Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:03:41: Understanding learning agility

00:05:00: Why learning agility matters

00:06:56: A learning agility assessment…

00:08:15: … 1: navigating newness

00:12:24: Ideas for action

00:16:13: … 2: ability to understand others

00:19:20: Ideas for action

00:24:04: … 3: know yourself

00:27:24: Ideas for action

00:31:54: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And you're listening to the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly podcast where we talk about the ups, downs, ins and outs of work and give you some Squiggly support, some ideas for action and some tools to try out so that you've got a little bit more confidence, clarity and control over your career. 

And all of our episodes are supported with some resources to help you make your listening turn into some learning.  So we've got things like our PodSheets, they're one-page downloadable summaries which have the key quotes and ideas so you can reflect on it, you can maybe talk about it in your team; we've also got PodNotes, we put those on social, they're like swipeable summaries; we've got PodMail that pulls it all together so you don't have to search for it; and we've also got PodPlus, which is a weekly conversation with the Squiggly Careers community.

So there's quite a lot that goes around this episode if you want to do more than listen.  If you don't, all good, but you can find all the links to the things that I just mentioned in the show notes.  And if you ever can't find it, just email us, lots of people do every week; we're just helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.

Sarah Ellis: So this week, we're talking about learning agility.  And I think it's fair to say our preparation for these podcasts does vary.  Sometimes a 15-minute chat and we get started, sometimes as we've had today, we have been chatting for at least an hour-and-a-quarter on this topic, partly because I think it's a really important one to make sure that we are clear and we can be as useful as we can, and because it's one where we really wanted to make sure that you could take some action, because this potentially falls into that territory of we hear companies talk about it, there are lots of reports about it, so we really want to make this kind of practically helpful for you and your Squiggly Career.

Helen Tupper: But just to press pause on feedback for you, Sarah, I know you love it when I give you live feedback on a podcast episode that you do not know what's coming, especially when we've already been chatting for an hour-and-a-quarter!  I left this one in just for now.  So, Sarah's prepped loads for this and read lots and got really into it, however responded very openly to many of my questions and like, "Oh, I'm not sure on this, but what about this, and how does that come?"  At no point were you like, "Helen, I've read for five hours on this, just let's just say this thing".  So, it doesn't matter how much you absorb, you are always open to other people's opinions.  That's my feedback for you.

Sarah Ellis: Oh, that's very kind, and I think it's reassuring.  I always think we are better because we spend time on these topics together and I think that's always what I have in the back of my mind, and also with enough practice I think you really learn to let go, I think that's what's happened!  I think you've ground me down over the last couple of years!

Helen Tupper: Yes!  I mean, is that the feedback I wanted to hear tonight?

Sarah Ellis: I don't know, maybe that's a slightly different feedback.

Helen Tupper: "You've ground me down", I'll take that!

Sarah Ellis: So, this is one where I think we have got to start with, what is learning agility?  Because Helen and I have talked about it a bit, and it is actually quite a specific capability that you're trying to develop, so we want to make sure that everybody is really clear about it.  So, we've got our definition, which we like and is obviously quite simple and short, like all of our stuff, and then we've got a couple of longer ones from a couple of other people, so you can sort of get a feel for it and maybe see which one also works for you, because we all like different framing.

So, our definition of learning agility is, "Learning from experiences so you know what to do when you've not done it before", and that newness is important and we'll come back to that.  And just a couple of others, one from Korn Ferry, which I also like, maybe a little long for my liking, but I do think it does a good job of describing what we're trying to achieve, which is, "Learning agility is the willingness and ability to learn from experience and then apply those lessons to succeed in new situations".  Also pretty good, I got a good feel for it there.  And then there's one from the Centre for Creative Leadership which is, "Learning agility is about knowing how to learn, knowing what to do when you don't know what to do.  It's about learning from experience and applying it in new ways, adapting to new circumstances and opportunities". I think they're all pretty good, I think they all give you a feel and a flavour for what it is.  And now we're going to talk a little bit about, why does it matter?  Intuitively, we get this is important, but why specifically?  And then we're going to spend a lot of time on the how, like, "Okay, well how do I get this kind of magical learning agility that feels so important?"

