Why is learning so hard? In the new economy where innovation, skill development, and learning are the only way to circumvent personal obsolescence, being an agile learner is crucial.

We are occasionally introduced to people who barely register on our radar screens. Tom, a low-level manager, was just such a person 20 years ago: medium build, medium height, ordinary dresser, and nothing to catch the eye or make one think that this person would be intelligent or on the fast track to success. Initially perceived as an alert, friendly manager, people thought of him as unexceptional. His boss, however, thought he had potential and invested in getting him some training.

Tom was 30 years old and a mediocre manager, but at 50, he is now a leader who is respected and admired. Instead of slowing down as he got older, Tom took the basic work competency he gained from coaching and continued to learn at a rate normally associated with children and young adults.

Research shows that fewer than 10 percent of professionals are agile enough learners to quickly process an experience and apply these lessons to new situations. Tom, however, moves quickly to process experiences and apply them to his work situation. In the new economy where innovation, skill development, and learning are the only way to circumvent personal obsolescence, why is the number of agile learners so small?

In other words, why is it so hard to learn? Max Bazerman of Harvard suggests three basic obstacles to learning. (1) This brief summary adds seven additional insights gleaned from face-to-face experience with hundreds of clients.

THE NEED FOR BALANCE

For those who have achieved some level of professional success, the idea that their skills could be lacking might not compute. As Bazerman reminds us, balance theory emphasizes that we want consistency when we organize our thoughts and think about our expertise. If your boss of five years has told you that you are a top worker, and then a new manager comes in and lets you know in so many words that she is not impressed by your expertise, that will not be easy to accept. To maintain our cognitive balance--our need to believe we are consistent--we tend to avoid hard or painful truths.

If It Ain't Broke, Why Fix It? Generally, most people reach a level of competency between four and six years into their vocations, after which they slow down and eventually stop learning. This is, in part, because we have been praised in the past for our work prowess. According to reinforcement theory, we tend to continue the same work ways that brought positive rewards in the past--recognition, raises, and promotions. As a result, most people unconsciously develop a theory of personal success, and once that theory is in place, they build a superstructure of ideas and practices around it. When they get different information, they think, "this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. What I've done in the past has worked well and there's no reason it won't in the future."

Mistakes Were Made, But Not By Me. You have probably relied on your way of doing things for years. Receiving negative feedback about your performance means that you have probably made some costly mistakes in the past, which is unsettling. Interpersonal theory suggests that getting negative feedback causes us to avoid the person who gave it, filter information to him in the future, and constrict our thinking. It is no surprise that most of us will try to discredit the truth about our deficiencies and become impervious to self-correction.

THE BARRIERS TO LEARNING

Thankfully, no one faces all the barriers to learning at any given time. Most people are quite capable of dealing with a barrier one at a time, and that is the best way to approach them. Identifying the one or two barriers that consistently pose difficulty for us is therefore very important. To succeed, it is necessary to deal with barriers the way we deal with all aspects of learning: by taking baby steps.

Missing the Big Picture. When learning new competencies, some people are so wrapped up in the details and the concrete specifics of a new skill that they miss the big competency picture. Our education tends to be highly specialized, making us all incrementalists. As a result, we often fail to fully integrate a new skill into our toolkit and competency system. Thinking that learning is merely an item-by-item matter leads to mediocre results and often results in the ultimate rejection of a new skill.

Lack of Effective Information Gathering Tools. Even if people know that they need to add skills to their toolkit, they're often hamstrung by a lack of information-gathering skills. Among the tools necessary in today's volatile environment are intelligence networks, the ability and willingness to ask for help, the expertise to find needed tools on the Internet, and the know-how to both critique information available on the Internet and identify truly cutting-edge tools. Those are a lot of demands for already stressed professionals.

Ineffective Networks. In spite of the widespread emphasis on networking, recent studies show there is little interaction across business units, organizational functions, and office locations. That makes it difficult to develop multi-function intelligence networks. Building effective intelligence networks also takes time and persistence. As a result, most networks are echo chambers: peopled by those who are friends and whose beliefs, norms, and skills similar to our own, and who work in our narrow silo.

Difficulty in Gaining Developmental Feedback. In most organizations, there is a two-way conspiracy of silence that makes a key skill development factor--honest feedback--nearly impossible to get. In addition, most of us have been trained to believe that asking for feedback implies incompetence, inferiority or dependence. Though some managers will attempt to give feedback many bosses think their employees will respond to the mildest criticism with stonewalling, anger, or tears. (2) And there might be a reason for that; experience shows that few managers know how to shape feedback for development.

Taking on Outsized Expectations. Attempting to learn an important competency in one fell swoop can bring you back to square one very quickly You get overloaded, get push-back from colleagues when they see you working differently, or you have difficulty managing the inevitable fine tuning of the skill. We want to hit the home run but forget that a series of singles will not only add up, but win the game.

Failing to Persevere. Mistakes are inevitable in skill development, and since most of us focus first on what is going wrong, we get frustrated by the experience. Perseverance does not come easily to action-oriented, results-driven professionals. They are rewarded for getting a job done and moving on to the next job. Furthermore, research shows that people who think intelligence is innate and fixed--and that is the vast majority of professionals--find mistakes demoralizing, which is a serious deterrent for perseverant behavior.

Not Realizing that New Skills Require New Language. New skills, especially those such as managing projects and conflicts, leading, networking, influencing, and working with clients, require new language for professionals. Old ways of talking will not work with many of the workplace's new demands. Instead, conversational leadership will be built on effective protocols and thoughtful scripts. The lack of training in language technologies means that creating new talk and conversation competencies is a dilemma that is not even on the radar screen. No wonder two of the leading business thought leaders, Chris Argyris and Peter Senge, say that communication skills are the greatest need among businesspeople for the 21st century.

CONCLUSIONS

When discussing his success over the last 20 years, Tom focuses on his early difficulties in gathering the best information he needed for his own strategic development. To resolve the barrier, Tom began with his network, reaching out to more and more people and institutions. Over the years, he developed a contact list of the major experts in his field, including knowledgeable vendors and university programs with faculty expertise that related to his own business competence and needs. He keeps up with all of them, attends related university conferences, and buttonholes the experts. He has become the business expert to those research experts, and they regularly update him on their research. Furthermore, he's often invited to speak at conferences, which allows him to network with other knowledgeable people.

Learning barriers respond to the multiplier effect. In financial terms, every improvement has a more than proportionate impact on the total result. Therefore, a very small step toward resolving a single barrier can jump-start a series of events that might lead to ultimate success.

Notes

(1.) Max Bazerman, "Putting Negotiation Training to Work," Harvard Update, September 2005.

(2.) Jay Jackman and Myra Strober, "Fear of Feedback," Harvard Business Review, April 2003.

DAN ERWIN, PhD, is a specialist in learning and performance improvement. Over the past 25 years, he has coached more than 450 officers, executives, and managers from leading American corporations by using his original, long-term, research-based development program. To contact Erwin, see his Web site and blog at www.danerwin.com.