A Nurturing Culture #blimage

My colleague Jane Hart dobbed me (and several other colleagues) in for the #blimage challenge.  I usually resent when someone publicly asks me  to do something, but fortunately this is easy and, well, it is Jane ;).  She presented the following image and our task is to blog about it:

So my take is how things grow in  a nurturing environment.  Here plants are flourishing under the energy of the sun.  This to me is a metaphor for the benefits of creating a culture in which learning can flourish.  I’ve earlier detailed what the research says about the elements of a learning organization, and it’s clear that you  need a culture with several elements.

First, learning  independently has to be enabled. The resources to learn need to be there, as does the time for learning. Further, the ability to learn on one’s own shouldn’t be taken for granted; identify, model, evangelize, and develop these abilities.

In addition, learning is social.  The possibilities to learn together need to be facilitated.  There need to be ways to find individuals with complementary skills to learn together. This in particular means collaboration: learning while innovating on solving new problems, devising new solutions, and more.  It also means being willing to share. It has to be safe to ‘show your work’!  Again, don’t assume skills for learning together, but scaffold the development of these abilities.

It is really important that  leadership reinforces learning, both by supporting and more importantly by practicing visibly! There’s evidence that when leadership doesn’t share, others won’t truly believe it’s valued.

So there’s my blog on the image.  Two colleagues also were challenged with this image and have  replied; you can see what they came up with:

Jane Bozarth

Charles Jennings

Rather than dob in anyone in particular, I will simply recommend that you take  your own  stab, and here’s a proposed image:

I hope to hear what you come up with; drop a link in the comments if you do!