Helen Tupper: So, there was a lot in common in the definitions that Sarah just shared with new situations, taking learning from experiences and applying them to these new situations where you don't really know what to do.  And the reason that learning agility matters is because Squiggly Careers are full of newness, and that newness can sometimes feel a bit difficult and daunting, but it can also unlock lots of opportunities for you. 

So, if you've developed this learning agility, not only can you go into those new situations and be a bit more confident, which will help you succeed, you can also create more opportunities from them as well.  And that's where you get into some very specific benefits.  So, you can explore your potential because you're not fixed to what you're doing now; you can go into those new situations, as we said, with confidence and do different things and stretch yourself in different directions, that will be a big enabler of your success.

Sarah Ellis: And if you're also thinking, "So, what else is in it for me in terms of learning agility?" I think the more agility you have, the more you'll be able to explore your potential, because often we find hidden potential, or potential we perhaps didn't know we had, when we do new things, and that's a big part of agility.  And I think it helps to pull options, possibilities and opportunities our way. 

So, when new projects, new roles, new skills, new organisations happen, and we're seeing lots of that all of the time now, we're all getting really used to that, actually we're putting ourselves in a really good position to make the most of those, to do things that could feel really intriguing and really exciting.  So, you do start to understand why this feels so important for us as individuals, and you can start to see why organisations really want their people to have learning agility too.

Helen Tupper: So, we really want to help you to develop this really important Squiggly skill, and the way that we're going to do it is by talking through a learning agility assessment.  So, there are three areas that we think make up learning agility from all the reading that Sarah's done and all the discussion that we've had on this today.  The three areas are: your ability to navigate newness, your ability to understand others, and your ability to know yourself. 

And for the assessment, we're going to go through each of those areas and share three coach-yourself questions so that you can reflect on and think, "Well, how good am I at this area in response to those?"  And then we're going to give you an easy and a hard idea for action to try out for them so you can improve the areas. We would suggest for each of these areas, giving yourself a score out of 10, so you can see where you're currently doing really well and maybe where you want to focus a bit more.  And because we love exposing our vulnerable selves to you on the podcast, we're going to live rate ourselves on each of these areas, so like rate and debate, no doubt!  I'll be like, "I am 10 out of 10", and Sarah will be like, "No, you are not!"  So, we're going to rate and debate for the benefit of your learning everybody.

Sarah Ellis: I didn't know we were debating, I just thought I was rating!

Helen Tupper: But you wait!  Rate, debate and wait for the implications.  So, you can basically see how it works in practice and then you can give it a go yourself after the day.

Sarah Ellis: So, this first area is about navigating newness.  So, when you have learning agility, you are very good at coping with complexity.  And the way that I understand complexity is that you're in a situation where you can't just apply what you've done before.  You know the whole, "what got me here won't get me there", because maybe there's new stakeholders, maybe it's a different kind of project, maybe the environment has changed.  Basically, it often feels quite messy, there's a lot to get your head around, and added to that, you're doing it for the first time.  This is why we've called it "navigating newness".  There is nothing that you could look back on from your Squiggly Career so far where you go, "This is this situation, this is pretty much the same as that other situation I had three months ago, so do you know what, I can do something quite similar"; it's sort of the opposite of that, and we just know that in Squiggly Careers, there is lots more navigating newness.

So, you already have, I'm sure, lots of examples of where you're doing this, but three coach-yourself questions to get you started: (1) what examples do you have of working on projects or tasks where you're starting from scratch; (2) how do you respond when priorities and plans change without warning; and (3) when and where are you working on something that sits in your courage zone?  And when we talk about learning zones, we say "comfort, challenge and courage".  And the way we describe courage is, it's usually something you've not done before, and typically added to that, where it feels nerve-racking, you're perhaps having to take a deep breath.  There is definitely a level of adrenaline, I think, associated with that courage zone.  So, Helen, where are you going with your score, navigating newness out of 10?

