I have just come back from three wonderful days in Peterborough helping train a small group facilitators. Now facilitation is a many headed beast with lots of different definitions and expectations. In this case we were helping the participants to learn firstly about a 10 step process and secondly about the art and science of helping groups to make decisions within that process. The first part, as I have commented previously, is relatively straightforward whereas the second is, to me, the interesting arena.

There is a whole bunch of theory about facilitation, with John Heron being the most well-known guru, but the theory is no use unless you can put it into practice and it is only in practice that one really learns at an affective level about the realities of group dynamics. Moreover, that learning is partly about group dynamics and partly about oneself – it is the self learning that I want to comment on here.

One of the exercises we gave this group was to tell them that a small number of very senior and very experienced people would be coming along on the second evening and that our trainees were expected to host them. That’s all we told them, no times, no expectations etc. It was, and always is, interesting to observe the group struggle with this seriously ill defined task (especially if, as in this case, the group is primarily comprised of left brain engineers). On review, all of the participants reported feeling fearful around this task, outside their comfort zone and worried about whether or not they could pull it off. Of course, they did pull it off and they always do and the review explored whether or not the success was despite of or because of their fear.

Perhaps it is both, because the fear and discomfort requires them to go into a creative zone and to overcome the fear. The clever ones amongst our clients realise that the task we give them is both a learning exercise and the real task and the very clever ones acknowledge that learning only occurs when we are to some extent uncomfortable. Indeed being comfortable means, by definition, that we know what is going on around us and if we know that then we cannot be learning.

So one of our challenges in helping people learn, and one of your challenges in learning, is to become comfortable being uncomfortable. I’ll say that again, we need to get comfortable being uncomfortable, because the only place where learning occurs in the uncomfortable zone. Not so far that panic sets in, but so far that our brains have to go somewhere new to invent ways of handling the situation. Now we could run away from the situation, but that would neither get the task delivered nor create learning. Or we could resist, and that might create a different sort of learning with good facilitation but it would simply get in the way of getting the task done. So effective learners accept the situation as it is, recognise the value of their own discomfort and working on themselves with others to create effective solutions. It is in this uncomfortable zone that creativity can really happen, and after all what is learning if not creating new neural pathways?

So, if you want to be a lifelong learner then maybe you should be on the lookout for opportunities to make yourself uncomfortable – do new things, go to new places, read new books, talk to new people… Face your fears, whatever you choose to do just push yourself every now and again into that zone of discomfort knowing that when you look back you will be able to discover some learning. No risk, no reward.

PS I have just come across a short interview with Ed Schein on this topic – thanks to my mate Wynn Rees for alerting me to his work on this subject.