Sometimes an Experience Only Becomes Development When We Stop and Ask What It Changed In Us
Professional Development: What Happens When Experience Becomes Learning? For Kim, the question became unexpectedly important after an experience at work changed the way she approached what came next.
Kim had always thought of herself as someone who learned from experience.
She liked being given something new to do. She was curious about how things worked and usually willing to have a go, even when she wasn’t completely sure she knew what she was doing.
If something went wrong, she tried to work out why.
If someone gave her feedback, she listened.
If she made a mistake, she told herself to learn from it.
So when someone asked her what she had learned from a particularly difficult period at work, she was surprised by how difficult the question was to answer.
She knew what had happened.
She wasn’t sure what she had learned.
The Experience
Kim worked in a role where things changed quickly.
A project she had been involved in had become more complicated than anyone had expected. There were competing priorities, people who wanted different things and a deadline that seemed to move closer every day.
Kim had worked hard.
She had stayed late.
She had tried to keep everyone informed.
She had solved problems as they appeared.
And eventually, the project was completed.
Not perfectly.
But successfully enough.
At the time, Kim had thought the main lesson was simple.
Next time, plan better.
She would leave more time. Clarify responsibilities earlier. Ask more questions at the beginning.
All sensible lessons.
But a few months later, something happened that made her think about the experience differently.
A colleague came to her with a problem.
It was not the same problem.
But Kim recognised the feeling.
The uncertainty.
The pressure to keep everything moving.
The temptation to solve everything herself before anyone noticed that things were becoming difficult.
And this time, she responded differently.
She didn’t immediately start fixing things.
She asked what was making the situation difficult.
Then she asked what the other person needed.
Only afterwards did she start thinking about solutions.
The conversation stayed with her.
Because she realised she had changed.
More Than What Happened
Kim had learned something from the earlier experience.
But she hadn’t learned it simply because the experience had happened.
The experience had become learning because something from it had changed the way she approached another situation.
That distinction mattered.
We often talk about learning from experience as though experience automatically teaches us something.
But it doesn’t always.
Something can happen without us understanding it.
We can make the same mistake twice.
We can have a difficult conversation and remember only that it was difficult.
We can complete something challenging without ever asking what it revealed about us.
We can move on before we have noticed what the experience was trying to tell us.
Experience gives us something to work with.
It doesn’t necessarily give us the learning.
When Does Experience Become Learning?
Perhaps it happens when we begin to look back at what happened and ask different questions.
Not simply:
What happened?
But:
What did I do?
Why did I respond that way?
What was I assuming?
What did I notice?
What would I do differently now?
And perhaps the most important question:
What has changed because of the experience?
For Kim, the answer wasn’t that she had become better at project management.
That was part of it.
But something else had changed.
She had become more comfortable with not having to solve everything immediately.
She had learned that asking a good question could sometimes be more useful than providing a quick answer.
She had become more aware of the difference between taking responsibility and taking everything on herself.
None of those lessons had appeared on a training plan.
Yet they were changing how she worked.
We Don’t Always Learn at the Moment It Happens
Sometimes we understand an experience much later.
A conversation we couldn’t make sense of at the time suddenly becomes clearer.
A mistake that embarrassed us becomes something we can finally examine without embarrassment.
A piece of feedback we initially rejected begins to make sense.
A situation we thought was simply difficult reveals something about how we respond when things don’t go according to plan.
This is one reason Professional Development can be difficult to see while it is happening.
The learning isn’t always immediate.
Sometimes we need distance from an experience before we can understand it.
And sometimes we only recognise the learning when a new situation gives us the opportunity to respond differently.
Kim Hadn’t Become Someone Else
Looking back, Kim didn’t think the difficult project had been a particularly good experience.
She wouldn’t choose to repeat it.
But she could see that it had changed something.
She was more willing to ask for help.
More willing to pause.
More curious about what was happening beneath the obvious problem.
And more aware that being capable didn’t mean always knowing what to do next.
The experience had become part of her Professional Development.
Not because she had survived it.
Because she had paid attention to what it had changed.
So What Happens When Experience Becomes Learning?
Perhaps Professional Development is not simply about accumulating experience.
We all accumulate experience.
It is about what we do with it.
An experience can remain something that happened to us.
Or it can become something we understand.
It can show us a capability we didn’t know we had.
A habit that isn’t serving us.
A quality we want to develop.
A way of responding that we want to change.
Or something about the professional we are becoming.
Kim’s difficult project had finished months earlier.
But the learning hadn’t finished when the project did.
It was still happening the next time she found herself in a difficult situation.
And perhaps that is one of the things that makes experience such an important part of Professional Development.
The experience happens once.
The learning can continue.
Connect and Continue
Work With Me: Individual WorkLife Coaching, Commissioned Learning Resources, Speaking Engagements and Organisational Partnerships.
Support This Work: Your support makes a difference and helps me to continue creating resources that are accessible to everyone. Thank you. Carmel
Listen to the audio version here:
Share This Piece
If this piece resonated with you, or made you think of someone who might appreciate it, please share it forward.
Discover more from schoolofworklife.com
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.