Helen Tupper: Well, it's really hard to assess this.  So, I think I'm going to go for a very solid 6.  My reasoning is, I've got loads of examples of working on projects and tasks from scratch, so that gets a good 3 and a bit.  How do I respond when priorities and plans change?  Sometimes I get a bit frustrated, because I'm like, I just want to get it done, you know, my doneness gets in the way of that one.  And then when are you working on something that sits in your courage zone?  I think I have quite a large comfort zone.  But because we run this business and we have to do so many things that we haven't done before, and we've been doing for quite a long time lots of things we haven't done before, I think my comfort zone is actually quite big.  So, when do I do something that is pretty difficult and I don't know if it's doable?  Not that often now because of the way that we work.  So, I've probably got to work a bit harder to find some of that courage zone.  So, I'm going to give a very solid 6.  What about you?

Sarah Ellis: I went 6 too.  We hardly ever have the same answers.

Helen Tupper: I think you're higher.  You're really good at responding when priorities and plans change.  You're really good, you're way better than me!

Sarah Ellis: But I hate it!  I hate plans changing, I love being in control.  We all know this.  I think I'm naturally a 6, but I think I work hard to maybe be a 7 or an 8, perhaps that's more reflective.  So, as you said, the first one, all day, every day, I love working on stuff from scratch.  I would spend all my time starting from scratch.  So, I think that's one of the things that really increases my learning agility that lots of my strengths really match that as a skill.  I think because I know that I like to plan and I love looking forward and I like being strategic, I think I have got a lot better at responding when things change without warning, so I think that's maybe nudged up my score.

I think the same with you with courage zone.  I think it actually made me stop and reflect that you definitely have to create the space to sit in your courage zone.  And we always say when we're doing workshops, this doesn't happen by accident, you can't wait for this and hope someone else is going to sort it for you; you have to think and identify, "Well, what would our courage zones look like now, and what would it take to make that happen?" and almost take a bit of accountability for that.  And listening to you, I had exactly the same reflection, I was like, "Well, I need to sort this, I need to make this happen for myself", because otherwise you're in danger of kind of lots of continual improvement, like learning fast and frequently from what you do every day and probably getting that bit better at it all the time, which I think we're very good at, but this is something different again, isn't it, and I think you do have to think, "What would it take to do something that feels courage zone-y for you?"

Helen Tupper: So, we've got two ideas for action here, the easy one and the hard one.  So, if I talk to the easy one and then I'll give you the hard one, Sarah.

Sarah Ellis: No problem.

Helen Tupper: So, the easy action to do is to pick up someone's work while they're away.  So, the reason this is easy is because people go away all the time, but also it's for quite a finite period of time.  So, let's say Sarah's going on holiday for a week during half term and I might say, "Oh, that project that you've been working on, on some brand stuff, I'll take the lead on that while you're away", and I might have to have some conversations that are different to my normal ones, I might have to use some technology that I'm not that familiar with, I might have to work with somebody who I'm not that close to ordinarily.  And so, there's quite a lot for me to navigate in that, the people, the projects, the tools that we're using to do it.  And it's quite accelerated learning, but also it's not that high pressure, because it's probably for quite a short period of time. So, it's quite an easy one just to start spotting those opportunities for when you could move into a different way of working when someone's moving on to a holiday.

Sarah Ellis: I think particularly spotting, picking up someone's work where you don't know how to do what they do.  I think that's what I found a couple of times with Amazing If, maybe covering someone's role or getting involved in something where I think, "Oh, I very rarely get close to this", and then that's where you're really navigating that newness.  So, don't pick up the person who's doing the job that you used to do, or who you're really close to; it's much more accelerating for your agility if you're picking up the work of someone who is quite far away from your day-to-day.

Helen Tupper: And you don't have to pick up their entire job, it could be a project they're working on.  And I think also, just watch out for assuming that has to be someone more senior.  I often think we think about someone more senior deputising to you, but actually this could be a project a colleague's working on that you've sort of been a bit intrigued by, and it could be a really good opportunity for you to get involved.

