Several years ago, I facilitated a series of training programs for a client. On my first visit, the training coordinator, Sharon (not her real name), shared the story of Charles (not his real name), who steadfastly refused to voluntarily attend company sponsored training programs. When asked why he never attended training, his reply was, “If the company wants me to attend, they’ll send me.” On my third visit a number of months later, Sharon asked, “Do you remember, Charles?” Replying yes, she proceeded to tell me that he was no longer with the company after a second round of layoffs. “Too bad he didn’t voluntarily attend training, it might have helped him survive the cut,” explained Sharon.
This scenario raises the question of why such an attitude might exist. While there are a number of possible causes (e.g., lack of motivation, lack of time, too much work, etc.), the notion of responsibility (i.e., who is responsible for us to learn) appears particularly germane here. Do we, as individuals, have responsibility for our own learning, or do others (i.e., our employers) have this responsibility?
Charles’ attitude is one of passivity, the expectation that our learning will be organized, structured and scheduled by others. Implicit in this expectation is that everything we need to learn will be provided for us.
The passive attitude has been subtly ingrained in us from our earliest schooling through graduate school. Our curricula of study have been planned for us, as have our courses. Granted, we have a choice of curriculum and some small choice of a few elective courses. Once those decisions have been m made, however, we typically are given a course syllabus listing the books to be read, the exams to be taken and the projects to be completed. We dutifully sit back and take notes as the teacher/professor drones on. For those who move into the corporate world, this passive approach continues in corporate training programs where workshop agendas outline the topics to be covered, the activities/exercises to be completed, and the time allotted for each. Again, we dutifully sit back as the instructor guides us through the workshop.
While this characterization may be overstated for a given course or workshop, overall it does reflect the predominate nature of our public and private educational system in the U.S. from elementary school through college, only to be repeated in corporate and professional training. One of the unintended outcomes of this process is the cultivation and nurturing of a passive attitude toward learning, e.g., I’m not responsible for my learning, the system is. This attitude is not only myopic but, in some cases, self-destructive. In the wrong situation at the wrong time, such an attitude can be career limiting (e.g., George.)
What is needed is a paradigm shift. A shift in how we view our learning from being passive about our learning to being proactive and accepting responsibility for what, how and when we learn. That is hard to achieve, however, when we’ve been programmed from childhood to approach our learning passively. Self-directed learning provides such a paradigm shift.
