Hello, welcome everyone to the topic of the agile learning culture. And before we go into any details of this interesting topic, let me briefly introduce myself. My name is Tina.Um I'm currently sitting close to Berlin in Germany, very sunny weather outside and I'm very happy and glad to be here this morning. And um currently, I'm a co-founder of a newly founded text data. It's called Neo and I have a background on the field of education science with a focus on corporate learning. So during the last years, I was working in international context as an innovation consultant and an hr coach and we did a lot of training all the time and that was quite frustrating because the training always went good. People were very excited to learn something new about agile ways of working about leadership styles, for example. And then they went back the next day to their working place and everything somehow was forgotten already. So we thought about that there must be a different approach, a different way, how we can have a sustainable learning approach in a corporate environment. And that's why we founded Malu and we aim for a different approach of learning in the corporate context.

So nowadays, it's neither we work or we learn. And in case we learn, we don't create value for the organization. So learning is always something what it's quite low priority. And when I have my to do list, learning always is up and the bottom and falls apart when there is a lot of other stuff to do. So how can we change that? How can we have more learning integrated into our daily work? And this is what I'm trying to focus on right now in my daily work. So we talk about an agile learning culture in this context. And what do we mean exactly by it? And what are the benefits? Because when we talk about learning, it's always hard to put it in, in numbers. For example, having a return of investment. When we talk about learning is a bit difficult, there are so much like human processes which are hard to measure, but there are still ways how we can see their benefits in having a learning culture integrated into the organizations. So this is just a very brief overview. So we have three areas of benefits. Talking about the learning culture. The first one is mastering vuc A ru A means we live in a very volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment.

All of us experienced this last year during COVID, everything changed so rapidly that organization needed to change nearly everything, how they work together or maybe the corporations, they have everything changed so much that we needed to adapt very quickly. And in case we have a learning culture in, in our own organizational culture, then it's much more easier to adapt, flexible and quick on these changes, which are happening all the time around us, we when we have the ability to learn how to learn, can adapt as a person even more quickly.

And this is something we take in our organizations as well. So the organization benefits as well from our personal adaptability and we can even handle new challenges, new topics very quickly. The second benefit, I call it a bit polemic innovation everywhere. Because all the time when we learn something new, we see the world slightly differently, we have new knowledge which is opening up quite a new world for us. Um For example, there's this common um approach. When you learn a new language that you learn in your world, and this is what's happening when you learn even small stuff, which is new for you, you are able to see these things which are around you, your daily routines, your processes slightly differently. So and you see ways for improvement all the time when you learn something new. So then in can happen in your organization, not just in the product development department, for example, even in the smaller teams or when we talk about processes, there can be there is room for improvement everywhere. And in case we all the time learn something new, we can see these improvements which we can then tackle on later. And the last benefit. Um Happy employees is um a bit polemic. But what, what does an organization do, which has the learning culture integrated?

It gives me my and me as a person room for bringing my own interests at work I can do somehow a job crafting, I can tackle the issues. I would like to work. And so I am, yeah, let's say I'm very loyal to my organization when I have the possibility to grow as a person in the organization and not just outside where people have, for example, a lot of hobbies or second jobs, which they just do um without payment, but because they are interested in it and when I can do all the stuff inside my organization somehow, then it's probably there that I will stay with that organization as long as it fits to me.

So, and now let's go a bit deeper. So what exactly is the agile learning culture and which learning approaches are behind it? So it's basically three steps. Um We talk about whoever is interested in the more scientific approach. We talk about inquiry based learning, social learning and the agile learning concept, which is not yet scientific proven, I must say because it's quite new right now. But what does it mean for your personal daily routine? So we have an agile learning character. When there is a task or a challenge all the time, you have something to do. And most of the time you have quite a routine, you already have some knowledge because you did it in the past. But let's say now the this time we are approaching it differently, there is a task coming up. For example, you have to write a new blog article for the website. So and you did it in the past. So you just start doing it. But in an agile learning culture, you then that ask yourself, what can I do better this time? What can I do differently? So maybe you do some research, how other people are doing it. Maybe you get some new inspiration, how you could do it better than, than you did the last time. This can be even just small improvements.