Sarah Ellis: And so, the hard action is to say yes to an experiment that makes you uncomfortable, because of either time pressure or people pressure or both.  So, we know with experiments, they're often, you've got a hypothesis, you don't know if something's going to work or not.  That's the nature of an experiment, so you're definitely navigating newness.  And there's this extra level of courage zone-ness, I think, that we're adding in here, because of either going, "Okay, we're going to do this fast", faster than perhaps you feel comfortable with, and maybe it's also the people involved.  That could be just because you've not worked with them before, or maybe it's very high profile and you're experimenting in quite a high profile way. Our top tip here, because we've both seen this work really well, and actually I think we are both good at this, this is one of the things that we should give ourselves credit for, but it can be useful to signal to other people, "Well, this does feel uncomfortable, but I think we should give it a go".  You're not trying to do a caveat here, but I think you are basically saying, "Well, hey, let's label this as an experiment".  You're sort of reminding yourself, "Okay, I'm going to be navigating a lot of newness here, so what does that mean?" 

Maybe I need to ask more questions, maybe I need to share it much faster than I would do normally, maybe I need to really think about, "Well, when is good enough, great?" all of those kinds of things that we've perhaps talked about before on the podcast and when we talked about experimenting, but just think about, when could you say yes when you're perhaps just thinking, "Maybe we should wait until…" or, "I'm not sure right now".  So, basically you're putting yourself under some quite intentional pressure, but to sort of increase that agility.

Helen Tupper: Makes me think a little bit about the stuff around managing your emotions, which is that it's easier to manage your emotions if you name them.  So, if you say, "I'm navigating a lot of newness at the moment.  This feels a bit strange, uncomfortable and different", even just the act of being able to say that to yourself or write it down, however you find that useful, will give you a little bit more control, rather than this stuff going around and around your head.  That could be a useful thing as well. Area number two is about your ability to understand others. 

And three coach yourself questions to reflect on are: (1) who are you spending time with who has very different experiences to you; (2) how do you spend time in other people's shoes?  It's a really important way in terms of building empathy and understanding a lot of different things about the people we work with that they might not always say to us directly.  And (3) who, what and where are you borrowing brilliance from?  This is about continually staying curious.  Sarah, I get to go to you first now.  What is your score on these areas?

Sarah Ellis: Oh, I don't know.  I think I got a bit high and now I'm really trying to think about it.  I'm like, "Oh, maybe I'm a bit lower than I think".  I think maybe 5, which is lower than originally I'd imagined when I was preparing for having this conversation, and partly because if I think about my average week, I don't have that many conversations with people in general.  When we are doing big career development programmes, it's not like you're having a conversation, you're delivering some learning and you're all learning together.  But I don't get to ask those people lots about themselves or understand their worlds that well, because they're quite intense development experiences, and then I spend a lot of time with our Amazing If team.  But beyond that, and also as an introvert, I'm sometimes guilty of, you know, that's not something that naturally I seek out.

So there I go, "Well, if I'm doing that, I'm not spending that much time in other people's shoes, and maybe not spending time with people who've got very different experiences to me", because yes, you could argue, "Well, 200 people today might have had different experiences to me", but I still think you've got to be learning from those experiences.  I have done one thing recently where I've said yes to getting back involved in a mentoring thing, almost very specifically to think, "I'll get to spend some time with some different people, and you always learn as much from your mentees as you do from your mentor", selfishly.  So, I was like, okay, I've tried to add a bit of difference in there, they're not super-different.  I am good at three, I am good at being curious.  So, the who, what, and where you're borrowing brilliance from, I think is a sort of natural strength, natural inclination, but I think there's only one there that I feel good about my score on. Helen Tupper: Interesting.

Sarah Ellis: I don't like being low scored!

Helen Tupper: So, based on the answers to the questions, I would give myself a 5.  But knowing you, I think you're better at this than me.  I do spend time with quite a few communities; that's what's pushing me up a little bit.  If I think about some of the communities that I'm part of, there are lots of people that are different in backgrounds, different in experiences.  I never know where those conversations are going to go, like I'm always intrigued by what they're involved in, what they're up to.  There's a rhythm to those communities which means that I'm regularly spending time with those people, so that gives me higher scores on the who you're spending time with.  I practically sort of borrow brilliance from them like, "What are you doing?"  But you do that better than me. I'm going to give myself a 5.  I don't think I spend a lot of time in other people's shoes.  I think you're excellent, you're so good at that, because you take time.  But based on these questions, I've given myself a 5, but my intuition says that you are better at this than you are maybe scoring yourself.

