Understanding your Learning Power profile

hello

this is stefan he studies business at

the university of technology sydney

over the last semester he participated

in a course called management research

project in this course stefan performed

sora research on a current industry

topic in his work he focused on legal

issues related to the rise of the

sharing economy his goal was to identify

challenges for legislators on the way

into a shared future

based on rigorous research he was able

to draft a report that gives valuable

recommendations to governments around

the world on how to enable the sharing

economy to prosper and at the same time

mitigate risks that come hand in hand

with this development

nevertheless

the aim of this video is not to give you

insights on stefan's research but to

show you how he has improved as a

learner over the course of the last 12

weeks

in the first week of class stefan was

introduced to clara

and noah that's unfortunately not a girl

in his class

clara is a tool that helps you to

understand and improve your capacity as

a learner at the beginning of the

semester stefan completed the clara

survey

based on various questions he received

his personal clara spidergram on there

his abilities as a learner are presented

and assessed along eight different

dimensions these dimensions aim at

creating awareness of one's current

learning identity and purpose it also

gives an idea of improvement and helps

to develop strategies for future change

extremely important for stefan's

learning journey was the first

conversation with his coach mingming

together they looked at his profile and

talked about the various dimensions by

asking questions mingming enabled him to

interpret his clara profile identify

strengths and weaknesses and develop

strategies for future improvement

stefan scored very high on the

dimensions creativity curiosity and

sense making

this was very encouraging for him

because he has one big dream in his life

he wants to become a successful

entrepreneur

these strengths will help him to learn

new things appreciate uncertainties and

identify potential business

opportunities

really surprising to stefan were the

comparably low scores on hope and

optimism as well as belonging he

actually sees himself as a very positive

person who approaches learning

challenges with a can-do attitude and

the appreciation for new learning

opportunities

also stefan considers himself as a very

open and outgoing person and thinks that

he has access to good networks of people

with similar learning objectives that

help him along his learning journey

however his coach ming-ming found a

great explanation for this surprising

outcome given the fact that at this

particular point in time stefan had only

been to australia for roughly two weeks

the low scores on these two particular

dimensions were not a big surprise to

the coach

mingling explained that this only

reflects the challenges and fears that

come hand in hand with such a big change

in life

moving to a new country is always

difficult the coach predicted that the

scores in these dimensions will rise

throughout the semester as stefan will

settle in and get to know new people

another big surprise for stefan was his

low score on mindful agency

the conversation with his coach showed

that he is very well aware of the fact

that it's not very thoughtful and

organized when it comes to learning

stefan usually approaches his learning

very spontaneously and his planning and

structuring is a waste of time the same

applies to active reflection on his

learning activities

the coaching made really clear to him

that this is a true weakness and one of

the reasons why he continuously

struggles with deadlines and

consequently has to pull exhausting

all-nighters

realizing this weakness was really

important and valuable for stefan he

decided to work on his mindful agency

throughout the semester by structuring

his work in a better way and using tools

like to-do lists or gantt charts for his

tasks at uts at the end of the semester

stefan completed the second clara

profile

hope and optimism as well as belonging

went up considerably ming wing's

forecast became a reality having settled

in in sydney and failing feeling very

comfortable with the new environment had

a very positive effect on these two

dimensions

also the score in mindful agency

increased a bit reflection on a regular

basis as well as being more structured

in terms of working really paid off not

a single all-nighter was needed to

finish the assignments of the last

semester

one really great insight was

that the combination of extremely high

curiosity and a weakness in mindful

agency represents kind of a problem on

the one hand stefan's curiosity really

helped him throughout the semester to

gather valuable data for his project

on the other hand sometimes he just got

carried away by interesting articles and

went far off track in his research

this is time consuming and not

productive at all having realized this

was very valuable because he helps him

to be more mindful with his time and

more effective with his work

stefan knows that alban einstein once

said intellectual growth should commence

at birth and cease only a death

having this as a life motto for him the

introduction to clara was an extremely

useful learning experience he will

continue to work on his mindful agency

to become a better more reflective and

ever more efficient learner in the

future

[Music]