Maybe you are doing it this time with less effort or less time spending on it or are you doing it in co creation with a colleague together? And it's an even better blog article in the end. And this new approach is already quite a learning. So it's not just this big thing, we need to read a book or we need to have a three months course somewhere. And then we get a certificate. We have so many small learning effects even in our daily life. And this is what an agile learning culture is all about. So having these small learning step by step. And then in the second step, talking about them, interaction and exchange is necessary to have these yeah vibrant culture within your organization so that I will talk, talk about it later, how to implement that you can have a meeting for with your colleagues every week where it just an agenda point where you talk about.

What am I learning so far? What maybe do I have some requests? Do I have a challenge? But I am not able to solve myself? So then you come to dig deeper and integrate these agile learning culture within your organization. And when we talk about the agile learning approach in general, we talk about the rapid transfer from theory to practice. So I immediately asked myself, what can I do differently now in my daily practice? It's not just that I have these three months call and then it takes a lot of time to implement some new led some new knowledge in my daily practice. No, I all the time every day, ask myself, what do I do differently today than I did yesterday? Because something new is came up during the day and then we have this short and iterative learning loops how we call them. So now let's go into the three steps which are necessary or the three levels um which are necessary to, yeah, start to implement your agile learning culture within your organization. So at first start yourself, so try to become a role model for everyone else. Be the ambassador for learning in your organization. And that starts with personal mastery so-called. What are your topics of interest? What would you like to learn that can be even something? What is not related to your work?

Maybe you want to learn a new language, maybe you wanna learn. Um I don't know how to cook stuff and that can be something totally different. So I have put a list on my desk where I know these are my interests. This is what I want to learn this year and I'm doing every day, a little piece of it to come closer to gain some knowledge into this field. And then I asked myself, so in case of self-regulation, what are my best learning conditions? How do I learn effectively? Because when we are honest, we all the time ask ourselves how we can sleep better, how we can exercise more effectively or how we can eat more healthy. But who ask how we can learn even better. There are different styles of learning. There are different conditions. Maybe for me, I prefer to have a silent room where there is no music or no distraction at all. But there are other people who like to have some TV running in the background. I don't know or who have it. Like three people on a desk discussing all the time. So maybe you can do some self refraction for yourself and ask yourself under which conditions do I learn best? And then the next aspect is automatically in addition, coming to that, how makes you, what makes you feel good during learning? Because learning can be fun.

And um even when it's hard to believe because people have sometimes bad experience from the from the school history, we can ask us what makes me feel like a joy in learning, how do I reach flow? Um Whoever is interested in the flow theory, I can really recommend to have a look at the at a guy he's difficult to pronounce. It's chic Mihaly. And um he is defining how everyone can reach a flow situation where it just feels good to learn. And then when you ask yourself these things and try to, yeah, come closer to, to them learning somehow integrates in your own daily life. It can be in the morning, you just start to have a short uh news flash with your papers you are interested in. And then maybe during the lunch break, you have a quick chat or a talk with an expert in the field you are interested in. And then in the evening you do some journaling or something like this. So all these little things help yourself to become a role model in the field of learning and personal mastery. And then in the end, what is motivating you? So do some goal setting and really think big. Where do you wanna go? What are you able to achieve when you have reached your goals? Maybe when you want to learn a new language, your goal is finally to live in that country.

And you just have a big uh printed out a big picture of that symbol somehow in the town in front of your desk. And this is motivating you every day to really sit down and have some yeah, some vocabulary training. And now imagine yourself, you are quite good. You have integrated the learning into your daily life and what's next because we want to bring it on our organizational level. So the next step would be the team. So now it's about talking about learning within your team. And there are some essential pillars, let's say, which are necessary to talk about first. And um we talk about vision, vision and purpose when we, when we work together in a team because all together define your reason to exist and the future outlook on where you want to go together as a team. So this is something what is motivating your team as well? It's kind of bringing your team together because you ask yourself, why do I get up in the morning? And what is the purpose? What which, which work do we do here, which we get done every day to enhance, to bring value to the organization to satisfy our customer. And um yeah, where do we see us in the future as a team?

