Written by: Ian Gibbs, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
On the second Tuesday of every month, instead of sitting at her desk managing her team, Anna spends three hours in the meeting room performing miracles.
She’s not a magician.
She doesn’t have supernatural powers.
But, in her own words, she spends the time “surpassing myself, achieving things I used to think were beyond me”.
This is because Anna is a member of a Learning Club – a counterintuitive personal development accelerator.
Counterintuitive because in a Learning Club there are no experts, no trainers, and no course material. Nevertheless, the benefits are manifold and the results speak for themselves. See my previous article ‘7 Reasons Why You Should Start A Learning Club’.
Learning Clubs are based on the principle of Self-Directed Learning – that under the right conditions, each one of us is capable of achieving many great things. And that’s exactly what Learning Clubs provide – the right conditions that create an environment ideal for personal growth.
Its structure helps members to assess their professional development needs, create a plan of how to start acquiring them, get the motivation to carry it out, be held accountable, and regularly evaluate their progress, adjusting their plan if necessary.
You’re probably already aware of how this works. Much of it is common sense. But what most people overlook is the importance of continuity – staying on track and maintaining focus. The Learning Club structure holds its members accountable for keeping to their plan over a period of several months and meeting their regular monthly milestones of achievement – far enough out of their comfort zone to create real growth. The team spirit of a Learning Club encourages each member to go further and faster than they ever could have done by trying to do it alone. If you know you have to give a monthly progress report to your group, you’re much more likely to prioritise it.
And the great news is that although Learning Clubs work best with a facilitator, they can also be self-run. That’s right! You could set up your own right now, today. All you need is to have a clear idea of the anatomy of a Learning Club, find a few other people who want to make the most of themselves and you’re good to go!
So the rest of this article is about just that. Let’s start.
The anatomy of a learning club
Members
The ideal number of members is four. This is the optimum balance between social input and time. Less than four and the variety of opinions, social pressure, and team spirit is diminished. More than four, the time taken for each session increases exponentially and with five or six people a session can easily take up a whole day.
Responsibilities
Once you have your quorum, each member has to accept two responsibilities. The first is to be responsible for their own personal learning plan and their success in implementing it. The second, and equally important, is to be responsible for supporting the other members to achieve their goals. For most of us, being in a group where everyone is positively supporting you and encouraging you to push on is a unique experience. This is just one of the many reasons why Learning Clubs work so well.
Duration
I have run Learning Clubs where each session lasts just ninety minutes. I even know of Lunchtime Clubs that cram it in within an hour. However, this means there is constant pressure to keep conversations short which can be very frustrating. I recommend setting aside two to three hours for a worthwhile session. Believe me, it’s time well invested.
Structure
Regardless of the members and what they are working on (each member works on their own personal development project), the structure is always the same and is comprised of four phases:
Reports
Support
Spotlight
Pledges
Reports
Each member has an allotted time (about 10 minutes) to present their progress since the previous session. They must explain what has worked, what hasn’t worked, any surprises or unexpected challenges.
Support
After each report, it is the responsibility of the other members to provide support in the form of questions and observations. By listening attentively to a member’s report, the others should be able to tell where the member is struggling, what they are overlooking, or where they are letting themselves down. During this phase, the member is ‘cross-examined’ in the friendliest way possible. This can help the member to see things from another perspective — to discover self-limiting behaviours or beliefs and to deal with them.
Spotlight
A Learning Club isn’t just for discussion. The Spotlight phase is to provide the opportunity for one member to deep-dive into their project in any way that is beneficial. This could be a practice, a role-play or a presentation. If a member has a sales pitch coming up, Learning Club is an ideal place to test it out. If a member has a difficult conversation in their diary, they can experiment with it here. Because you are guaranteed of getting supportive and critical feedback, Spotlights can be profound learning experiences.
Pledges
At the end of each session, each member negotiates with the others to set their own objectives to have achieved by the next session. The reason for the friendly negotiation is to keep the objectives in the sweet spot – not too easy yet not too difficult. These should be written down and shared with the other members. They will be the basis for the reports at the beginning of the next session in one month’s time.
This is the anatomy of a Learning Club. As you can see, there is no mysterious or magical component. Nevertheless, after a few sessions, just like Anna, you start to notice how much progress you can make when you stay on track and get continued support from your peers.
Whether it's your leadership, your communication skills, or your work-life balance, if you’re interested in trying a Learning Club out for yourself you could start now, or you can wait for next month when I’ll explain some key tips for starting and how to avoid a few common pitfalls to make sure your first Learning Club experience is as successful as you deserve.
In the meantime, all the best and keep learning!
Ian Gibbs, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Ian Gibbs is a leading expert in learning techniques and personal development. Through his talks, books and workshops, Ian helps individuals and organisations develop better strategies for learning how to overcome obstacles and achieve goals they thought were beyond them. He is the founder of Learning Clubs which are rapidly gaining notoriety for being a powerful personal development accelerator. Ian's mission is to help people understand and apply everything that science knows about how we develop new behaviour and skills but which is sadly so often overlooked and so keep up in today's rapidly changing world.
