Believing in magic blocks learning

Experiences in childhood are often characterized by magical notions. Consider, for example, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and various other such ideas across a wide variety of cultures. To what extent we accept such fanciful ideas as true varies considerably, but it is most commonly the case that, as we move through childhood, we rely less and less on magical ideas and go on to adopt a more ‘rational’ approach.

During childhood magical thinking manifests itself in a number of ways, such as when children sometimes believe that if they want something enough, it will happen. Similarly, it is well documented that children who have experienced a major loss (such as the death of a parent) can sometimes feel responsible for what has happened: ‘Daddy died because I was naughty’.

The textbooks generally tell us that children grow out of such ‘magical thinking’, that they leave it behind as they grow older. However, my experience suggests to me that it is not as clear cut as some people seem to think. My conclusion is based on my work in training and development over many years. In this work I have seen many examples of magical thinking amongst adults, in the sense that so many course participants seem to assume that attending a training course will make them better at their jobs, ‘as if by magic’.

So many people attend courses and work really hard during the day (or days). They concentrate; engage in discussions and other activities and make the effort to understand. However, when it comes to connecting what they do on the course to their day-to-day work, this can become a problem. Many people appear to believe that, having gone through the course, they are automatically better equipped to do their jobs — as if they can do this without:

identifying specific behaviours they will endeavour to change Learning is a complex set of issues and not only a matter of behaviour change, but development clearly involves some degree of behaviour change for the most part.

establishing how particular concepts or understandings can be brought to bear Training courses can be fertile grounds for introducing, discussing and developing important ideas that can inform practice. However, simply being exposed to such ideas is unlikely to make much difference, unless they can be linked to actual practices (not just in an abstract way, as in a case study exercise, but in relation to their actual work tasks). Understanding a concept and being able to apply it in practice are not the same thing.

identifying other steps that need to be taken in order to put the learning into practice For example, do any obstacles need to be removed? Are there any working practices or other aspects of working life that stand in the way of putting learning into practice? What can be done about them?

I have discussed these issues many times with participants towards the end of their courses, and the reaction has been the same every time — recognition that magical thinking is the norm (that is, thinking that performance improvement will happen by magic rather than by a process of transfer of learning), and that so often in the past, they have returned to work after a very good course, but have not been able to transfer the learning. I have found these discussions to be a useful way of encouraging participants to recognize, and avoid, the magical thinking trap.

However, it is not simply the responsibility of individual participants to make the transfer of learning a reality. Supervisors have an important role to play by encouraging and supporting such learning transfer. And, of course, senior managers have a responsibility to nurture a culture that supports and values learning and does not adopt the attitude that says to someone returning from a course: ‘Right, you’ve had your little break, now get back to work’.

It is unrealistic to expect that we will ever get 100 percent learning transfer (expecting that would be magical thinking too!), but there is no doubt considerable scope for improving the current percentage.

Dr Neil Thompson is an independent writer, educator, a visiting professor at the Open University and an adviser to the Vigoroom workplace wellbeing platform (www.vigoroom.co.uk). His Academy at www.NeilThompson.info offers an annual subscription service giving access to 60 of his online courses. This is available to individuals for less than £2 per course or a corporate subscription for up to 300 staff at just £3,000 +VAT.