On learning, leadership, and impact: a new kind of dialogue to tackle the challenges that threaten our societies

Leadership, Writing

The Geneva Learning Foundation’s new Dialogue is an invitation-only global conversation exploring learning, leadership, and impact. Our aim is to explore new ways to connect individuals who are tackling the challenges that threaten our societies. In the past, one observation has been that conversations around learning and leadership tend to happen between nearly-identical peers. One of the bets we are making is that to progress our understanding on leadership, diversity is a necessary condition. And, indeed, I am struck by the radical diversity of the Dialogue’s participants so far. My conviction is that such improbable connections could create new possibilities for facilitated dialogue to surface new insights into the nature of leadership in the Digital Age. Below are three examples, connecting a disease control student from Ghana, an engineer working on a water pipeline in Libya, and an NGO worker from New Zealand.

Sewer grill ecology

One size does not fit all

Learning strategy

How does an organization’s leaders recognize, encourage, and reward both existing learning practices and positive change in learning behaviors that foster informal and incidental learning? Learning strategy recognizes the value of learning in all its forms, including informal and incidental learning, formal qualifications, and in-service formal education and training. One size does not fit all: the diversity of learning options also reflects the highly personalized nature of how each person organizes their own learning. However, learning strategy identifies learning activities that requires stopping work and dedicated resources as both difficult to apply and unlikely to be sustainable over time. Most of the learning that matters is, in fact, already embedded into daily problem-solving, dialogue and collaboration with colleagues and external partners. Members of the organization develop individual and team learning strategies as a matter of necessity – to get things done. Hence, the learning strategy seeks to recognize existing practices at least as …