Learning in Stages: Learning to Do Things Well, Do Things Better and Do Better Things

In many organizations, including government, there is a tendency to adopt a very narrow view of learning and to identify a sizeable proportion of the population as non-learners. This is patently inaccurate, we are all learning at all stages in our lives. Tom Boydell's Learning in Stages was written to counteract this limited view of learning, and to overcome any doubts each of us has about being a brilliant learner. The text introduces several simple but significant models about how we learn and includes a number of diagnostic processes, check-lists, reflection questions, activities, practical hints, and questionnaires, which you can use to reflect on your own learning abilities and possible priorities for your development. Although written in a form that invites you to think about yourself, you could easily modify them, give them to other people to give you feedback, or use them as the basis for designing activities for training or developing others. Increasing your capacity to learn is an essential skill for individuals struggling to come to terms with social and technical change. And for organizations, their success in mobilizing their employees to learn provides a winning strategy for securing competitive advantage; increasing employee involvement and contribution; and ensuring resilience in the face of commercial challenges.

Tom is a Director of Inter-Logics and Visiting Professor of Management Learning and Leadership at the University of Lincoln. For 20 years he was a Principal Lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, then a partner in The Learning Company Project, which carried out research into learning organisations and ran an annual conference to disseminate good practice. During his career Tom has been a consultant, originally specialising in self-managed learning and self-development he then focussed on broader issues of organisational learning and change. He has authored/co-authored over 40 books, including the best-selling Manager’s Guide to Self-Development (McGraw-Hill, fifth edition 2007), The Learning Company (McGraw-Hill, second edition 2000) and the subsequent Learning Company Toolkit (Peter Honey Publications, 2004). These proved to be somewhat seminal works that have influenced a number of others in seeing the concept of a learning organisation as being much more than just a ’training’ organisation.