Sarah Ellis: It's fascinating, isn't it, going through all the scores?  Right ideas for action, easy action, hard action.  Easy action, your listen/talk ratio.  I love this action because I think it's really revealing and most of us are not as good at listening as we would like to be.  The idea here is that you could do it for a day, for a week, or a specific meeting, write down what you want your listen/talk ratio to be.  And if you are really trying to spend time in other people's shoes, learning from people with different experiences, borrowing lots of brilliance, you have got to do lots of listening because when you are talking, you're probably not learning, you're telling someone stuff you already know.

So, you really want that listen ratio to be high. So, you might say, "Okay, in this conversation with this person, I want my listening ratio to be 70%.  I only want to be talking for 30% of the time".  Then the way that I do this is then straight after that moment, I will then just reflect back on that conversation and think, "Was it a 70:30 ratio, or did I talk a bit too much because I got a bit nervous at the start of the conversation; did I end up dominating without realising?"  I don't think I am that good at listening sometimes, so particularly when I don't know people that well, I find it worse.  The more relaxed and comfortable I am, the better I am at listening.  But interestingly, if you start to kind of apply this listening/learning agility, likelihood is with learning agility, you're obviously in lots of new situations, so they will be new people.  You start to connect the dots here between going, "Well, if I want to increase my learning agility, my listening is going to be critical to that", and knowing that's something I find hard in new situations, that feels like a really important skill for me. So, it's a super-simple thing to do, it's just a sort of compare and contrast.  Where do I want to be?  Where was I?  What do I do next time?  Even by consciously thinking about it, you will just increase your listening, then you'll probably realise you're not as good as you'd like to be and then you just get a bit better the next time.

Helen Tupper: One thing, if you want a low-risk way of training your listening, I find this really useful; take our podcast, or another podcast, it doesn't have to be ours, and listen to it and make notes, and then turn those notes into something that's useful to someone in your team.  We've tried to do that with PodSheet, but I'm trying to do it to help you with your listening.  The reason is, I did this last week for the podcast that came out, I created the PodSheet, I sat there and listened to it, but I listened in a very different way.  I think the quality of your listening is very different when you are listening to something with the intent to capture and share it with other people, versus I'm just kind of casually listening.  I think if you can train your brain to listen with that level of intent, then it's really helpful in conversations.  If I can do that on my own, listen to a podcast, I know I can do it with Sarah in a room. 

And it's just, you know, all these kind of training things, you don't have to do it in a meeting where there's quite a lot of pressure on the situation, you can do some of that at home too. Sarah Ellis: I think you've got loads better at listening, by the way.  And I watch you.  I know when you're really listening, like when you're talking to other people, less with me, because it's a bit different with me.  But when I see you spending time with the team, and I'm there too, I almost, and maybe just because we know each other so well, I think I can see your brain thinking, but you're very consciously going, "I'm going to let this person finish.  I don't want to interrupt their flow".  You even said that to somebody today in a meeting that we were in, you didn't want to interrupt someone's flow.  So, I watch you really give people the space to share.  And every time I do it, I'm like, "Oh yeah, that's really good.  I should do a bit more of that".

Helen Tupper: Oh, thank you.  I think I'm always just thinking, "What have I got of value to add?"  It's generally like, there's no point repeating what someone's saying, but I need to add something that is useful to this!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, which you always do.

Helen Tupper: Thank you.  So, the hard action then for this one is Squiggly shadowing.  And this is where you're going to spend time with somebody who is doing something different that you are intrigued by.  That might be their role as a full stop.  You might be thinking, "I've no idea what that role is all about", or it might be a project which you've heard of on the work grapevine and you'd like to get a bit closer to.  I sometimes think shadowing can sound a bit daunting.  Like if someone said to me, "Oh, Helen, can I shadow you for a day?" I'd be like, "Well, most of it's sat at my desk, going through my to-do list, my inbox, and my meetings, so, fun times if you want to sit through that! So, I think you might not want to frame it as a day, you might want to say, "I'd love to learn a bit more about what you do.  There's a particular project I'm interested in.  Is there a way I could spend some time with you when you're working on that project so I can understand a bit more?"  You might want to frame it a bit more tightly than, "Can I just stalk you for a day?"  It's not Squiggly stalking, it's shadowing!  So, that's maybe meetings and moments might be a way of framing it. 

