Learning through conversations, abstract from the book Informal Learning (Jay Cross)

Informal Learning is one of my favourite business books. It has inspired me continuously and I recommended it to many people.

During the last months I have been very interested in reading about the power of Conversation in Learning.

As I was reading again Informal Learning https://a.co/azI8s7R I was taking notes and here you can read the mentions that I found about Conversation and Learning:

I had acquired my professional skills: watching master performers, trial and error, bull sessions with friends, faking it, reading magazines, and, above all, just talking with others. Conversation was a more effective teacher than school.

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WORKERS LEARN MORE in the coffee room than in the classroom. They discover how to do their jobs through informal learning: asking the person in the next cubicle, trial and error, calling the help desk, working with people in the know, and joining the conversation. This is natural learning from others when you feel the need to do so.

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Chief learning officers and training managers also will read this book because it proposes a framework for learning that is more spontaneous, cost-effective, and enjoyable than what has come before.

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Informal learning, which we dig into in the next chapter, is nothing new. It is a return to the natural way people learn: through conversations with one another, trying things out, and listening to stories. Learning is how people adapt to changing conditions, and things are changing faster than ever before.

Our definition of learning must embrace the people the worker interacts with and the learning that comes from their interacting with one another.

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These two paragraphs could resume our work during the last months building our system:

The first force is access. The learner has to know the opportunity exists, the costs are reasonable, and it fits her requirements. The second force is quality: production values, ease of use, what I was looking for. These two forces account for but 40 percent of the gravitational pull.

Informal does not mean lackadaisical. Formal, informal, or in between, people learn best when they: ? Know what's in it for them and deem it relevant ? Understand what's expected of them ? Connect with other people ? Are challenged to make choices ? Feel safe about showing what they do and do not know ? Receive information in small packets Get frequent progress reports ? Learn things close to the time they need them ? Are encouraged by coaches or mentors ? Learn from a variety of modalities (for example, discussion followed by a simulation) ? Confront maybes instead of certainties ? Teach others ? Get positive reinforcement for small victories ? Make and correct mistakes ? Try, try, and try again ? Reflect on their learning and apply its lessons.

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Conversation is the most powerful learning technology ever invented. Conversations versations carry news, create meaning, foster cooperation, and spark innovation. Encouraging open, honest conversation through work space design, setting ground rules for conversing productively, and baking conversation into the corporate culture spread intellectual capital, improve cooperation, and strengthen personal relationships.

Conversation is the parent of innovation.Organizations are redesigning the work space to encourage meaningful ingful conversation. Mind maps and visualization tools accelerate discussion.

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I learned a great deal from talking with Bob. When you think about it, conversation is the main way we learn almost anything. Without it, there would be no knowledge. The next chapter looks at how to nurture meaningful ful conversations in an organization.

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CONVERSATION HAS MAGIC to it. Dialogue is the most powerful learning technology on earth. Conversations are the stem cells of learning, for they both create and transmit knowledge. Frequent and open conversation increases innovation and learning. Schooling planted a false notion in our heads that real learning is something you do on your own. In fact, we all learn things from other people. People love to talk. Bringing them together brings excitement.

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Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards.-THEODORE ZELDIN

Business is a conversation because the defining work of business is conversation-literally. And "knowledge workers" are simply those people whose job consists of having interesting conversations. CHRISTOPHER LOCKE

Conversations are the way workers discover what they know, share it with their colleagues, and in the process create new knowledge for the organization. In the new economy, conversations are the most important form of work ... so much so that the conversation is the organization. -ALAN WEBBER

Technology is putting a sharper, more urgent point on the importance of conversations. Conversations are moving faster, touching more people, and bridging greater distances. These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to occur. -RICH LEVINE

The key to learning is not the medium nor the message, it is the quality of the dialog with your peers that really matters.-DEN HAM GRAY

Strategizing depends on creating a rich and complex web of conversations that cuts across previously isolated knowledge interests and creates new and unexpected combinations of insight. -GARY HAMEL

Conversation is the heart of the new inquiry. It is perhaps the core human skill for dealing with the tremendous challenges we face. -INSTITUTE FOR THE FUTURE

True learning organizations are a space for generative conversations and concerted action which create a field of alignment that produces tremendous power to invent new realities in conversation and to bring about these new realities in action.-FRED KOFMAN AND PETER SENGE

Mentors and coaches initiate conversations. They are a cost-effective way to develop and retain talented people. Some classify the work of mentors and coaches as informal because meetings aren't rigidly scheduled, there's little in the way of curriculum, and often there is no organizational support for them. It's wise to cultivate a network of experts so you can get answers when you need them. To deal with difficult human situations, good practice is to recruit several colleagues to use as sounding boards and confidential advisers. What we are really saying here is that we are constructing knowledge all the time, in conversation, through narrative. We are personalizing it that way, we are constructing it, for ourselves. -JOHN SEELY BROWN