social learning

24 Jul 2018

Could You or Your Team Benefit from Social Learning

In late 2017, when Forbes outlined the Top 10 growing business trends that will drive success in 2018, there was one we weren’t surprised to see – Social Learning. In a way, The Growth Coach has been doing that for more than 20 years. With our Strategic Business Owner group workshops and Strategic Manager Coaching specifically, we’ve put a lot of energy into making sure our clients across the country are learning together and from each other. Now that we are half way through 2018 and Social Learning hasn’t lost any of its luster, we thought now was a good time to talk about it.

According to Forbes, “Social Learning is the process of learning through peer social interaction. The most common example of traditional social learning is the chance encounter at the workplace water cooler. Two or more people run into each other, share ideas, and walk away knowing a little more in the process; this is social learning.”

Take a moment to think about a time when Social Learning inadvertently got you excited about a new project or helped morph something you were working on at that time. Maybe it was when you went to lunch with a coworker and, while talking through a challenge, found a unique solution. Or maybe it was when a coworker was talking about their work over coffee and it opened your eyes to another angle of the company. Social Learning is subtle, but it can be powerful too.

When we get people together at our group coaching workshops, it’s most importantly because we understand the value of not only learning in a group, but also working together, keeping each other accountable and sharing experiences together. It’s lonely at the top, so it can be refreshing for business owners and company leaders to have a chance to share experiences together and learn from each other’s mistakes and failures. You can take 100 webinars about strategic planning, but it won’t compare to spending time with another business leader who has been in your shoes and experienced similar challenges.

Although our workshops are designed around The Growth Coach program so we can help you build a more successful business and a more balanced life, we also often because facilitators of people sharing their own challenges, failures and successes.

Whether or not you’re ever planning to attend a Growth Coach workshop or work with a business coach, taking the time to learn socially is important. It can be hassle to make time for lunch with coworkers you might not see every day or to pick someone’s brain over coffee, but that kind of idea sharing is valuable both to your current job and to your future success.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *