Learning Zone - How do I get there?
- Bei Bei Yu
- Nov 12, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 15, 2024
Everyone is talking about the learning organization. In our fast-paced world, it is becoming increasingly important to learn as individuals, teams and organizations. After all, we need to remain innovative in order to ultimately ensure our survival. As a leader, how can I empower my team and myself to keep learning?
In the overall discourse on learning, Seth Sandler's 3-zone model stands out in particular. This is because it starts where learning begins. He asks the question: Under what conditions do we start learning in the first place? The answer to this question opens your eyes to where you stand and what measures you can derive from this.
Sandler describes:
Comfort, Learning and Panic Zone
In the comfort zone, we use the knowledge and skills we already have developed over the course of our lives. We use our core competencies. We feel comfortable. What we do is not stressful for us.
In the panic zone, we are overwhelmed, stressed and can even feel anxious as we are confronted with tasks which are far beyond our experience. We don't know how to tackle these tasks. Being overwhelmed often leads to discouragement. And we want to return to the familiar comfort zone as quickly as possible.
The learning zone is located between the comfort zone and the panic zone. Here we venture into new tasks that are outside of the comfort zone, but close to it. We feel challenged, but not overwhelmed. In the learning zone, we can expand our skills, develop new competencies and thus broaden our comfort zone.
Evolution has trimmed us for energy efficiency. How can we blame ourselves for longing to remain in the comfort zone? However, staying in the comfort zone also bears risks. Rapid changes in the environment mean that our core competencies degenerate and our comfort zone becomes smaller.
How can leaders use this model to support teams and individuals to navigate into the Learning Zone? First of all, this models helps to answer the question: What zone are we in?
And if we are not in the learning zone, what can we do to get there?
A Concrete Example
An IT project manager, let's call him Stefan, is responsible for implementing a new customer relationship management system (CRM). He always works with his project team members onsite and has no experience of working with remote teams. But during the Covid-19 pandemic, remote working became the new normal.
If Stefan stayed in his comfort zone, i.e. if he waited until he could work with his team in the office again, he would not be able to perform his role as project manager for two to three years. And after the pandemic, the required skills of project managers has already changed. Working with remote teams became one of the standard requirements for project managers. This would have reduced Stefan's comfort zone after the pandemic.
His manager has the task of supporting Stefan in moving out of his comfort zone and into the learning zone. To get started, I recommend a conversation that can be structured as following:
Create a common understanding of the status quo and highlight the impact on the company's success: The pandemic continues. And if the CRM project is not adapting to remote working, the go live of the system will be delayed. This means that the sales department is missing an important tool for achieving sales targets.
Define a target together with Stefan which is outside of his comfort zone: Convert the current project to remote working by time X.
Use questions and active listening to derive support measures: What do you need to achieve this goal? What challenges and risks do you expect during implementation? How do you think the risks can be mitigated? etc.
Further measures such as training, necessary tools and individual support (if necessary) can be derived from this.
How Can a Leader Provide Support?
And how does it looks like in practice when a leader wants to guide someone out of the panic zone and into the learning zone? I have an example from my own professional life. I was a young project manager in the purchasing department. A new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system was about to be introduced at the company where I was working at that time. I was nominated as the project manager a few months after the project started. Until then, I had no IT project experience and only knew ERP systems as a user.
During this time, I was confronted daily with challenges which were far outside of my comfort zone, some of which casted me directly into the panic zone. On hindsight, the following leadership aspects helped me to get out of the panic zone and into the learning zone:
Recognizing the challenge: My supervisor acknowledged that this project was complex and challenging. It was okay that I felt overwhelmed at times.
Transparency: I had the opportunity to discuss all the challenges in the project with my line manager.
Trust and support: my line manager provided the project team and me the freedom to take decisions and he supported whenever needed.
Security through professional technical support: We had an experienced implementation partner who supported me on this challenging project with valuable advice and guidance.
After initial hurdles, we successfully implemented the new ERP system. And among other things, we optimized company processes and increased transparency in various areas.
Learning requires doing. With regard to my example, simply researching on IT project management would not have helped me to successfully run this project. I learned by doing, by make mistakes and correcting those.
This experience awakened my enthusiasm for IT projects and is the reason why I am now working in the field of digitalization.
Takeaways in Short
The 3-zone model helps you to determine where you stand.
There is no sustainable improvement in the comfort and panic zone; this is only possible in the learning zone.
Remaining in the comfort zone has its own risk. The comfort zone will become smaller and smaller.
The panic zone is not bad per se. Appropriate leadership's support and guidance help individuals and teams to move into the learning zone.
Enough theory and let's get down to business! I hope you enjoy trying out the findings!
What are your experiences with learning and the 3 different zones? Feel free to share your journey with us.
