my attention. The point is not so much when you keep you keep your commitment, but THAT you keep it.

5. Visualize Success

Your rewards may be extrinsic or intrinsic, or some combination. They could be as spectacular as walking across the stage to receive your diploma to the cheers of your family and friends, or as humble as being able to find your way while traveling abroad. They could be measured in the bottom line or in the positive energy in the lunch line. Visualizing the value of your learning and growth can keep you going when your commitment falters.

6. Celebrate Your Progress—Grow Your Learning Agility: Learning agility, or the ability to learn and adapt in changing circumstances naturally grows as you build your confidence in your ability to learn and adapt. Confidence grows over time, through incremental successes. It is important to recognize and celebrate that progress. This might mean mastering a new skill, building a new relationship, successfully navigating a challenging project, or overcoming a setback.

What ways work for you to make learning a habit and to build your learning agility confidence?

Bonus Resources

Here are a few resources to help you build your learning agility habits:
  • What is Learning Agility (and how can you develop yours)? Click the button to read my short intro to learning agility.
  • How to Develop New Habits: A recent Washington Post article on how readers develop a wide range of new habits.
  • How to Make Learning as Addictive as Social Media (Short, interesting, and funny, TED Talk by Luis von Ahn, co-founder and CEO of Duolingo)
  • If you want to leverage the power of streaks to develop your learning habit (or any other), the app Streaks allows you to set your goals and track your progress, with helpful reminders to keep you on track.
  • If your colleagues, and team members could use a boost of inspiration, please share the #SummerOfLearning “Learning Letter” sign-up link: Share SOL Newsletter!

 

SoL #3 Elevate Your Learning Agility Game: Unleash the Untapped Potential of This Powerful Strategy

Pamela Meyer

This is the 3rd installment of Pamela’s Summer of Learning Series.

For many years, I taught a business creativity course to adult undergraduate students at DePaul University. In addition to learning various creativity theories, I devoted half the class time to improvisation games and eventually fully improvised scenes. The class allowed students to develop a pre-defined competence of “Can apply the theory and practice of improvisation to enhance workplace creativity.”

These sessions first taught me the importance of naming and sharing your learning goals and, more importantly, the value of holding your goals lightly and leaving some room for surprises.

The Value to Naming and Sharing Your Learning Goals

Research shows that committing to specific goals AND sharing them with others greatly enhances your likelihood of achieving them. Your chances of success are even greater if you share those results with someone whose status or authority you respect (e.g., a manager, mentor, or colleague you admire). This is particularly valuable when venturing into new territory demanding learning agility. For workplace learning, it can be especially effective to:

  • • Draft and share your learning goals.
  • • Keep a learning journal or other record of your experiences and lessons learned throughout your endeavor.
  • • Share your progress and learning outcomes with a trusted friend, colleague, or mentor and, ideally, with a broader community, such as your team, or at your next Lunch & Learn session.

To get started, draft a short competence statement before you embark on your new learning adventure. You can download a competence statement template and example in the Summer of Learning Framework.

Distinguish Between Process and Performance Goals

As important as drafting learning goals is recognizing the learning that happens along the way to developing competence. These include expanding your network, becoming more comfortable learning in a new way, and even discovering talents you didn’t know you had.

In contrast, performance goals are the projected outcomes and impact of your learning. For example, will your new skills and knowledge help you increase sales, improve teamwork, or reduce time to market? In other words, “How will your new competence generate value for you and your stakeholders?”

Leave Room for Surprises

The growth that happens on our way to developing new competency is sometimes hard to predict, and these surprises can be the best part! Over the years teaching my creativity course, I witnessed and heard so many stories of transformation that I centered my doctoral research on the question, “What happens for people as they learn to improvise?” The findings inspired my book,  From Workplace to Playspace: Innovating, Learning and Changing Through Dynamic Engagement.

Success Story: How Starshine Got Her Groove Back

One woman’s journey stood out as especially surprising. In her first learning journal (which she permitted me to quote from using her nickname “Starshine”), she wondered why she had even registered for a class that included improvisation in the description. She described herself as “shy” and someone “who gets nervous in front of people” and “rarely speaks in class.” She lived into this identity for the first few weeks of class while still dutifully participating in all the class exercises, however uncomfortable they were. Then, one day, about halfway into the quarter, she was in a scene with two classmates, one well over a foot taller than she was. The improvisation scenario was a robbery taking place within a shoe store. Starshine, astonishing herself and her classmates, leaped into the scene with an imaginary gun and pulled the much taller male “shoe salesperson” into a playful headlock. The short scene quickly unfolded to peels of laughter as the formerly retiring Starshine took total control of the scene and “robbed” the improvised store of all of the latest styles in footwear.

 

In her journal that night, she described feeling “physically and mentally open for anything to come my way” and leaving the class with “a feeling of sureness, freedom, and optimism about me.”