But I think you've got to have the confidence to ask and the clarity, if you can do that.  That's why it's a hard action because I think you've got to think this through before you just make the ask.  It does help you to understand what another person does and how they do it and who they do it with, in a more deep way than just having a discussion with them about it, because you're sort of experiencing it firsthand.

Sarah Ellis: And so our final area is about knowing yourself.  So, three coach-yourself questions here: (1) what are your three super-strengths, the things that give you energy and that make you distinct and different; (2) how are you making sure that your strengths intent matches your impact; and (3) what gaps have you got that could hold you back?  So, Helen, should I do my score first?  #

Helen Tupper: Woohoo!  She's gone big.

Sarah Ellis: So, until this point you were like, "Oh, you've been really hard on yourself", and now you're just like, "Oh, back the ego down a bit, Sarah"!  But I also thought, "Crikey, if we don't score well on this one, what are we doing?  We're not doing a good job".  But I feel like this is totally our thing, this is our thing, this is us at our best.  And I think when I reflected on strengths, I can really see how knowing I didn't have to be good at everything, that I could just be really good at a few things, really transformed my career at a certain point, probably ten years or so now.  And so, I think I spent a lot of time thinking about my strengths, because I am definitely not good at everything, but I am really good at a couple of things.  But you definitely have way more range than I do, but there are moments --

Helen Tupper: Many moments.

Sarah Ellis: -- where I do add value and I'm almost quite specific about those moments.  I think I could probably do a bit more.  This is my one point I've not given myself.  I could probably ask for a bit more feedback, but I do know that my strengths, I think I have such clarity, I think they do shine through because even when people write me LinkedIn recommendations, it feels very like me, it's been quite consistent for a while.  I am a critical thinker, and that applies to both myself and everything.  I've always got that sense of the gaps that I've got and I think I do have a sort of relentless pursuit of always wanting to be better, and that makes me very aware of my gaps. Also this year, one of the things I'm quite proud of is I'm trying to take more accountability for some of the gaps that I've got, rather than sometimes you have that thing of like, you either just sort of leave it, or you hope somebody else is going to do it or fix it.  And actually, if it's a gap that I do genuinely think is getting in my way, I'm like, "Well, that has to start with me".  And there are some that I think I'd distance myself from a little bit too much, so I also feel quite proud of my progress in terms of gaps.  So, I'm going for a 9.

Helen Tupper: I like your 9, and I agree.

Sarah Ellis: What are you going for?

Helen Tupper: I'm going for an 8, because I know what my super-strengths are.  And we get so much feedback.  Like we give each other feedback, we've done it unintentionally today!  We're like, there's so much feedback that flies around our work and our teams, so I feel that we get that a lot.  The gaps that you've got that could hold you back, I kind of think, "Actually, that's a really good question I'd like to reflect on", because I feel like surely to be able to answer that question, I would like to go, "This is where I see the direction of my development", like really explicitly, and then almost answer, "Well, how are those gaps going to get in the way?"  I don't think I've sat down and done that.  I know kind of a purpose but I don't think --

Sarah Ellis: Do you want some feedback?  No, I'm joking!

Helen Tupper: But that was actually my second one.  I wonder, that's actually quite a nice question to ask the team, "What gaps do you think I've got that could hold me back from where I want to go?"  I might need to give the team a bit of a frame, like really clearly communicate that to them, "This is where I want to go, what gaps have I got that you think might get in the way?"  That would be a really interesting question to ask, I might frame that to the team.  Heads up team, if you're listening, question coming your way! That links really nicely into our easy action for knowing yourself, which is to get some strengths-based feedback.  Now, you don't have to frame it quite as I've just said it is.  It could be as simple as asking three people at work, "When do you see me at my best?  What strengths do you see in me?"  Either of those ones work, but what that does give you the opportunity to do is compare their answers with your intent, those three super-strengths that you've stated.  That's the kind of real win-win there, is being able to look at what's the difference between my intent and my impact, and you get the impact from the feedback.

