Global Enterprise Technology - Curriculum WorkshopSchool of Information Studies

Syracuse University

D. Christopher Kayes, PhD

Associate Professor of Management

School of Business

George Washington University

• What was your best learning experience? What was good about it?

• What was your worst learning experience? What made it that way?

• In your opinion, what conditions promote learning?

• US businesses spend US$109.25 Billion on employee learning annually

• Average was 2.72 % of payroll or US$1,616 per employee

• Best US companies spent 43 hours per employee/UK 61 hours average per employee per year

Why do we need learning?

• Pressure to achieve continually higher goals?

• Increased need to achieve success?

• Drive to short term performance as well as long term performance?

• Need to adapt and change?

• Reliance on teams?

• Unpredictable environment?

• Competition for scarce resources?

• In novel, complex, and dynamic organizations many traditional learning practices lead to disaster!

Source of data: Boyatzis (2006)

1. In class ‘experiential’ exercises2. Beyond the classroom experiences (e.g. , internships,

service learning, co-ops, work experiences, on-line learning)

3. A particular theory or approach to how people learn (e.g. , “Learning describes how leaders gather, process, update, and act upon knowledge (Kayes & Kayes, 2011; Kolb, 1984)

• Process of solving problems, making decisions, and innovating

• Process of change

• Transformation of knowledge

• Person and environment interaction

• Any age/lifelong

• Not always in the classroom

• Critical for leadership development

Academic• Well defined• Formulated by others• Necessary information

provided• One correct answer• One or limited number

of methods to obtain answer

• Disconnected from every day experience

Practical• Ill defined• Unformulated• Additional information

required• Multiple ‘correct’

answers• Multiple methods to

obtain answer• Embedded in everyday

experience

Sternberg, 1995, p. 822

Evaluative

Content

Developmental

ProcessExperiential

Learning

Emerging Institutional Values

Outcome

For

m

Based on Borredon, Deffayet, Baker, & Kolb, 2011

Learning stage Learning type Modes of learning

Type of learning

Assessment Learning tools

Objectives

I

II

III

Based on Borredon, Deffayet, Baker, & Kolb, 2011

Material deleted from original

Study of military leaders found that skills emerge in a systematic fashion

Stage 1: skills and principlesStage 2: application to creative problem solving, creativity

1. Do you read your new phone’s manual from cover to cover?

2. Read the quick start guide and work the rest out later?

3. Base your understanding on your last phone

4. Observe other people using your phone

5. Ask your teenager for help

6. Use your landline

GRADE (Sophmore - Graduate)

MBA - GraduateJuniorSophmore

% o

f tim

e s

tra

teg

y is

use

d

.8

.7

.6

.5

.4

.3

.2

.1

0.0

Strategy 1

Strategy 2

Strategy 3

• Find experiences with people of different learning styles

• Improve fit between learning style and situation you face

• Practice skills in new areas that both challenge and compliment your natural abilities

• Don’t forget the mind body connection

• Activate different learning centers in the brain

• Feel “incompetent” at least once a month

• Plan for your learning and its transfer

Time

Com

ple

x an

d n

ovel

p

rob

lem

sol

vin

g

high

low

The Learning AdvantageThe Learning Advantage

“Learn. It is the only time you cannot fail!” Merlin the Magician

• Most work environments are characterized by complex, dynamic, and novel problems.

• Learning is the core competency of success.

• Experiential learning involves gathering, processing, and acting on information and updating perspectives based on new information.

• Experiential learning helps students/employees to better leverage strategies to succeed in a complex, novel, and changing world

NSF

• This workshop was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DUE-1038065. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.