It happened when I had to work out what to do for myself
Professional Development: The Best Thing I Learned Wasn’t on the Course — Raymond had always assumed that the most important things he needed to learn at work would be taught to him.
That had always seemed straightforward.
Take the course.
Listen to the trainer.
Learn the process.
Put it into practice.
Raymond had completed plenty of courses over the years.
Health and safety.
Facilities management.
Compliance.
New systems and procedures.
He valued them.
They gave him knowledge he needed to do his job properly.
But one particular situation made him realise that some of the most useful things he had learned at work had happened somewhere else.
The Problem
Raymond was responsible for keeping a large community building running.
There were always things to deal with.
A heating problem.
A broken door.
A contractor who hadn’t turned up.
A room that needed to be prepared at short notice.
Most problems had an answer.
Then one morning, a member of staff came to him with a problem he hadn’t encountered before.
Part of the building was becoming increasingly difficult for people to use. There had been several complaints, but none of them seemed to point to one obvious fault.
Raymond checked the equipment.
Nothing seemed to be broken.
He checked the maintenance records.
There was nothing unusual.
He went back through the relevant procedures.
Everything appeared to be in order.
He could have logged the issue and waited for someone else to tell him what to do.
Instead, he started asking questions.
What Was Really Going On?
The problem was a meeting room that people had started avoiding.
It was regularly described as uncomfortable. People complained that it felt stuffy, the room became noisy when several people were using it and some found it difficult to concentrate.
Raymond checked the ventilation.
It was working.
He checked the temperature.
It was within the recommended range.
He checked the equipment and the maintenance records.
Nothing appeared to be wrong.
That was what puzzled him.
There was clearly a problem, but there didn’t seem to be a fault.
So instead of looking for something to repair, Raymond started asking the people who used the room what they were experiencing.
That changed what he was looking for.
One person mentioned that the room was often being used immediately after a larger meeting, when the doors had remained closed.
Someone else said that the furniture was frequently rearranged, leaving less space around the vents.
Another person pointed out that the room became particularly difficult to use when several conversations were happening at once.
No single answer explained everything.
But together, the answers began to tell Raymond what was really going on.
He started making small changes.
He changed how the room was prepared between meetings.
He spoke to the people responsible for scheduling it.
He worked with colleagues to rearrange the furniture.
Then he watched what happened.
The room became more comfortable.
People stopped raising the same complaints.
And Raymond had learned something too.
The problem hadn’t been something he could find by checking a piece of equipment or following a procedure.
He had needed to understand how the room was actually being used.
That was something no manual could have told him.
Learning By Working It Out
Raymond had always thought of that as experience.
Now he started to think about it differently.
He had used knowledge he already had.
But he had also done something else.
He had observed.
Asked questions.
Listened.
Tested an idea.
Changed his approach.
And paid attention to what happened next.
That was learning too.
Perhaps one of the reasons it was harder to recognise was that nobody had taught it to him.
There was no certificate.
No completed module.
No assessment.
Nothing to add to a training record.
But the next time a similar problem arose, Raymond approached it differently.
He didn’t immediately look for the fault.
He looked at the situation.
What Had He Learned?
Raymond decided to think more carefully about what had happened.
What did I notice?
That a problem isn’t always located where the complaint appears.
What did I do?
I went to see what was actually happening rather than relying only on records and procedures.
Why did I do it that way?
Because the information I needed wasn’t going to be found in a manual.
What happened because of it?
I found a solution by listening to the people experiencing the problem and testing small changes.
What do I do differently now?
I’m less likely to assume that having the right procedure means having the right answer.
I ask more questions before deciding what needs to be done.
Knowledge Is Not The Same As Judgement
This made Raymond think about all the training he had completed.
The courses mattered.
They gave him knowledge.
They helped him understand regulations, procedures and responsibilities.
But knowledge was only part of what he needed to do his job well.
He also needed to know when something didn’t quite fit.
When to ask another question.
When to listen to someone whose experience was different from his own.
When to try something.
And when to admit that he didn’t yet know the answer.
Those things had developed through doing the work.
We Tend To Notice Learning When Someone Teaches Us
It is easy to recognise formal learning.
Someone teaches us something.
We complete a course.
We gain a qualification.
We learn a new system.
There is evidence that something has happened.
But Raymond’s experience reminded him that learning can also be less visible.
Sometimes we learn because something doesn’t work.
Sometimes because we have to solve a problem we haven’t encountered before.
Sometimes because another person’s experience makes us reconsider our own.
And sometimes because we have to work something out for ourselves.
The important part is not simply that something happened.
It is that we learned something from what happened.
The Course Was Still Worth Doing
Raymond didn’t come away thinking that courses were unnecessary.
Quite the opposite.
He still wanted to learn from people with knowledge he didn’t have.
But he no longer expected all his learning to arrive that way.
A course could give him information.
Experience could teach him what to do with it.
And sometimes experience could teach him something the course couldn’t have anticipated.
That changed the way Raymond thought about his own professional development.
He stopped asking only:
What do I need someone to teach me?
He began asking:
What is my working life teaching me?
That was a different question.
And it made him pay attention to things he might previously have dismissed as simply part of the job.
Learning Is Happening All The Time
Our working lives contain countless opportunities to learn.
But experience does not automatically become learning.
We have to notice it.
We have to reflect on what happened.
We have to ask what changed because of it.
Raymond hadn’t learned everything he needed from courses.
He had learned some of the most useful things by having to stop, look, listen and work something out.
The course had given him knowledge.
The work had taught him how to use it.
And sometimes, the work had taught him something he hadn’t known he needed to learn.
What is your working life teaching you that no course could have taught you?
Connect and Continue
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Explore Professional Development — stories and reflections on professional development, learning and the experiences that shape our working lives.
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