Learning Environment

 

Developmental Environment

If you have a dream, a vision, or a goal for what you would like to accomplish in life, there are several factors that must be present in order for that dream to come to pass. You may have a hidden treasure of ability on the inside, but those treasures and abilities are like seeds; they need the right conditions in order to grow. It’s easy to focus on just one factor and believe that it is the only key to success, but there are often several factors that must be recognized in order to succeed.

Attitude and Effort are the Starting Place

The starting place for success at anything is attitude. This simply means that there must be a sufficient amount of desire, determination, persistence, and belief, in order to see your plans all the way through to the point where they are fruitful. The right attitude usually elicits a second ingredient that is necessary for success which is effort. Accomplishments take hard work and hard work means putting forth the necessary effort for develop until excellence is achieved. A lot of people get all fired up in regard to attitude and effort. They are willing to work hard and pay any price for success, but these are just the starting place. It is possible to put forth more effort than anyone, only to realize that it is wasted effort that never leads anywhere.

Avoid Wasted Effort

Attitude and effort must be combined with knowledge. Someone who tries to find a location without knowledge of how to get there may put forth a lot of effort wandering around, yet never arrive at the desired location. Without the knowledge of the steps needed to develop your ability, you will get stuck short of reaching your dream. Even if you have the right attitude, effort, and knowledge of how to develop, there are other factors that may play a huge role in whether you have the opportunities to develop or not. One of them is your learning environment. Learning environment will either help or hinder your development.

Finding the Right Learning Environment

Many environments are based on competition and dominance. This can work in your favor if you are a quick learner or you’re near the top of the competition, but it can work against you if you’re not. Competition and dominance rarely helps everyone succeed and develop as it is often set up to benefit a small percent of people a lot, while others will be less fortunate. It can’t be ignored. If you have something that you want to accomplish, you will need to be aware of how much that competition and dominance factors  in the learning environment are affecting your developmental process.

Since competition and dominance generally favor only a small percentage of people, you must be aware of whether or not you fit into that small percentage. If you don’t, you can either continue to work hard and develop until you do, or you can consider finding a new environment that is better suited for your developmental level and rate.

The sad facts are that the world system is not always based on equality or fairness. Some will get more attention, more opportunity, and more favor than others. I will illustrate this with lessons that I learned from sports, as these lessons can also apply to business, jobs, ministry, education, the arts, social relationships, or anywhere that people must make decisions about who will be offered help, mentoring, grace to fail, opportunities to develop, opportunities to perform, and opportunities to fill positions.

The Starting 5 

In basketball, only five players per team can be on the court at a time, but when you include the players who are sitting on the bench, the whole team is often made up ten to fifteen players. Out of the ten to fifteen players who are on the team, there will be a starting five. Much of what is done in the process of development that takes place in practice will revolve around making the starting five become the best they can be for the benefit of the rest of the team.

The favored five are often called upon to run through plays over and over again in practice while the rest of the team sits and watches. The coach may closely oversee everything the starting five does and give lots of feedback to help them improve while not giving nearly as much attention to the other players. Those who are not on the starting five may also be asked to play what is known as dummy defense which won’t improve their defensive skills, but it will help the starting five learn an aspect of offense that if being emphasized by the coach. Those who are not on the starting five may also be put in scripted offensive situations that help the starting five learn a new aspect of defense. By the end of the season, the starting five will have received much more playing time, practice time, and coaching, while the others are placed in roles to accommodate the development of the starting five.

The 80/20 Rule

In some organizations, leaders are often taught to give their time and attention to the development of others according to the 80/20 rule. This rule is based on the philosophy that 80% of the results come from 20% of the people who are the top performers within the group.

If you find yourself in a group situation where you want to learn, grow, and develop, it’s important to know that those who are over you must decide where the biggest return will be when investing their time into the development of others. Leaders will often look for a few high potential people and spend the majority of their time investing in them. If you are in a situation where this is happening, it’s possible that you will find yourself among the 80% who end up on the short end of the development process, while the high potential 20% are given more opportunity, attention, and training.

Application

These same principles hold true in settings other than just basketball. The top performers in any field may get more attention, more coaching, and more opportunities to develop, even though they are already ahead. If you are not among the top performers around you, but you are still receiving just as much attention, training, and opportunity as everyone else, then it’s not a problem to worry about. However, if you aren’t among the top performers and find that you are being overlooked a lot, then it may be necessary to work hard during your own spare time, or to find some extra coaching or mentoring that is more individual and personal.

Be aware if there is a process involved where you will eventually become one of the starting five (figuratively speaking) or one of the top 20%. Sometimes if you are patient and diligent to keep doing your best, your turn will come and the developmental environment will shift in your favor.

 Make it Take it

Within the culture of playground basketball, some of the rules are not very fair in terms of giving teams an equal opportunity to score. One of these rules is often called, “Make it Take it.” This basically means that the team that scores gets the ball again as opposed to giving the other team a chance to score after a basket is made. The “Make it Take Rule” eliminates equal sharing of opportunity. It is based on giving the team that did the best with the last opportunity another opportunity. Opportunities must be earned by outdoing everyone else.  The problem is that those who have already done the best are given advantages (they get possession of the ball) that allow them to do the best again, making it hard for anyone else to succeed.

