Skills Sprint: How to Learn as You Go (Without Finding More Time)

0:00Hi, I'm Helen. And I'm Sarah. And this is day one of our Squiggly Careers Sprint, where we are going to be diving in to how you can learn like a lobster. And before we get started with day one, we just wanted to remind you about some actions that are going to be useful so you can get the most out of the sprint. First thing is make sure you complete our Learn Like a Lobster profiler. It will help you to see where you're starting from. So where you've got some lobster like learning strengths. And also make sure you are signed up for the sprint. Just go to squiggly sprint.com. That means you get all of our daily emails with all the tools and links that we recommend so you can keep learning.

0:35Helen:So each day we're going to be talking about a different fascinating feature that a lobster has, which might feel a bit random, but we will very quickly then connect it to how it's going to help you to learn and grow in your job, but also in your squiggly career. So day one, kind of fun fact, fun lobster fact, you're going to learn a lot of them as we go through the week is that lobsters never stop growing. So they start off so small and so tiny and we've seen them and they really are really small, but they just get bigger and bigger and bigger and they kind of keep on, they keep on growing. It's very much sort of in their DNA.

1:09Helen:There's no point where they stop growing. And we want that to be the same for our careers. We never want to stop learning. But we know the biggest barrier to that is time. That's what everybody will always tell us is like, haven't got enough time to learn. The demands of my day are only getting bigger. How do I practically make this happen? I think there's often a bit of a knowing doing gap when it comes to learning. We all know it's really important, but then, but we can't quite convert that into action. And so today we're going to be talking about how you can learn as you go. And what is great about this is it doesn't mean finding more time.

1:44Helen:It means learning more from what you are already doing. I'm really thinking about adding learning into your day rather than adding learning on. So it's a bit of a reframe. We're sort of letting go of time as a barrier and thinking a bit differently, maybe about how we go through our weeks at work. So to learn as you go, we're going to focus on how you can get more data for your development. And data for our development is quite useful because often when we're learning, it can be a bit difficult to see the progress that we're making. whereas when we create data for our development it becomes a bit more tangible and there's often actually quite a lot of data that we often don't see because we haven't intentionally looked for it which is really what happens with learning a lot we're not being intentional about how what and where we can learn but data for our development will help us it helps us to create clarity and it gives you confidence in your progress so when you you start to improve you can see that reflected in the data and we're going to talk about three different ways that you can find data for your development.

2:40So we'll start with strengths. Yeah. Then we're going to talk about listening. And then the one that I'm dreading is we're going to talk about how data for your development can help you with your productivity.

2:48Helen:We are going to have some fun with this, I think, today. Yeah. And as always, we're going to practice what we preach. So we're going to do some of this data gathering and talk about some of the insights live so that you've seen it in action. I feel like I'm the one that's not going to come off very well. This is an area I have to focus on. I'm already looking smug. I'm already looking forward to enjoying this. So let's talk about strengths first and why we want to collect data around our strengths. So we know the more we use our strengths, the more we increase our impact in the jobs that we do.

3:17Helen:And also we want to make choices about our strengths. We really want to think about what do we want to be known for? I always think, what do I want to build a reputation for? What do I want to be recommended for? And so the way you can collect some data here is thinking for yourself first, what do I want to be known for? And the way we describe this action is what three words. So what three words do I want to be known for? You're never going to be known for 10, 20 things. So it's kind of good to be selective about those strengths you want to make really spiky. And then it's about asking other people to do some strength spotting for you, but really fast.

3:52Helen:So managers, people you work with, people in other teams, ask them that question. What three words would you use to describe me at my best? get loads of quick data and you can start to figure out does my intent what I want to be known for match my impact what other people say about me so let's have a go so we are going to write down live we've we've not we've not practiced this that's probably really obvious as we go through all of these things we've thought about it but we've usually not practiced so Helen is going to write down now three words that she wants to be known for and I'm going to write down three words that I would use to describe Helen as well at her best not just describe her generally but at her best so without without looking um okay I'm intrigued um okay yeah okay okay so what three words um I've got energy clarity and pace oh interesting okay so I mean I've not written mine very neatly you're actually showing me your own writing um so I also have energy so let's circle that's a tick okay i have agile which is maybe i think i was thinking about pace i just use a slightly different word i think i was also reflecting on your agility across so many different things okay so i was like all that your ability to go from i don't know a really big strategic conversation to fixing something fast or so yeah there's agility just came up for me so it's kind of close it's not interesting i'm not even sure this is a word solver solver i just I think it's a word.

5:23Helen:Yeah. I think it's in the dictionary. You just like solve stuff. I wanted to write solve stuff, but I was like trying to keep to like one phrase. What does that make you reflect on? So you've got your own data, you've got my data. It's only one person. But what does that make you think? I don't think I want to be known as a solver. So it makes me think, and this is a point really, that you're collecting data for your development that helps you learn, in this case about your impact. It makes me think that I'm probably fixing too many things. that I think it's an ability that I have, but it is not what I want to be known for.

5:55And so it just makes me reflect on, well, how am I spending my time? Is that what people are seeing? Which I think is the useful insight. We want more people to have that reflection.