hi i'm rob mayne i'm an engineer with

over 20 years experience working in

three different organizations

i've had many roles over that time and

i've learned a lot

but one thing that hasn't changed is the

way i learn my natural tendency is to

learn to achieve a specific purpose or a

task or a skill

which is perfect for high school

university and starting work but it's

not good enough for today in 2017 i

undertook a

for my fourth leadership program at

hunter water

but it was the first to spotlight

how important it is to learn and show me

how i learn and how i can improve my

learning

as part of the program i undertook a

hogan personality assessment and a clara

learning power profile

the hogan assessment showed two things

one you can't change your personality

and two you can change how you act if

you're aware of your personality traits

and i learned from this experience that

my personality traits support

and hinder the way i both lead and learn

my initial learning power profile

highlighted i was low on the scales of

collaboration belonging and mindful

agency

this ladder point measures the extent to

which i take responsibility for my own

learning

it's not where it should be

this feedback correlated with my hogan

profile it jogged me to change my

learning style the leadership program

encouraged me to take what i learned

from the program and apply it to a team

that i lead

and the non-revenue water program team

was the perfect opportunity

perfect because here was a topic i knew

almost nothing about and perfect it gave

me the opportunity to learn from within

a team so how have i gone

the starting point for me was about

creating an atmosphere of

comfort trust and confidence within the

team

they're essential steps if you want to

feel safe to be inquisitive and creative

i shared as much as possible with my

colleagues about the power of a team

learning together and having the right

learning attitude and appetite we soon

open up about each other's strengths and

gaps plus we're comfortable learning

from outside the team as well in

september last year in talking with

other planners i saw an opportunity to

improve the information we have in our

geographic information system here can

be the solution to people spending loads

of time manually looking through lines

of data and volumes of strategies to

plan network upgrades

the rob main of old would have supported

the idea and hoped someone else would

take the lead because i had no

experience at gis not this time i took

the lead and jumped into the unknown

knowing that i had colleagues with

knowledge and gis

and asset planning who would be happy to

share the knowledge with all members of

our newly formed team including me

the project hasn't been easy i've

stumbled a few times

but i have kept focus on my need for

learning and the learning of those in

the working group i'm persisting at not

missing a good opportunity

and just to wrap up i recently undertook

a second clara learning power assessment

i'm pleased to see improvements in

collaboration with belonging and mindful

agency

but i've still got a long way to go in

becoming a proactive learner learning is

important for everyone each of us should

challenge ourselves and our colleagues

about how we learn and how we're tapping

into the wisdom and learning the

experiences around us

and my takeaway tip to you find out

about your learning style strengths and

weaknesses

knowing these will help you be a more

effective learner both today and into

the future

good luck

you

hi I'm Sonia and I'm here to talk about

something we all do all the time

sometimes deliberately and sometimes

without even realizing it learning

in particular the aim of this video is

to give you an insight into my Personal

Learning Journey

how I've changed as a learner and as a

leader over the past 12 months my

Learning Journey started when I asked

myself why why is learning still so

important and yet so different

something that I've thought about a lot

is part of this experience today's world

is changing much faster than before

information is everywhere and it's

easily accessible

if you don't know the answer to

something you can Google it

if you need to learn how to do something

you can just watch it on YouTube

learning isn't just about studying and

gaining new knowledge anymore

it's about how quickly you can learn and

use that new information in the best

possible way

it's also about how to learn

and it's about new ways of thinking and

for me that was my first light bulb

moment that simply learning is a skill

and like any skill you need to

constantly work at improving it to

understand the way I learn I completed

the Clara self questionnaire back in

March 2017.