Sarah Ellis: And our hard action, which is where I think this gets interesting, is about new situation self-awareness.  So, you could answer some of those questions that we've just talked through and just apply it to where you are today.  But that doesn't really accelerate your agility because we need to then apply it to new situations, to all that complexity, the change, the experimenting.  And so, next time you're doing something for the first time, look for the learning fast, because it is so much easier to do it that way.  If you wait, you'll forget.  And if you can, write it down, because we absorb more in the moment when we do that.  So, try and capture what worked well, even better if. We actually had an example of this last week, where Helen had a tough time, I think it's fair to say.  Lots of things went wrong, all sort of at the same time, things that we hadn't anticipated, things that we hadn't experienced before.  And that definitely took a lot of learning agility to kind of find our way through that, and we were reflecting on what helped us. 

And it was the speed.  It was making sure that we were writing as we were going, so we didn't lose that learning, but also that we did it together.  Because I think what you're ultimately trying to get to here, this is what Helen's and my final idea ended up becoming, which is quite a big idea, is you want to create your own learning agility playbook. So, yes, you can't find a formula for new situations and things that are complex, but I think what you can start to do here is go, "Okay, so when I need learning agility, how might I apply my strengths?  What gaps have I got in those moments?  What are the things that I know I'm not quite so good at?"  The things that we've been talking about as we've gone through today, maybe you're great at responding when plans change.  So, you sort of go, "Right, I know I've got that on my side in terms of learning agility, but actually I don't do many projects where I start from scratch.  So, okay, that's something I need to think about".  And maybe your strengths don't really kind of sit in that area, so you start to have that awareness.  So, we're sort of adding an extra layer here, I think, on self-awareness, and then also starting to really personalise this and to kind of go, "What does learning agility look like for me?  How do I accelerate my own agility?"  Because again, otherwise I think you can get into like a bit of a tick-box exercise of being like, "Oh, I do that, but I don't do that".  But you really want to make this work for you and your squiggle.

Helen Tupper: I was thinking when you were talking there about those new situations and almost like there's a learning scale that's going on here.  And on one end, you've got this new situation, probably feels a bit scary, you've not done it before, an overwhelming amount of factors at play. 

On one side of the scale, you've got learning atrophy, which is where you're freezing a bit.  You're losing the learning because all that overwhelming stuff is happening in your brain.  And at the other end of the scale, you've got the thing that we're aiming for, learning agility, where you're proactively looking for the learning, and you're going, "Okay, this feels hard and difficult, and I don't know if I can do it, but there is definitely some learning in here". I think what this approach that Sarah's talking to, it helps you to capture that learning, because otherwise you're going to that situation you're not looking for and you're losing it, and that's such a waste.  But if we can get more into the habit of spotting those new situations, proactively looking for the learning and capturing it, then we're feeding that learning agility all the time.

Sarah Ellis: And we recognise that when we reflected on both of us and also our organisations because I think organisations have levels of learning agility, we are very good at learning fast, I think probably because we're both pretty pacey, and naturally we have that framing to probably be like, "Right, we're always trying to learn and get better".  The second part of that, which is writing it down, is the bit that we are not very good at.  So, we're really good at learning in the moment, we're good at doing it together and we get that that helps us, but we potentially risk losing the learning and not getting smarter as we go, because we sort of need to come up with a system of going, "Where does that go?"  So, that's next on our list everybody.

Helen Tupper: Our biggest even better if, our combined even better if from this episode, that we never write anything down!  Log the learning, to put it another way.  So, hopefully you found this useful episode all around learning agility perhaps a bit of a new topic, a way that you've not thought about learning before, but given all the situations we're in, hopefully something you find relevant and useful too.  As we said at the start, we'll summarise the easy actions, the hard actions in the PodSheet.  That'll be on our website, amazingif.com, linked in the show notes, or just email us, helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com if you're struggling to find any of that stuff.

Sarah Ellis: But that's everything for this week.  Thank you so much for listening, and we're back with you again soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye, everybody.