Friday Funda
Abhijit Bhaduri
Talent Development Expert || Ex-GM Global L&D, Microsoft || Top 10 most sought after evangelist for brands like Adobe & SHRM || Keynote Speaker || 6x Author || LinkedIn Top Voice
Every Friday afternoon the team gathers together to discuss ideas they have come across that inspired or amazed them. They talk about people they met that week whose work set them thinking. It is all about a free exchange of ideas. An attempt to recreate the coffeehouse where ideas were brewed as much as fresh coffee.
Someone may have been struck by the idea suggested in a TED talk. Periodically we get authors, entrepreneurs, musicians to come and talk to us about their work. Amy Wilkinson, author of The Creator's Code spoke to us about what she learned from interviewing topmost entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. The team members leverage their network to get these speakers. This meeting is called Friday Funda. - the team's forum for informal learning.
While organizations are ready to invest resources to boost formal training, they rarely leverage the power of informal learning. Jay Cross contrasts the two modes:
"Informal learning is the unofficial, unscheduled, impromptu way most of us learn to do our jobs. Informal learning is like riding a bicycle: the rider chooses the destination and the route."
He describes formal learning as riding a bus. The driver decides where to stop and the route. Informal learning leaves the control in the hands of the rider. It is easy to stop somewhere for as long as the rider wants to.
The very first words we spoke were a result of informal learning. Contrast it with how long you would take to take a new language today. Informal learning gets triggered when there is a strong inner drive to explore what we do not know and get better at it often in incremental steps.
Learn from a novice
The possibilities of informal learning are many. We can learn from a novice and not just from just an expert. Inviting entrepreneurs to talk about how they run their business can be a powerful source of ideas. Learning from people who have nothing to do with our world can be a powerful source of learning. We had invited Bollywood composer Shantanu Moitra to tell us how he deals with uncertainty and fear of failure. <watch the video>
The Friday Funda is an evolving model.We will keep experimenting. And keep trying different formats. The idea is to keep riding the cycle and not wait for the bus!
I hope some day you will join us and we can all go cycling.
Join me on Twitter @AbhijitBhaduri
Deputy manager - KEI INDUSTRIES LTD
8 年learn from everyone, though he/she is a novice or an expert.
Company Owner
8 年Learning is continues feature in professional world . Things which are applied and give Benifit to all is true learning
Learning and Skills expert.
8 年Learn from a novice is brilliant, I was an expert pizza chef opening restaurants all over the world. Rendered answerless to a school kids question, why are pizzas round?
Thank you very much for sharing Friday Funda. Yes, taking inspiration from other fields indeed helps . Once I had invited a Retd. Col. from Indian Army to share his experience and learning to my group.There was a visible positive change in behavior of my team post the talk. Most of them shared that , "putting strategic intent of any project as the focus was one the most important" takeaways for them.