So while we're talking about these things, you come closer to the how we call it collaboration setup because usually there is a just a cooper operation in teams. So we hand over small work tasks to each other, but we are not collaborating um where we are just more than the sum of its part that we really want to work together. And for collaboration aspects, you can start and making your knowledge map. So make visible which knowledge you already have in your teams. A lot of knowledge is so much hidden because it is not part of our role of our job description, which we currently have. So create a map, hang it up and you will already see that there's much more in you than just for the daily task you need to do right now because these daily tasks they can change all the time. We know it, we experience that products will change. But what is not changing is that you are giving knowledge to each other, you are talking together and during these conversations, you are really getting closer together as a team and you learn from each other. So the next step, the communication is already integrated into these thoughts because you already when talking about collaboration and about your purpose, you there are some values plopping up. So how do you want to work together as a team?

Usually we define like five team values which are important to everyone and which holds us close together as a team that can be something like um honest, that can be something like integrity. So this is stuff which you can also hang up in your, in your office or you have it online on a, on a micro or neural board. So this is helping you to build up a team identity, which is necessary to have a psychological safe space and in a psychological, safe space, it's much more easier to learn because you are not afraid of making mistakes. You are not afraid of asking question of speaking up when you have something in mind, but you are not sure can I tell or not. So all these things are helping to create that space which allows you to really have a learning culture within your team. And then the last one take some time to get inspiration outside of your organization, outside of your country. Have a look at different industries. What is out there? What is inspiring your team that doesn't need to be necessary other teams that can be something what is like, I don't know, inspired by nature that can be something, what is inspired by your favorite movie. So what's happening out there?

What is somehow inspiring your work as a team and what can you learn from that? So this is something that you can usually do. We have, for example, once per month, an inspiration Friday where just everyone is presenting these new things where something just the sparkles coming up and then we talk about, OK, it's interesting. What can we learn about it? So, and now let's say we have it integrated in the team, but we are just a small team and the company is much bigger. So what's now the next step? What do we need to do to scale it? And then there are some condition coming conditions into the right place. So we need to create a new role. So within the organization, we need to find someone who likes to be responsible for spreading the learning culture. This can be an ambassador from one of the learning first learning team, for example, maybe just have time for a few hours and not like fully responsible, but someone who is helping other teams to come into the same mindset to come into the same spirit of learning every day. And then we need to integrate peer learning in the company organization. So we need to offer time for exchange based on interest, find a way to connect people and a lot of digital tools can help with that.

And that can mean that there is like every Friday, every week, there is the afternoon off just to bring people together to offer them time to do some exchange based on their learning interests. So when you have organization which are um differently organized, they have groups, interest groups of interest, they have working out loud communities, communities of practice and they can, for example, just have a afternoon where they talk about their topics and this can end in changed meeting routines.

So we have our standard meetings every day or every week. And during these meetings just integrate one agenda point talking about our current learning process. So I can say, hey, I'm Tin. And uh today I want to share with you that yesterday, I watched a movie about um let's say the German start up scene and I learned something about investments. So and then OK, it's fine. Next one is sharing. So, but then it's in the room, it's speaking out loud and everyone knows when there is something coming up, there can be a question they can ask myself and this is kind of a cultural change how we approach learning. And we for an organization, it's important to align these learning aspects somehow. So consider the individual learning goals in alignment with the strategic company objectives. So there can be two times a year, for example, uh Strategic Vision Workshop where we think about, OK, where do we wanna go as a company? And how can we align that with the individual learnings from our people? And as the last slide, sorry, I'm done yet, tech solutions can be a learner's best friend. And this is from my own perspective that everything what is happening right now is really, yeah, accelerating these learning approaches.

We have A I BASED solutions with they are supporting the highly individual learning aspects. We have the blocked and technology, which is kind of creating a way to document our learning progress in a platform independent way. And as well, we have the digital currencies who can create an additional incentive to share knowledge so that we can tackle the challenges of our time as a global entity. So thanks a lot. 20 minutes were tough. I wish you a good rest of the week. And yeah, maybe reflect later on, what are your personal takeaways and feel free to connect with me on linkedin? And thanks for listening. Thank you all. Goodbye. See you.