Learning Through Conversations

At the risk of gross generalization, all learners may be classified into two broad categories- those who learn on their own through reading, acting and reflecting and those who learn through others by conversing, acting and reflecting. Primarily belonging to the latter group, the skill of learning through conversation is one I admire and hence want to explore here.

The importance of discussion forums, virtual and real support groups and vintage advice from elders is beyond debate. Each time one engages in a conversation there is a whole new world that opens up via the unique perspective the partner to the conversation offers. With genuine effort toward learning something new, mighty may be gained from each simple interaction especially if one is surrounded by diversity. The experiences of others provide a short-cut to learning without living it yourself, the opinion of the others dissolves the molasses that may have settled in the narrow pond of our personal view and the advice offered by others may save one from a future mistake. Even the literature on Knowledge management talks of an important step in the knowledge management cycle that describes knowledge being imparted and imbibed tacitly through informal conversations and socialization thus providing the privilege of grasping what may never be written.

This is no where more evident then in conducting good research. In fact, the latest buzz in organizational and social research talks of ‘engaged scholarship’ (Engaged Scholarship: A Guide to Organizational and Social Research by Andrew Van de Ven) that is proactively seeking advice from all stakeholders at every step of the research journey. Most of those who have ‘arrived’ in their field have a common signature quality of encouraging and recording the feedback from everyone who has some to offer, irrespective of the status and level of understanding of the individual.

But this requires commitment of time. Listening to others is time-consuming and flows against the tide of instinctual counter-arguments we inevitably wish to offer. One has to sieve through the vast ‘data’ one generates through conversations to achieve that nugget of knowledge which sometime in the future may be the trigger for the tipping point toward a beautiful creation. Amidst all the multi-tasking, cramming more and more in our daily schedules and perennially wanting to over-achieve, finding this kind of time for conversations might require more effort than we might perceive.

It also requires immense patience. There are times when the advice is unsolicited and worse still pinching, there will also be times when the person at the other side of the conversation refuses to stop or painfully be repetitious especially when you have undying attention pouring out of your eager eyes, there may also be time when all you want to do is be on your own; listening despite all these odds is what a true learner needs to cultivate.

Humility is another pre-requisite for effective learning through conversation. One needs to suspend all judgments about the intellectual and other levels of the person one is conversing with in order to capture all that is of value. Hubris, arrogance and stereotyping the other are the inevitable killers of an enriching conversation.

All the above drums and rolls for engaging in conversations in no way undermine the value of knowledge through other sources like books and self-reflection. In fact zero learning would result if conversation is the sole source one learns through. What we hear must be churned and chewed through contemplation and compared to the written word for discovering unique views.

Counter-intuitively, conversation is an art and a valuable source of knowledge. If we resolve to pay attention to all words in each daily interaction we may discover and create un-ventured lands which with some effort may prove to be pathways to beautiful breakthroughs.