In the following weeks and months, Starshine’s confidence within and beyond the classroom only grew. She later reported that she was now speaking up and sharing ideas more freely at work. She had joined Toastmasters and was even standing up to speak to her large congregation on Sundays, something she couldn’t have previously imagined.

Why It’s Important to Hold Your Learning Goals Lightly

While Starshine demonstrated the pre-defined course competence, I share her story as a reminder of the value of setting learning goals; we should hold those goals lightly. By that, I mean that if we only focus on our pre-defined destination, we might miss all the additional ways we are learning and growing along the way.

In addition to “enhancing her workplace creativity,” Starshine deepened her relationships with her learning colleagues by becoming willing to share more of her playful self, encouraging them to do the same. She became a valuable faith community member by speaking up and inspiring others. And perhaps most importantly, she found her voice and developed confidence in her ability to think on her feet and contribute positively even in unfamiliar settings.

It wasn’t an explicit learning goal, yet the most valuable aspect of Starshine’s experience was the confidence she developed in her ability to learn and adapt to new and changing circumstances: her LEARNING AGILITY.

Pro Tip: This is an important reminder for my talent development colleagues as they measure the impact of their L&D strategies: Be sure your evaluations include open questions to discover the unexpected aspects of the learning experience. They may end up being even more impactful than your planned outcomes!

Bonus Resources

Here are a few resources to help you craft and refine your learning goals:

SoL #2 From Wonder to Wisdom—Ask the Right Questions to Accelerate Your Learning

Pamela Meyer
This is the 2nd installment of Pamela’s Summer of Learning Series.
When I returned to alpine ski racing after a few decades of hiatus, I was instore for a big surprise. For starters, I was nervous that I would be one of the oldest racers on the hill. It turned out I was one of the youngest! Many of the racers out there were still going strong well into their 60s, 70s, and even 80s. That’s me on the left in the photo with my friend, Karl Landl, still racing at age 87.

This discovery sparked my curiosity. I wondered what kept these hardy souls coming out weekend after weekend, year after year, in all conditions to compete on our tiny Wisconsin race hill and countless others around the country. As you likely know by now, this curiosity led me to a years-long inquiry, and the discoveries I made resulted in my latest book, Staying in the Game.

Leading with Curiosity

From interviewing masters ski racers and other business leaders who embody agility, I soon discovered that the starting point of any successful and sustainable learning endeavor is to Lead with Curiosity.

Whether they are curious about how to increase their edge angles on steep turns or how to better navigate the twists and turns of a volatile market, the motivation is the same: continuous improvement and expanded understanding.

If your fast-paced life has crowded out space in your brain for wonder, this might be an excellent opportunity to slow down enough to ponder what you are curious about. Give yourself room to consider what is truly meaningful to you rather than everything you think you “should” be learning.

Curiosity is the secret sauce that helps all Embodied Agile Leaders stay motivated and relevant throughout their careers.

One of my favorite examples of curiosity from Staying in the Game is the career of renowned theater and film director Peter Brook. The New York Times called him “the greatest innovator of his generation” who pursued his passion with “relentless curiosity” throughout his life.

Brook led with curiosity starting at age seven, staging a four-hour production of Hamlet in his toy theater. This quest continued to his final production, aptly titled, “Why?” which opened in the fall of 2019, just months before the COVID-19 shut-down and less than two years before his death at 97.

The secret to his success?

It’s simple, he shared, “Never stop asking questions.”

Here are a few questions to get your curiosity wheels turning
  • Think about recent conversations, articles, shows, or podcasts you’ve been engaged with. What has stood out to you? What piqued your curiosity?
  • What new trends are getting your attention?
  • What are you hearing or reading about that you want to learn more about?
  • What challenges and opportunities are your customers grappling with?
  • What other questions do you have?
Use your answers to refine your learning focus in the coming months, with the Summer of Learning Framework as your guide.

Here’s where my curiosity has led me so far:

I promised to share my SoL process with you, hoping it keeps you engaged, but also to hold myself accountable.

Because I work with leaders and teams in various industries, from pharma to finance and beyond, I’m curious about how AI trends affect their businesses and how they work.

In addition to reading countless articles, participating in numerous webinars, and listening to more podcasts than is legally allowed, I am taking my inquiry to where it matters most: my clients.

In our conversations, I’m asking: “How is AI affecting your organization and team and your customers? How is it impacting you, personally? How are you using it? What are you learning? The answers I hear are as varied as the organization, specific team, and individual.

However, two themes are emerging:
  1. Almost every business is integrating AI into their products and services to improve efficiency and customization, particularly for their customers. Some are much further along than others.
  2. Employees are increasingly using AI to augment their work processes, but they must do so within strict company guidelines and follow necessary security protocols.

