Tag: learning

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD SPEAKS IN TONGUES

When the Spanish Armada sailed in May 1588 the intention was to clear the way for an invasion of England and allow direct rule by King Philip II* of Spain. Had that happened I probably would not be investing in Spanish language lessons at the Culture and Language Centre in San Diego**. Sir Francis Drake, the Dutch and the capricious winds off the English coast defeated the Armada and have a lot to answer for.

Learning a language later in life is a powerful reminder of the painful step from blissful ignorance to conscious incompetence. Whether I will ever graduate to conscious competency is difficult to say but the experience has been both humbling and energising. It is also a stark reminder of the extraordinary intelligence, desire and courage of international students.

Every year thousands of young people travel around the world to study at degree level. They endure homesickness, different foods, strange customs and, sometimes, outright hostility while trying to communicate and study in a language where they have limited ability. My weekly evisceration of the Spanish language in a safe and supportive classroom just ten minutes from home pales by comparison.

Maybe every university should ensure that anybody engaging with international students has to do a course where they learn an unfamiliar language. This would give due regard to those academics and administrators who are genuine polyglots and should build empathy for students. I can even see marketing advantages in publicising that the institution recognises the interplay between language acquisition and academic achievement.

My rationale for learning Spanish at this point in my life is that I live ten miles from the Mexican border and wanting to start coaching football in a region with many bilingual youngsters. But the greater reality is that after years of posturing I ran out of excuses not to learn a second language. Time, funds and opportunity are the ultimate cure for fear, indolence and procrastination.

The fear is real because I was terrible at languages at school. Three years of compulsory German did little more than enable me to name two of Santa’s reindeers, seek attention or demand that people move quickly***. Forced to choose a language to study at O-level (for younger readers these were the pre-antiquity form of GCSEs) I plumped for French.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t even proficient enough for that level of study and ended up in the CSE (Certificate of Secondary Education) class led by the dynamic and ever-kind Mrs Bell. Her hug of affection and delight when I secured a level 2 at CSE remains one of the most perplexing of school moments. I had merely turned up and guessed at the answer to every question compared to those who had not bothered to do either.

One class-mate was so disinterested in his exams that he even refused to write his name at the top of the answer paper. He had heard that you were automatically given two marks for this form of self-identification and was anxious to secure a big fat zero. Having sat for the obligatory twenty minutes at the start of the exam he gave a cheery wave as he was escorted out by a rather grumpy invigilator.

The real downside of learning languages at my secondary school was that language laboratory sessions were always straight after swimming. Sopping wet hair and water-filled ears in an English winter do not go well with headphones in a dank, claustrophobic, sound-proofed booth. The danger of your teacher perforating your eardrum by screeching down the headset was only exceeded by not being able to hear the class bully sneaking up to smack you round the head.

These painful memories explain my surprise that several decades later I keep inserting French words into Spanish sentences. Their relentless pursuit of space in my brain reminds me of both the posse in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Schwarzenegger’s definitive Terminator. I say “Who are those guys?” and they say “I’ll be back” – but where have they been hiding all these years?

More interesting than that game of ‘cherchez la femme’ is my growing understanding of adult language learning and an interesting parallel to management development. Research into adult learners of second languages suggests that the two languages show little separation in triggering activity in Wernicke’s area (the part of the brain largely responsible for language comprehension). This may also explain why my mind finds a French word when it is seeking the Spanish one.

But in Broca’s area, which manages the motor activity of the mouth when speaking a language, the triggers for activity are more substantially separated. This means that speaking the second language, particularly if some sounds do not cross from one to the other, is more challenging. Those who have grown up bilingual do not show the same separation.

It seems reasonable to think that management theory learnt later in life and demanding new behaviours may also be more difficult to implement because understanding and action are not wholly aligned in the brain. The good news with languages is that focused exercise in speaking can go a long way to overcoming the deficit between comprehension and fluency of speaking. I would venture that the same is true of understanding the benefits of new ways of behaving and working on operationalising that learning.

As a relatively inexperienced but desperately keen manager I read that taking time to regularly interact informally and supportively with colleagues was important. I was very poor at remembering to do this, so for several years I wrote time into my working week to engage ‘informally’ with individuals in my team. Looking back this mechanistic approach seems forced and artificial but it was a way of turning theory into reality for someone finding their way as a leader.

Making progress in developing my second-language capability remains a struggle but has brought a new perspective on the links between knowledge, understanding and action. It demonstrates that learning is a journey with plenty of stopping off points to admire the view and smell the flowers.
Muchas gracias por leer mis amigos!

