Learning to Learn

Learning is more than a skill. It is as a posture toward everything, a way of framing all experience as a learning opportunity or learning process. In the context of an organization, how can we learn to learn? How do we make the most of every experience, success or failure, mistake or serendipity? How do we use these experiences to grow and prepare for those serendipitous moments? Talented workers will recognize opportunities, bounce them off others and act as mechanisms for creating success. Performance management should come in to play when learning is involved. Employees should be coached on how to process a mistake. They should understand punitive measures for misappropriating an error. Management should treat learning as they treat policy, with delicate appraisal and constant revision.

Learning extends into many areas of performance. Research was conducted on how learning and goal setting affects an individual's emotional regulation.

What does it mean to have performance goals for emotion regulation? What would it mean to have learning goals for emotion regulation? Just as people with learning goals for academic achievement seek to improve and learn from their mistakes, people with learning goals for emotion regulation seek to improve their ability to handle emotions. Just as individuals with learning goals for achievement view setbacks as an opportunity to learn and improve their ability, people with learning goals for emotion regulation view emotional difficulties as opportunities for growth and development. (Rusk Tamir and Rothbaum, 445)

Research shows that depression in the workplace comes from setting the bar too high. Thought suppression is an avoidance of negative thoughts and the end result is a tendency to dwell on the negativity. As a result, individuals build a case against themselves.

Individuals with higher performance goals were more likely to experience rumination, thought suppression, and depressive symptoms. The relation between performance goals and depression differed for those with high versus low beliefs about emotion regulation ability, with individuals scoring high in performance goals and low in beliefs reporting more depressive symptoms than other participants. While learning goals for emotion regulation were negatively associated with rumination and depressive symptoms, learning goals for emotion regulation were negatively associated with rumination and depressive symptoms, learning goals did not significantly predict depressive symptoms when controlling for beliefs about emotion regulation ability. (Rusk Tamir and Rothbaum, 449)

Take Away Points

Sources
Performance and learning goals for emotion regulation; Natalie Rusk, Maya Tamir, Fred Rothbaum;