If you are interested in this topic, here are just two resources that I recommend:

  1. A recent Harvard Business Review panel, “Answering the Generative AI Skills Challenge”.
  2. Another great resource, especially if your work includes learning and development or coaching, is the Training Magazine Network. It has been offering several excellent webinars on AI learning trends and strategies.

In addition to learning about AI trends and resources, I have been experimenting with various AI features in the platforms and applications I already use. Here are two short insights from this past week and one lesson learned:

  • 1.  So far, my favorite feature is the Zoom Workplace AI Meeting Summary. Just turn it on, and it emails you a summary of your discussion, along with your agreed-upon action steps.
  • 2.  After several experiments with ChatGPT this past year, and more recently with Google Gemini I’ve concluded that, as a writer, I’m just not comfortable having someone or something else put words in my mouth. While sometimes more efficient, the results don’t sound like me and often bear little resemblance to what I was trying to say. At the same time, I am finding they help generating things like subject lines and headers and even to create summaries for longer pieces. You can also have some fun with it by doing things like playing the improv game, “One Word Story.” I’m also experimenting with Google Gemini’s image generator, which, so far, is less than impressive and doesn’t compete with Canva’s.
  • NOTE: Review the privacy statements on any AI app you use. With all AI products, it is wise to avoid entering any personal, proprietary, or confidential information. Many enterprise security systems have a firewall for GenAI sites.

Lessons Re-Learned: Progress, Not Perfection

I have been teaching and writing about this for years: Learning can be uncomfortable, messy, and sometimes even challenge our sense of ourselves as competent, capable people—especially in the workplace where the pressure to appear competent and in control can deter us from enthusiastically venturing into new territories.

Embodied Agile Leaders (EALs) model learning agility by courageously embodying the learning process. They don’t wait until they have attained a level of mastery to share their learning. Just because I know the discomfort of new learning in my bones doesn’t mean I’m immune to the temptation to defend myself against it.

One of the biggest challenges I am experiencing as I play with GenAI tools and new digital engagement strategies is not the actual technical learning or the “how-to” aspect. It’s that venturing into new territory in a more visible way feels a bit vulnerable and challenges my identity as someone who is fluent in all that is latest and greatest. This is an uncomfortable and wonderful experience to have as it is essentially what I ask the leaders I work with to do as they develop their agility capability. I’m learning to give myself some grace to become more comfortable with being uncomfortable in my own learning process, and I hope you do, too.

 

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SoL #1 Summer/Season of Learning Kick-Off

Pamela Meyer

Stylized ice cream cone with a cloud for ice cream, pink cone and blue background with the text "what are you learning this summer?"

This is the 1st installment of Pamela’s Summer of Learning Series.

A friend shared that she and her team have dubbed the season their “Summer of Learning.”

She works in an industry that is typically slower in the summer months. Rather than simply using their extra time to catch up and get ready for the fall season, they are taking advantage of this opportunity to understand the latest industry trends, learn new technology, develop new skills, and—most importantly—share their discoveries with their colleagues and deepen their culture of learning.

Invitation to Join the Summer of Learning

As we kick off the official start of summer in the northern hemisphere, my friend inspired me to embark on my own Summer of Learning, and I want to invite you to join me!

You don’t need to wait until summer to start your journey. Your season of learning can begin anytime!

If you are like me, you may have at least a few new trends you’ve meant to explore more deeply, skills you’d like to build or refresh, books you want to read, and likely relationships that need some time and attention, all of these can be part of your Summer of Learning!

In this spirit of furthering my journey of learning:

  • I’ve begun a deeper dive into AI resources and trends, especially regarding leadership agility and talent development.
  • I’ve also blocked out time each week to reconnect with friendships that hibernated over the winter.
  • And, I am planning to brush up on my Spanish with 10-20 minutes of Duolingo daily.

My Summer of Learning also includes exploring ways to improve the value and engagement of this newsletter for you and your team by sharing more fresh ideas for you to share with your team as you tackle increasingly complex issues and prepare for an increasingly dynamic future.

Commitment

In this endeavor, I am learning the same lesson the Embodied Agile Leaders I wrote about in Staying in the Game taught me: good intentions don’t always translate into action. It takes Commitment.

If you want this summer to be different from your past summers, which went by too fast, I hope you’ll join me. I could use some learning buddies!

Get Started with the Summer of Learning Framework

It’s simple to get started. Download and review the four-stage Summer of Learning Framework Worksheet, inspired by my 20+ years teaching in the innovative competency-based program at DePaul University.

To maximize your impact and chances of success, I encourage you to share it with your team members, colleagues, and friends. It will be a great springboard for future conversations and help you stay accountable.

If you haven’t already, please sign up for my Summer of Learning email series HERE to receive regular prompts and ideas to spur your learning and imagination throughout the summer;