The Greek had a nice expression for the right, critical or opportune moment for a specific action – Kairos. Kairos was depicted as a man with a lot of hair, but a bold back part of his head. So when he had passed, it would be difficult to grab his hair and pull him back.
Every action has moments when the chances of success are higher than at other times. This also applies to learning. Bob Mosher and Conrad Gottfredson are two American learning experts. They stress the fact that 80 percent of learning in the workplace occurs on the job, rather than in formal training sessions. They wrote a book on “The 5 Moments of Needs” (the title of their website https://www.5momentsofneed.com/about.htm). These are the moments, when people want to learn.
This is a crucial aspect for lifelong learning. Many people are not prepared engage in learning trajectories. Identifying moments when they would be more willing is therefore crucial. These are the five typical moments when we are willing to learn as depicted by Mosher and Gottfredson:
1. When we have to do something the first time (new),
2. When we want to know more about what we have already learned (more),
3. When we try to apply what we have learned (apply),
4. When we have to leave old routines and need new knowledge (change),
5. When we encounter problems and develop in an unexpected way (solve).
I have taken this summary from Ben Tiggelaar’s column in the NRC of 31 August/1 September 2019, who concludes that small steps of learning lead to better results than large learning trajectories, which are good for the first two types of situations (and perhaps for type 4), but not for 3 and 5.
It is much more difficult to organise learning in these situations. This needs a comprehensive change in organisations and in their culture – to really become learning organisations.
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