the tool organized my results in eight

different learning Dimensions with the

following results as you can see I

scored high in collaboration belonging

and also have an open Readiness to

learning this was encouraging as it

means that I'm comfortable learning with

others I have a network of people who I

can turn to and I'm also confident to

learn on my own

when I look at the dimensions that I

didn't score as high there were two

areas that stood out

hope and optimism and creativity hope

and optimism is about being confident

that you can change and learn

and so I was really surprised with this

result because I'm generally a positive

person and enjoy learning new things but

let me put this result in context the

Clara profile tells you how you see

yourself as a learner at a point in time

at the time of the survey there were

some changes in the organization and

within my area

I suspect my head was in the detail of

the changes meaning I was a little more

cautious than usual anyone who knows me

knows I'm more than a glass half full

kind of person to help improve in this

area I reflected on my past learning

experiences

during my time at Hunter water I've

successfully completed different roles

in really different areas and handle

challenging projects and situations

these range from working in HR to

economics learning Six Sigma and now

working in it

not as big of a surprise was creativity

and this is about risk taking it's about

playfulness and Imagination I tend to

focus on an issue or a problem at hand

and may pull back conversation if I see

it going off track

this in turn May limit exploring

different ideas and coming up with

unexpected and sometimes often better

Solutions

this required different approaches first

I discussed it openly to see what works

for others I share with my peers that's

an area that I'm working on and I ask

them to stop me by peer limiting I also

made some goals for myself one is to

listen to more TED Talks

but really I want to practice or

challenge myself to start thinking

outside of the box I'm aiming to come up

with multiple potential solutions to an

issue not just one I also want to be

more visual for example using the

Whiteboard more often and earlier in

discussions

from now on when I'm presenting I want

to use fewer words and use more pictures

feedback's always important so how am I

doing with this video

I recently retook the Clara assessment

and was pleased with the results as you

can see my profile is in general has

improved but I know the journey hasn't

ended and I know it's going to continue

to be an exciting trip and some of you

will share it with me thanks for

listening and I hope you have a great

Learning Journey too

[Music]

so um when I was first told by Lotz that

I was going to be on this program I took

a very open-minded approach um I've

always enjoyed learning um doing

research and looking for new things I

had no real expectations about whether

it was going to be any sort of

restrictions I was happy to find that it

was not aimed at accreditation

assessment it was actually something

that was tailored specifically for hun

water in its needs as part of the

program we um went through some

diagnostic tools we looked at our clar

profiles um Hogan assessment and also

360s so the good ones I got there was

the the fact that um I tended to look

like I was a good coaching and mentoring

person and I intend now as a strength to

use that skill more often with my team

and anyone else it's sort of willing to

listen the learnings I've got from the

program um worked along what how I

respond and how I work and how I've

tried to talk to my team members and my

other people about what sort of things

they do it's a thing called

the left hand margin and that to me is

the things that you think about but you

don't say a lot of us basically will

either blurt that out or come out with

it quite regularly and it's a stop and

think thing it's actually you know

should I say that now is it the Right

audience is it the right people to say

it to is it the right time should I say

it at all which is hard to do as an

engineer um you've got to engage more of

that gray matter and become more gray so

there's areas that there you know it's a

measure twice cut once is that the right

response is that the only response can I

look at other things other other ways

that we can do this as well for the

remainder of the year and I guess for

the rest of my career is to try and make

it a permanent change which is what

learning is all about is to continue

along the lines of of having more

conversations engaging with more people

um and looking at what I've got there as

far as a work life balance is concerned

you know look at the things that are

important to me um outside work and

inside work saying when you go home or

when you go and do things that's not the

cut off point but you've got to

seriously think about how what you do

and how you act affects everyone else

both at work and at home this tool here

which is the learning power developing

learning power I've got that stuck on my

computer monitor now and I use that on a

daily basis particularly the ones I use

are the mindful agency and also the

sense making it's it's something that I

basically now live by on a day byday

basis so years ago um there was a song

by our ases called wonder wall um and I

was thinking about it and as a result of

I created a wonder wall in my office so

I've got pictures up there of my family

my kids my grandkids parents and I've

also got some stuff out there out of the

program that Ruth and Gus have given me

um including this which is up there as

well I use that on a day-to-day basis

just you have a stop and think moment

where you sort of sit and look and say

well what can I use out of that in both

my day-to-day life at work and at home

and um see how it works out and it gives

you inspiration so also from my past

life um a thing that I got from my dad

um and I don't know where he got it from

I don't know if he made it up or not I

never got the chance to ask him but um

it's it's a slogan that he used to use

and that was the harder you try the

better you get and the better you get

the more you try and it's all about

being better than before um and it's

it's worked quite well for me and I use

it on a a very frequent basis one of the

other things I got from um previous

education my formal education was from a

uni lectur a long time ago um his adage

that he used and knowledge is like a

grain of sand so um the analogy was

drawn on the fact that if you believe at

any stage you have all of the knowledge

in the world everything that everyone

would ever know um related back to the

fact that all you really know is nothing

more than a grain of scent on the beach

what I would engender to people to do is

to get engaged and continue to improve

themselves and what they

do