Learning agility, a core career and life skill, is the practice of regularly seeking new experiences, applying feedback, and reflecting on lessons learned, to keep growing professionally and personally.
“Learning How to Learn”
Learning agility, in a nutshell, “learning how to learn.” George Hallenbeck of the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) defines four key components of learning agility:
- Seeking. Developing learning agility requires an intentional willingness to immerse yourself in new and challenging situations that broaden and expand your experiences.
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Sense-Making. Learning from experience is a highly active and ongoing process marked by curiosity and a willingness to experiment and even fail.
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Internalizing. Seeking feedback and taking time to reflect are critical for deepening insight and embedding critical lessons for recall and application.
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Applying. Learning agile individuals excel at “adaptive learning,” accessing principles and rules of thumb from previous experiences and applying them to navigate new and challenging situations.
When you consider the major disruptors we’re dealing with in today’s global economy, learning agility stands out as a core strength needed for any professional in any field. Things will keep changing, rapidly–and, therefore, we need to keep learning.
And not just learn, but learn in a strategic, deliberate manner, in the nature of Hallenbeck’s steps listed above.