6:04Helen:Yeah, so when you do this, look for overlaps. That's a good thing. Look for gaps, words that you want that you're not hearing. What are you going to do about it? And also look for words that you don't want. So that's exactly what Helen just said there. There's like a word I don't really want to be known for. I might be good at it, but it's not one of the top three words. Should we talk about listening? Useful exercise. Yes. So let's talk about listening and why this is useful data for your development. So, I mean, it's quite simple. If we're not listening, we're not learning. So if you are in meetings and moments and conversations and you are predominantly talking, then you're telling people what you know, but you're not listening really so that you can grow.

6:38Because until I listen to you, I'm not gaining your knowledge. I'm not curious. I'm not challenging what I think. And so the action here for everybody is to start reflecting and capturing data on your listen-talk ratio. So quite simply, this is in your conversations, your meetings, your moments at work, how much time in that meeting are you spending listening? How much time are you spending talking? And ideally, if we want to learn like lobsters, learn as we go, we want to be listening more than we are talking.

7:05Helen:It's also an interesting area just for people to know that we often overestimate our listening ability. so if you ask people to score themselves out of 10 so if you said to me well how good a listener do you think you are Sarah I might say well you know I take that seriously and I'm an 8 out of 10 but then actually if you ask the people around you they probably score you a 6 or a 7 and actually it's quite rare usually we are our own worst critics but I think this is one where we maybe either like to think we're good or maybe we make that mistake if we think we're listening but actually we're just waiting to speak or we're hearing we're not being really active so it's just worth having that awareness i think as you go into this and there's a few ways that you can get your listen talk ratio so you can self-reflect so you can come away from meetings and think what was it in that meeting you could ask a friend like i could ask you um i want to collect a bit data for my development over the week i'd really appreciate it if you just sort of track my listen talk ratio and play that back to me or you can use tech there's quite a bit like um i've used um i've used like some of the co-pilot stuff i've used an app called poised before i've used fire fly.

8:05Helen:Yeah. And I feel that is probably the most accurate. So I think after the moment, but pick one of those ways, self-reflect tool or a friend. And then I think the really useful thing here is to see when are you at your listening worst? And sometimes that might be because, well, your role was to talk in that meeting. So there could be a very real reason why. But sometimes it might be, oh, in that meeting, we were talking about when are we at our listening worst? And sometimes it's when we are feeling a little bit out of control of a situation. And so we talk a lot as a way of... Directing control.

8:37Yeah, being in control, gaining control. And so the thing to learn there really is, well, how do I feel more confident so that I'm letting other people fulfil the role that they need to do rather than filling the gap?

8:48Helen:So shall we go on to the final data for your development? So this is productivity. Yeah. And we call this one smart time. Yeah. But there's loads of ways... I'm crossing my arms because I'm really nervous. She looks defensive before we even get started. So there's loads of ways, I think, about your productivity. And this is just one quite fun, quick way. Yeah. which is about knowing your notifications. It's fun for you. And the time equation. So the reason we care about this, so we talked here about going, we don't want to encourage people, we don't want to try and find more time. But let's say you get 100 notifications a day and each take 30 seconds of your time.

9:20Helen:That's 50 minutes. So if you could get 50 minutes more time to learn a day, you're like, wow, that's massive. It is appealing. It is appealing. So we're going to do this live. I'm going to give Helen her phone. I took her phone away from her. I can't find you. And I'm now going to give her a phone. Thank you for returning my phone to me. And we both screenshotted, without telling each other, our notifications for yesterday. Yeah. Would you like to know how many notifications I got yesterday? No one. How many notifications did you have yesterday, Sarah? I mean, I'm furious. I need to find out how, but one.

9:50Are you joking? Mine has the number one in it. Right. Go on. 371. 11. 371. and I guess the the thing to learn this is the point because I think getting data for development it can be quite confronting yeah of course the there is a problem there that I that I'm clearly ignoring and actually seeing the data makes the problem quite real and when you think about well every time you are distracted by a notification your brain is less likely to be able to be present and learn from whatever you're doing attention you're multitasking yeah and so there's loads

10:26Helen:of other things you can do but perhaps that's quite a fun one to just get started with so we hope that has given you three useful ideas so that you can start learning as you go. We're going to end every day of our sprint with some inspirational advice to keep you growing and a 24-hour action so that you can keep going. So our inspirational quote today comes from Edwina Dunn and these are all from part four of the book in Learn Like a Lobster where we asked loads of lobster-like leaders and learners for their advice for people who want to learn more at work and Edwina says The most successful people aren't necessarily the brightest in the room.

11:01Helen:Good news for me. But they listen and learn better than most. And to keep your learning going after the sprint today, we would love you to know your notifications. So our suggestion is screenshot your notifications, perhaps share them with a team if you're sprinting with a team or with a friend if you want to just have a bit of an accountability partner. but make one change. Turn one notification off, see what your notification number is tomorrow and reflect on how that makes you feel. So thank you for sprinting with us on day one. We hope you've had fun, you've learned something new and you're going to go away and take an action.

11:36Helen:Join us tomorrow where we'll be talking about how to learn in hard moments and a bit about feedback. See you then.