Notes

* El Rey Felipe II
** https://www.cultureandlanguagecenter.com/
*** Donner und Blitzen, achtung, schnell

Accidents Will Happen

In response to Jillian Braverman’s recent post about learning more from mistakes than successes I committed to select some examples from my own career. The whole process was a good reminder about the benefits of reflective practice. Getting better at accepting personal fallibility is a reasonable defence against being careless, neglectful or just plain stupid.

It also helps to avoid the trap of ‘unconscious competency’ where a level of mastery and familiarity encourages repeating actions without conscious evaluation. I’m grateful to Andy Green for introducing me to the notion of ‘super-competency’ where someone who is highly accomplished in a discipline continually challenges and refreshes their skill. The best people never stop learning.

Some of the greatest creative forces in history have also pointed to the danger of believing excellence in a skill or a way of thinking is an end in itself. Picasso observed that, ‘It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.’ Leonardo da Vinci said that, “The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.” Throughout their lives they were involved in a relentless search for improvement.

While few can match the creativity and inventiveness of these titans my small contribution here is three occasions when errors have held valuable lessons and changed my way of thinking.

CLARIFY THE BRIEF AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
Late in the process of producing an Annual Report, I was asked by an HR Director to arrange a short version to be sent to all 70,000+ staff. Under time pressure and wanting to impress I re-drafted the text as a summary, re-purposed the existing visuals and got the design agency to do layout for free. I felt pretty good about having got the job done in budget and on-time.

But at final proof stage the HR Director said he had wanted something original and entirely focused on the employee audience. My annoyance at time and effort wasted was only exceeded by my embarrassment at failing to clarify the brief. Always understand the purpose and intended outcomes of a job before starting it and make sure that you have clarified the time and cost implications of any course of action.

Kipling is instructive:
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

(“I keep six honest serving-men.” Rudyard Kipling. First published in the Ladies’ Home Journal, April 1900)

It is also usually worth reminding budget-holders making late requests that the iron triangle comprising cost, speed and quality can usually only have two side fulfilled at the same time.

BEWARE HUBRIS AND LACK OF PREPARATION
One of my employer’s open-plan office culture led to the wearing of ‘red caps’ to indicate you were not to be disturbed. Local interest had me appearing on regional TV where, on the spur of the moment, I stated that we thought it was a great gift for the upcoming Father’s Day. Slightly carried away by my own cleverness I said that we’d be selling them in one of our local stores that Saturday.

The scramble to source red caps, at anything like a reasonable cost, involved the whole team for the next two days. Particularly when I decided that they needed to have a big D, for Dad, emblazoned on them. But I took delivery of the caps late one night and found myself in a nearby store early the next morning.

Given a prime spot near the entrance and alongside the clothing section I was confident that I would be sold out and back home by noon. 12 hours later I had not sold one, despite the asking price plummeting from a fiver (which was at cost) to 50p. I could not bring myself to just give them away but had learnt many lessons.

Making a claim without thinking it through is not a good place to start. Compounding the situation by adding specifications, something akin to ‘mission drift’, is equally unwise. But most importantly I learnt at first hand and on my own time how hard it is to make money by selling things. It was an early step on a long road from being in public relations to leading a £100m turnover commercial organisation.

MUTUAL APPRECIATION AND ENTHUSIASM ARE RARELY ENOUGH
After several years in one job I was slightly restless and applying for anything that looked interesting. When the call came it was welcome, the process rapid and it felt like love at first sight. The lure of global opportunity and building a team from a low base seemed too good to miss.

Sadly, I had missed that what attracted the company to me were things I had done earlier in my career but were not my intended direction of development. An early visit to the parent company disabused me of my belief that I would be able to spread my wings internationally. And the ‘low base’ was destined to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

In relationships it is in the interests of both parties to temper good rapport with critical thinking. I was flattered by the attention and I did not ask enough questions to understand their situation. As importantly, I was not wholly transparent about my expectations.

Whether it’s a new job, a business partner or a personal friend there is not enough goodwill or money in the world to make it work long term unless aspirations, values and practicalities are honestly shared. And you have to be prepared to walk away however much you like people and want things to work out.

*****

Mistakes are part of learning and it is reasonable to expect that if you are pushing hard and on the edges of your ability or experience you will make more of them. As long as you have not staked what you or your company cannot afford to lose, every error brings insight and few are terminal. It’s always good advice to believe that what matters is what you do next.