Is proactive learning necessary?

It is that time of year, when summer has drawn to a close, the leaves transition to their display of color, and school has started anew. A lot of parents breathe a sigh of relief as their kids return to their books and learning. Summer holidays sadly behind us, we return to our routine schedule; the countdown to Thanksgiving has begun.

I find as the days grow shorter and nights turn colder, I still have that inexplicable urge to shop for school supplies. Usually I end up with at least some new notebooks and pens – which my wife quickly points out I really don’t need. She is right, but I just love the reinvigoration that a new school year brings and the challenge of learning something new. Last year I took a linear algebra and differential equations class – just for the fun of being in that environment and the challenge of learning.

Over the summer I was thrilled to learn that the book, “The Lean Machine” was awarded the Shingo publication award. It was written to share what we learned at Harley-Davidson about lean product development. I am very grateful for the recognition and extremely appreciative of the wonderful people at Harley-Davidson who made it all possible.

Recently Dr. Durward Sobek and I took on finishing writing and publishing a manuscript that Dr. Allen Ward was working on when he passed away. The manuscript deals with visible knowledge and learning in the workplace. Productivity Press is on board to publish it, so the deadline that seemed comfortably far away when we started is now upon us.

Working on this project with Durward reinforced just how much fun and invigorating learning is and how scarce ‘proactive’ learning seems to be in product development.

So is proactive learning really necessary?

What are you learning proactively on your projects?

How do you stimulate those around you to learn proactively?

I’d be interested to know – Dantar@TheLeanMachine.org

Interested in information on the Shingo award? The link is here: The Lean Machine