Spotlight on Bill Lucas
By Mike Levy (March 2004 Issue)
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Bill Lucas has a simple message: how we learn is just as important (if not more so) than what we learn. The trouble is the ‘how’ part is not so simple. Indeed, one needs a thoroughgoing understanding of the brain and its functions to understand this vital part of the learning and training process, says Bill. There is something still rather mystical about the brain and its workings, and Bill advises us all to ‘beware false prophets’. He is highly critical of many flavour-of-the-month ideas about learning. ‘There are a lot of crackpot ideas out there,’ he warns. But he has a simple test to apply to learning ‘theories’: he continually asks, ‘What is the evidence?’ and ‘How do we know?’, and advises both learners and trainers to do the same. He also likes to challenge many of today’s learning orthodoxies. ‘NLP has a lot going for it,’ he says, ‘but not all of it is backed up by science. A lot of Accelerated Learning has a good scientific foundation – the emphasis on using all of the senses, for example – but, and here’s the rub, not all can be demonstrated by hard evidence.’
Bill’s passion for the ‘how’ of learning can be set against the criticism he heaps on those trainers who are more concerned with content than learning methods. His latest book, Be Creative (published by the BBC in March 2004) will take the lid off ‘brainstorming’ and other methods of ‘promoting’ creativity. ‘With my co-author Guy Claxton, we have looked at current research into creativity. This includes a critical look at the effectiveness of brainstorming. We think that much of it is a waste of time,’ he says. Bill characterises the typical brainstorm session as involving ‘a bunch of stressed individuals working against the clock, writing down ideas that never get used or reviewed’.
The authors examine what makes some organisations ‘creatogenic’ while others are stubbornly ‘creatocidal’. It is only in the former that creative ideas can flourish. In the latter they can hold blue sky thinking sessions until they are blue in the face, but little that is creative will emerge or embed into the organisation.
According to Bill, ‘The book encapsulates a crusade of mine: how to create an environment at home and at work that is conducive to creativity. We need to encourage habit of mind and environments that encourage creativity. Creativity is something that should be happening all the time, not just in half-hour brainstorming sessions.’
Bill uses brainstorming as a paradigm for creative lip service but, he says, criticism could also be levelled at ‘smarter’ methodologies such as lateral thinking approaches. Bill has more time for approaches such as Chris Argyris’s ‘double loop’ thinking, which challenge the learning methods of the organisation in a more fundamental fashion.
Bill’s current crusade is to encourage organisations to create a work environment in which people are ‘ready to learn’ and in which creativity can prosper. ‘My goal is to encourage an organisation to have a workforce that knows how to learn,’ he says. Don’t trainers always have the same goals? Here he has harsh words for a cohort of backward-looking training professionals: ‘Some feel they have a divine right to exist: “I train, therefore I am” is enough in today’s climate. Many in the training profession have taken a traditional three Rs approach to learning – knowledge or content-based learning. Of course we need this, but this is Level 1 learning.’
At a much higher meta level, he urges HR professionals to offer the five Rs: resourcefulness, resilience, remembering, reflecting and responsiveness. This means, for example, having the capacity to remember learning achievements, then reflecting on them and being able to respond to them. Response is the key: ‘This is where the training professional contributes real added value – when an input of learning can lead to a measurable change in behaviour.’
Bill Lucas is a very busy man. He is much in demand by blue-chip customers such as the nascent NHS University (NHSU). A regular broadcaster, he is formerly chief executive of the Campaign for Learning (where he remains as patron) and now runs his own company as well as being a director of the not-for-profit organisation The Talent Foundation. He will find time in April to give a masterclass, ‘The mind of the learner’, at this year’s CIPD conference at Olympia. His session is billed as a ‘guided tour of the mind’ – applying the science behind learning into training scenarios. He believes that if workplace learning is to justify the vast amounts of money spent on it, the whole profession should start getting more scientific in its choice of learning method and content (including the training blend most appropriate to each learner). A simple message with rather tough consequences.
Key thoughts for trainers: Bill Lucas’s top six
1. Training is doomed as a profession unless trainers become knowledgeable about how the mind works and use this to help their organisations.
2. Learning is learnable! Learning to learn is the key skill of the 21st century and HR people need to help learners learn it.
3. There are some charlatans out there peddling their products, so get hold of and use the scientific research about learning before you adopt anything.
4. Trainers need to become the custodians of the ‘learning blend’ used by their organisation, experts in the choice of learning method (content, environment, size, approach, learner preference and so on).
5. Organisations need to get ready to learn and trainers need to help them.
6. The secret to creativity is not endless brainstorming, but involves taking a relaxed, patient approach and ditching the deadlines.
To find out more about Bill Lucas’s books Be Creative; Essential Steps for Life and Work, Power Up Your Mind and Help Your Child to Succeed visit www.bill-lucas.com
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