I believe learning = living. We learn to live, learn from life, and life is so important in our learning. Lifelong learning is vastly more pervasive than students enrolled in university courses or employees attending training sessions.

The love of learning is my fourth signature strength and the second last profile of my five signature strengths derived from the VIA Signature Strength Inventory at www.authentichappiness.org.

The love of learning is defined as: mastering new skills, topics, and bodies of knowledge, whether independently or formally. Learning is often defined as a change resulting from experience and I love experiences that I learn from and that change me.

Marshall McLuhan, the great Canadian thinker, once said: In the future, we will not earn a living we will learn a living. That future is now.

Learning contributes to my overall happiness, fosters my engagement, and is a huge strength I bring to my work. Here are a few examples:

I love to learn and often take on projects, consultations, or teaching because I know that I will be motivated by how much I will learn from the work.

I have been a university and corporate educator for over 25 years. One of my biggest rewards is learning the material to be able to teach it. I also am energized by learning about my participants and learning from my participants.

I teach in the (CACE) Certificate in Adult and Continuing Education program for 4 Canadian Universities. I wrote and developed two courses. (1) Adult Learning and Development and (2) Advising and Counselling Adult Learners. I love to teach and coach other people involved in fostering adult learning

In addition I am hooked on books. I never met a book I didn’t like. Last week the librarian at Louis Riel Library, my local library in the Winnipeg Public Library system, declared that I have taken out 6701 books since they started to track borrowing on their computers.

I like blogs and learning from them. If you have not visited some of the blogs referenced on the right hand side of the page I encourage you to click into them. You never know what you might learn. For example, I have learned about blogging communities from Rosa Say, enterprise dashboards from the dashboard spy; leadership story telling from Stephen Denning; great resources from Phil Gerbyshak; and the inside on Dilbert from Scott Adams. I could keep going as there are so many wonderful writers and posts on the variety of blogs I continually monitor.

Learning is pervasive and I learn from experiences, stories, reflection, action, errors, and failures. I gather strength from learning and learning is a strength.

What is your fourth signature strength?

What have you learned by engaging in your strength?

What do you need to learn to foster your strength?

Take the time and effort to outline your strength like I did above. This reflective practice will help you to appreciate your strength, be more focused on your strength, and determine additional action you can engage in to leverage your strength at work and home.

Next issue: Spirituality: A Sense of Purpose.

Technorati Tags : leadership, signature strengths, learning, authentic happiness

Click here to read a short post on playing to your strengths by Debbie at the Smart Lemming blog. She strongly stated her strengths of being people centered and an idea generator.

She also mentioned Marcus Buckingham’s strength focused movie coming out this summer. Click here to view a 2 minute preview to the movie. I will return to the strength of love of learning in the next post.

Are you going to be part of the 2 or part of the 8 in regards to using your strengths?

As a leader will you commit to helping the people you lead raise the number to greater than 20%?

Creativity is my third signature strength. The VIA Signature Strength inventory defines creativity as thinking of novel and productive ways to conceptualize and do things. Related terms for creativity include originality and ingenuity.

I have always loved the visual example of ambiguity contained in the Necker cube shown above. The cube keeps shifting foreground and background. I believe that creativity is making quick shifts from one way of seeing situations or performing to a new way of seeing or performing.

I am tired of the hackneyed injunction to think outside of the box. Abundant creative thinking can occur thinking inside “the box” or context we inhabit with others. For example, can you shift your perspective in problems from your own concerns as a leader to empathy for the people you lead? Can we find ways to make new sense out of a tough event? I often gain perspective during a tough experience by fastforwarding and thinking this will make a good story in the future. I find it helpful to to take a distant view of close things and a close view of distant things.

Click here to see a more elaborate visual explanation and demonstration of the Necker cube.

In 1964 Arthur Koestler wrote The Act of Creation and coined the term bisociation. Bisociation means the ability to bring two things together to create something new. I believe it is vital and important to pay attention to our frequently overlooked acts of bisociation-creation. Creativity is often as simple as joining two things together to create a new synergy.

For example, I think it is important in career development to do what you love. Sometimes this seems quite difficult when you are “stuck” in a job. Regardless of your work, I think you can bring what you love to what you do. If you love flying yet work in a job that is not taking off you can bring your love of flying to your work.

You might not be able to taxi a Cessna in the office but you can develop work checklists, conduct practice simulations, avoid incipient spins of downward spiraling relationships, or navigate into a new career destination. I think transfer of learning is not always trying to make the learning the same as performance but looking at how you bring different ideas, concepts, and practices into each performance.

Here are 3 ways I leverage the signature strength of creativity and contribute to my authentic happiness.

Although humor is my number one signature strength creativity is the engine that drives most of my humor and playfulness. I create humor in my other blog. Even when I am linking to another amusing site or story I like to add my own creative input.

I teach numerous courses and workshops. While I always keep the goals in mind, I spontaneously create new tools and methods as the workshop progresses. I love to find creative way of working with material to keep it fresh for me and unique for my participants. Some of the best PowerPoint slides I have ever used were created as the presentation unfolded not something prepared in advance of the presentation.

I work for many different organizations each year. What I learn in one context may be helpful in a new context. I love to cross-pollinate something I learned with police officers on Monday into my work with call center managers on Thursday.

I appreciate the creative and fresh approach of children. For example, yesterday we were out for brunch with 7 adults and the 10 year old girl from next door came along with her mother. My wife was talking about a special meal we were planning and the 10 year old from next door asked if she could come too. My wife, not wanting to disappoint the girl, responded with the adult euphemism for no. ” We’ll see,” my wife said. The little girl, not to be denied, beamed at my wife and proudly declared, “THAT’S CLOSE TO A YES.”

What a creative negotiation response to “we’ll see.” I guarantee the next time I work on conflict management or negotiation skills with leaders they will hear that story, be encouraged to move to yes, and no doubt my wife and I will see that 10 year old girl at our house for supper.

What about your third signature strength?

What is it and how do you live it?

Don’t wait by saying “We’ll see.” Examine your strength today and live it the rest of your life.

Bisociate your strengths with your life to enhance your happiness. Draw upon the strengths of others you lead to create new and fulfilling synergies of performance.

Next article: Learning a Living.

Technorati Tags : leadership, signature strengths, creativity, Zinger