This post draws on some exceptional leadership training I attended in Cincinnati some years ago, a personal near-legendary experience from Summer 2009 and the fact that many of us actually flip back and forth from being visibly outgoing, strong and confident to being introverted, quiet and shy.
Recognising this model was something quite special for me - it highlighted why I gain so much from conferences, talking to customers, like-minded strangers and other controlled but potentially stressful situations…
http://www.socialpedagogy.co.uk/concepts_lzm.htm
In order to learn we have to explore, leave our comfort zone and enter the learning zone. Beyond the learning zone lies the panic zone where we are blocked (by fear) from learning – lessons here are only recallable in similar negative situations.
- Individuals must find their own way into their learning zone, it’s unique to them.
- Forcing someone out of their comfort zone out of their control may tip them immediately into panic.
- The point of maximum learning lies at the cusp of the learning and panic zones.
I believe this is why we learn so much from failure and stressful situations and why we often only realize it when we face them a second time.
It’s also why I learn most from group workshops and preparing presentations. Getting out of my comfort zone and talking to people in public gets my adrenaline going and brain working.
A cautionary note. I’ve found that having recognized what’s happening and broken the seal on the comfort zone it becomes somewhat addictive. The boundaries between comfort, learning and panic zones shift and you need to keep finding something else to drive you onward.
Chris Matts is somewhat of a master at demonstrating learning on the fringes between learning and panic - talk to him about exploring deserted conference facilities at 2am armed only with a shopping bag, red wine and no water.
What things do you do that make you really uncomfortable but maximise your learning?
About The Dread Pirate Crom
Captain Crom started programming and debugging games from magazines on his Brother’s BBC as a small boy in the early 1980s. With early qualifications in both computer science & art and a love of live music it became clear he was destined for bad things.
His tyrannical ways commenced with a degree in Computing & Informatics at Plymouth and from the mid 1990's a career in the software industry. After formative years as "The Scourge of the Thames Valley" between Reading and Bracknell with occasional raids on the San Francisco Bay area, since 2004 he has been seen sailing stretches of the A10 North and South of the Isle of Ely with the primary source of his raids targeted around Cambridge. Sightings have also been rumored as far afield as Scotland, Norway, India, Nevada, Florida and Georgia.
The Captain has served in companies ranging from successful startups and ailing dot-coms to global corporations, spanning roles from IT, consulting, support, development and management through to agile coaching.
The common thread in each of his roles is that he has always chosen to join software product groups - usually large-scale enterprise software. His large-scale product and organizational focus differentiates him from the more common textbook agile captains.
(Other differentiators include his distinctive hoop earrings and love of spiced rum)
The Captain's Agile experience started with a blend of FDD and XP in what he describes as "the most disciplined team he had ever served with". He subsequently moved onto using Scrum and XP blended with Theory Of Constraints, Kanban and Lean philosophies to improve software delivery techniques in other organizations.
He believes every member of a delivery team should spend time with customers supporting the product they produced. “Sitting at the dirty end of a product (or cutlass) completely changes the way you think about business processes and write software for the rest of your softwarefaring career!”
