Bay Area Learning Circle on Emergent Learning Mapping

Last week, we got together in Oakland with a group of leadership development practitioners and thought-leaders to explore the action learning methodology Emergent Learning Mapping.  The goal was to offer an experiential opportunity for the group and learn the basic structure of the methodology.  To get the conversation started, we posed the question “What does it take to learn through discomfort and conflict?” and used that as our main question as we moved through the different steps of the exercise.

The Bay Area Learning Circle on Emergent Learning Mapping began with an exercise in which all participants chose one of the images scattered on tables around the room that made them feel uncomfortable.  Following a brief period of thinking and reflecting, all participants introduced themselves and their organization and then explained why they picked the images they did and how those images made them feel uncomfortable.  We then moved into the Emergent Learning Map exercise.  Since there was an excellent turnout we decided it would be best to split into smaller groups of four or five people, so that everyone felt their views were being heard and trust could be established among group members.  In our groups, we shared stories (ground-truths) about learning experiences we had had involving difficult interactions and then, as a group, developed insights gained from those stories.  Key insights explored topics such as communication and the value of truth telling and listening, risk-taking, trusting, and knowing our limitations.  After reconvening as an entire group we discussed the insights and developed hypotheses, which stemmed from the insights.  For example, one of the hypotheses developed was, “If a group focuses its attention on the higher goal and/or relationships, then the group will be able to handle conflict and discomfort and therefore learn from it.”  Following our discussion of hypotheses, we discussed opportunities in which we could test our hypotheses.

Overall, the learning circle was reflective of the tone suggested by the question, “What does it take to learn through discomfort and conflict?” posed at the beginning of the meeting.  The meeting brought together a diverse group of people interested in resolving conflict and learning from it.  It was thought provoking and engaging and paved the way for future learning circles in the area.  

To read more about the circle and see a list of all the ground-truths, insights, hypotheses and opportunities discussed, click here.

Please join our Leadership Learning Community Meetup group to learn more about upcoming Bay Area learning circles and other LLC events!