It's About Learning

Smart failure for a fast-changing world

Dwayne Harapnuik — October 15, 2012 — Leave a comment

The key concept in this talk needs repeating:

And this is what I’m trying to explain has happened to us in the 21st century. Somebody or something has changed the rules about how our world works. When I’m joking, I try and explain it happened at midnight, you see, while we were asleep, but it was midnight 15 years ago. Okay? You didn’t notice it? But basically, what they do is, they switched all the rules round, so that the way to successfully run a business, an organization, or even a country, has been deleted, flipped, and it’s a completely new — you think I’m joking, don’t you — there’s a completely new set of rules in operation. Did you notice that? I mean, you missed this one. You probably — No, you didn’t. Okay.

My simple idea is that what’s happened is, the real 21st century around us isn’t so obvious to us, so instead we spend our time responding rationally to a world which we understand and recognize, but which no longer exists.

The following video provides another perspective on the World After Midnight:

The world has radically changed and most people are still trying to make sense of it in from a perspective that no longer exists. Where you up at midnight 15 years ago? Did you notice the change? Some of us were…so why won’t you listen to us?

In 21st century learning, Innovation Change, failure, global

Arts Integration for Deeper Learning: Its the Context and Environment that Matter

Dwayne Harapnuik — October 12, 2012 — 2 Comments

When I reviewed this video my former colleague Tyler Wall, the Lead Media Specialist at Lethbridge College, sent my way I immediately thought: this is great–but it isn’t the Arts program that is the key to this success. The Arts integration is simply the mechanism or catalyst that provides the context for learning. Students are not asked to just regurgitate information, they are required to apply what they are learning to some context that is Arts related. Or an Arts context is the starting point for teasing out principle that the students need to discover, understand and then apply.

It is the context and the environment that really matters and Arts integration programs are wonderful ways to move the learning environment beyond recipe and regurgitation and onto deeper learning. But Arts integration is not the only way to create a significant learning environment and the context for learning. STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) schools or programs are becoming popular in the US because they provide a project based focus for students to use the STEM disciplines to create solutions to real problems. Another unique school that provides a positive context and signficant learning environment is the Oasis Alternative Secondary School which is behind the Oasis Skateboard Factory. Students are involved in the planning, design, production and distribution of skateboards. This program has not only helped many kids to appreciate learning it has also saved many kids from dropping out of school.

My wife and I have been using significant learning environments with our own two boys. My youngest son Caleb recently built up a Specialized Demo 7 downhill mountain bike. The following video highlights the bare frame build up but it doesn’t show the over 100 hours of work that went into planning the project, finding and aquiring the right frame, parts and components and finally the building and testing.

The right context and learning environment empower students to learn while they create something meaningful. Whether it is creating art, performing dance or theatre, building skateboards or bikes or working on a “real world” STEM related project it is very clear that our students benefit greatly by being creative. These types of programs or personal initiatives help to provide the context and the learning environment that motivate learners to create and learn. Unfortunately, these are the exception and not the norm.

Why are we so quick to highlight these exceptions and laud their effectiveness but fail to move beyond these special programs? Don’t we owe it to our children and society’s future to provide significant learning environments for all our students?

In Learning create, significant learning environment, STEM

Culture Trumps Vision

Dwayne Harapnuik — October 11, 2012 — Leave a comment

“Toxic culture is like carbon monoxide: you don’t see or smell it but you wake up dead! Senior pastors do a lot of good things, but they fail to understand the impact of the existing organizational culture on their new, exciting vision for the church. It is like changing the engine on a sports car to make it faster, but it’s spinning its wheels in the mud. Or to use a different metaphor, they try to transplant a heart into a patient whose body rejected the foreign organ. No matter how perfect the new heart is, the patient had no chance at all unless the body accepted it.

Culture — not vision or strategy — is the most powerful factor in any organization. It determines the receptivity of staff and volunteers to new ideas, unleashes or dampens creativity, builds or erodes enthusiasm, and creates a sense of pride or deep discouragement about working or being involved there.”

Sam Chand author of Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code: Seven Keys to Unleashing Vision and Inspiration (Jossey-Bass Leadership Network Series) points out that culture not only trumps vision but once you understand that it is the most powerful factor in an organization that new shinny vision will not be realized until steps are taken to bring about cultural change.

To get at the heart of where your organization culture is at Chand recommends examining the answers to the following questions:

http://cl.publicaster.com/SocialMedia.aspx?pubids=8365%7C326%7C7&digest=wXBoVOSSDDd8%2FT9GWFliCQ&sysid=1&1=1QA&2=CLK

The Pastors Coach – Culture Trumps Vision, By: Dr. Sam Chand via kwout

Chand also recommends forming an informal group to examine these and related questions. Identifying just how toxic your organization culture is a crucial first step, but you will still need to create the circumstances that will bring about the changes needed to move your organization culture to a better place. Unfortunately, this takes time and if an organization’s competitive advantage is its small size and ability to respond to new opportunities then a toxic culture will neutralize this competitive advantage. Furthermore, a toxic resistance to change may mean that it is too late for this particular organization. Seth Godin the author of Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us encourages leaders to recognize when it is too late and it is time to move on.

This can be a very tough pill to swallow for the people within the organization, but we all know it is often much more cost effective to build from scratch than it is to renovate. We are seeing the demise of many organizations across many industries so before we blame the economy, market, government or other external factors perhaps we need to take a closer look at the organization itself and, in particular, its culture.

The solution to this problem is to not let the culture get to the point where it is toxic. This requires balance of compassion, character, strength of conviction and sound leadership skills. Unfortunately, as Edwin H. Friedman points out in his book A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, there is a severe shortage of character and nerve in our society. In a rapidly changing world that is being projected forward by one disruptive innovation after another the difference between an organization surviving or thriving may be this strength of leadership and the ability to foster the circumstances that contribute to a strong, vibrant culture that motivates people to collaborate, serve and be and do their very best. What type of culture do you have in your organization and what are you doing about it?

In Change culture, leadership, organizational culture, vision