Application to Life

The “Make it Take it” rule is a perfect example of what can so easily happen in life. If someone out performs you, they are given advantages that help them to outperform you again. Since they outperform you, they also get opportunities that you won’t get as often. Once again, if someone else’s performance is dominant in comparison to yours, you will lack opportunities and advantages to succeed. You can either keep trying until you do succeed, but if you are too far behind in comparison to others, you may need to look outside of a system that is designed like this in order to receive opportunities to learn, develop and advance.

Winners Stay

Another common rule within the playground system is winners stay. All this means is that if there is just one court that multiple teams want to play on at the same time, there needs to be a way to determine who gets to play and who doesn’t. The “Winners’ Stay” system is not based on sharing court time equally among the teams that want to play, it is based on rewarding dominance. As long as a team wins, they stay on the court and the losing team is replaced by another team. If a team never loses, they stay on the court the whole time while the other teams take turns playing against the winning team.

Application to Life

If you are in a winners stay situation, you will get have a chance to do a job or task as long as you, or your team is the best. If someone does better, they will keep receiving regular ongoing opportunities to learn, grow, or perform, while all others must patiently wait their turn for a shot at being the best.

 Determining Who is going to gets the most Opportunities

In basketball and soccer, there is one ball among several offensive players. This being true, how do you decide who is going to get the ball? It’s nice if everyone is highly skilled in regard to their ability to handle the ball. If so, then you simply look for any player who is open, or the one who is in the best position to score. However, in most cases, players within a team vary in their ability to handle the ball, or score, or to make good things happen.

The ability of each player often has great bearing on who players decide to pass to. Just because there are ten players on the court, or twenty two players on the field, doesn’t mean that every player will receive a lot of opportunities with the ball. For example, a great point guard in basketball may do the majority of ball handling for a team because he is the most effective person when comes to maneuvering with the ball and protecting it from the defense. Likewise, a great shooter may receive a lot more passes so that they can shoot more because he or she is highly effective when it comes to shooting.

Application

You may be in a situation where there is no real system for determining who gets opportunities to do a certain job or task, but when a pressure situation comes up, the opportunities will tend to go to the those who make good things happen when given responsibility. If you are not as skilled, you won’t get as many opportunities. You may get some, but you won’t know how many as it is dependent on both the ability and availability of you and others as it pertains to a given situation. It makes it hard to develop when others who are better keep getting more opportunities to develop than you.

Always be prepared as much as possible because you don’t know when your opportunities will come. The better you do, the more likely it is that someone will give you another opportunity. If you with others who are much more advanced than you, it is possible that not many opportunities will come your way. You can either work hard to catch up in your skill level, or you can find a group of people where you will be more of a go to person.

 Determining Who Will get the Favored Position

Perhaps the most coveted position in football is quarterback. The majority of people who play football either openly or secretly wish they had the opportunity to play quarterback, but on any given play, there will only be one quarterback on the field.

Quarterbacks must have far more qualities than just having a good throwing arm. They must be able read defenses, mismatches, and to recognize which receiver is open. They must be able to throw a pass with enough speed, distance, and accuracy to get it to the receiver. Not only that, the pass must be thrown at precisely the right moment because receivers are often only open for a moment before they are covered by the defense or find themselves out of position for a pass. Quarterbacks must also be able to execute fake handoffs and real handoffs quickly enough to get the ball to the right player without it being obvious to the defense.

If the quarterback doesn’t have enough skill, it doesn’t matter how good the receivers can catch, or how well the running backs can run, the quarterback will not have the ability to get the ball to them, and the whole team fails. This is extremely frustrating and limiting for the rest of the team. But when a quarterback can do his job, the rest of the team is more successful and happier.

So, out of all the players who want to play quarterback, who is going to get to get this coveted position? The team will generally be happiest when the one who is best at helping everyone else catch the ball and run with the ball is placed at quarterback.

Application 

Some positions, roles, or jobs in life are very limited in number and only one person may get that position. You will never develop at that position if you never have a chance to practice it and do tasks that pertain to that position. Your options are to settle for a different position that may not be your first pick, but you would still be satisfied with it. You can also look for the position you want outside of the current circle of people that you are with. It is possible that there are schools, academies, or learning situations that specialize in the position you want, and you will have many opportunities for growth along with others while in that situation.

Who is Allowed to make the most Mistakes?

Within the realm of sports, even the best players blow it and make bad plays, but some will get a second, or third, or many chances to make mistakes. Others will be quickly pulled out of a game or cut after tryouts for making their mistakes. It helps to examine why this happens so that you can be better prepared to deal with the situation.

A Track Record of Success

Some players already have a history of success and will be given more chances when they fail. They may go through a slump, but it is seen as a temporary phenomenon instead of permanent condition. It is assumed that they will recover and start playing well again. There are other players who make a lot of mistakes, but this is offset by another aspect of the game that they do very well. For example, Mike Trout strikes out more than most other baseball players, but he also hits more homeruns than anyone. If someone else strikes out a lot, but they don’t hit homeruns, they won’t get the second chances that Mike Trout gets.

Application 

If you don’t already have a track record for success, and you are given an opportunity to perform, you may find that you don’t get second, third, and extra chances to do better. The more you can prove your abilities, the more people will believe in you, even if you do make a mistake. However, the opposite can be true as well. The higher up you go, it’s expected that you will make less mistakes. If your mistakes persist, someone else who is not making as many mistakes will take your place.

High Potential is Often Allowed More Mistakes

Another factor that coaches look at is potential. If a coach believes that a player with average skill has the potential to develop into an outstanding player, he may give the player a lot of chances to learn from his or her mistakes. Coaches often do this if they see a player lacks experience, but they have exceptional size, height, strength, speed, or power to become a great player if they develop their skill level.

Application 

You may not have the look or the inherent high potential qualities that are often exhibited in a given field. However, you may be far better than others who are perceived to have high potential qualities, but you may not be given as many chances to make errors and mistakes during the process of individual development. If someone has high potential qualities such as a brilliant mind, a charismatic personality, or is highly articulate, they may be given more chances to learn from their mistakes. If you are in a situation where you need room to make a lot of mistakes to learn, but you mistakes are not tolerated, you may need to look for another environment.

Preference and Biases Allows More Mistakes

Another unfortunate reality that can affect how much grace you are given to make mistakes is biases. In a sports setting, this may mean that a coach favors a certain player over the others who are actually better. There are multitudes of reasons for this. It could be a family relationship, or a bias because the coach has a close friendship with a certain parent or relative of the player. There can be racial biases, personality biases, a bias for or against a certain style of play, or any other bias.

Application 

Biases are often out of your control. You can take steps that may cause people to look past their own biases by being helpful, responsible, teachable, and a person of high character. These are qualities that those over you can’t do without and help you gain their respect and favor. However, if you sense that there is a bias that will turn into a permanent limiting factor in your development, you may consider looking to another setting where it will be possible to develop more in the manner you would like.

 Navigating your Situation

All of the examples listed show what can happen in a competitive world. There are settings where some have far more advantages to keep succeeding and to keep receiving opportunities than others. Even if this is not occurring on purpose, it is difficult to develop a system that is designed to treat everyone equally and give everyone the individual attention they need to fulfill their own dreams, abilities, and desires.

In many instances, the world is very selective. If you happen to standout in a positive way, you get more attention and opportunity for position, performance, advancement, and development. If you know this, you have a better chance to navigate in and out of competitive situations that stack the odds for development and success in favor of some more than others.

One of your chief responsibilities in growing, advancing, and developing your abilities is to recognize a good environment for growth, and a bad environment for growth, and to navigate yourself into a positive growth environment as much as possible. We don’t live in a perfect world, so finding the right environment that will nurture your abilities and goals is not always possible in every situation. However, if you find yourself in the wrong environment to develop, advance, and succeed, you need to consider your options.

Evaluating Your Situation

If you are not in an environment that provides much opportunity for personal development or advancement, one option to consider is that opportunities may come if you keep doing your best and wait your turn. You will need to evaluate how strongly the people over you consider qualities such as: experience, faithfulness, cooperation, and the willingness to go the extra mile. Will these qualities help you to receive more opportunities for development? If so, it may be worth it to exhibit these qualities and stay where you are until your chance comes. Another option is to work harder on your own time, or to find those who are both willing and qualified to give you individual help to improve yourself. If in spite of your best effort, you sense you are stuck in situation that isn’t going anywhere, you may consider looking for a new environment that will help you to develop.

Consider You Rank

One of the things to consider is whether or not your development is dependent on an environment where you will be in a group situation. If it is, the next consideration is how you rank and compare with those within your group. If your rank is based on ability, it could be that those with more ability are going to get more attention, more support, and more opportunities than the others. This may not true in every instance, but if it is, you are much better off if you recognize the type of environment you are in so you can make adjustments if necessary.

If your current level of competency is low in comparison with your group, you either need to be a quick learner, or spend a lot of individual time developing on your own. If not, you might not be able to keep up with the developmental pace. Working and learning at the right level and the right pace plays a huge role in successfully developing your abilities and potential. It also tends to figure into how you fit into a group socially, and it tends to be a factor in your own perception of whether or not you have what it takes to continue pursuing your goals.

Statistics of the Effect of Rank

Malcolm Gladwell gives a presentation that explains the importance of how you rank among those who you are working with or learning with. Statistically, the lower you rank among others, the more likely you are to quit at an endeavor. Also, rank tends to be more important than actual ability when it comes to future accomplishments. If you have exceptional ability, but you are with others who have even more ability, then often times people who don’t have as much ability as you will succeed more than you if they rank high among those in their immediate group.

Malcolm Gladwell on Rank