In this article Gill Steel, the Managing Director of LawSkills talks about being a Curious Learner. LawSkills provides learning and development for Private Client Practitioners, Gill is one of the country’s most respected and compelling speakers on Private Client matters.
LawSkills services are designed to help practitioners in the areas of Wills, Probate, Trusts, Tax and Elderly & Vulnerable Client. Their unique approach allows to offer insights into how you can adapt within an ever-changing profession, whilst managing a heavy caseload and complying with regulatory changes.
Are you a curious learner?
It is fascinating what draws people to learn something. Sometimes it will be pure interest in the subject; others might be looking to gain a qualification; some might be forced to learn something to keep up to date and their heart isn’t in it; others will come across something and be intrigued to know about the subject etc…
What sort of learner are you?
Being a curious learner is a wonderful trait as it entices you to learn throughout your life and in this world of fast changing events and the developments in the use of technology what could be better? Even if you are not a curious learner but respect the need to learn maybe you can be enticed to learn more if the way training was offered was more to your liking, encouraging you to learn for yourself.
Your brain
Recent neuroscience studies have shown that loneliness and social isolation experienced by all age groups during lockdown is having a negative impact on our ability to learn. A number of studies have shown that social isolation shrinks the pre-frontal cortex, the hippocampus and the amygdala – result: impaired learning and memory and inability to concentrate.
Working from home takes away the stimulus of working in the office. Synapses grow through repetitive use of new experiences. The office presents us with new challenges through interactions with others and we are missing these opportunities so our brains are not stretching as they would have done in the office.
So, if you want to be a curious learner, or even if you don’t but need to do so to keep up to date, it is currently that little more difficult than before. What you need is to be nudged into learning by each day learning a short nugget of information. Say one of my LinkedIn posts or reading a section of LawSkills Monthly Digest and using it to reflect on how you approach that subject and whether you need to update your thinking or your processes accordingly.
This snippet of learning may be all you can do at the moment, but it might entice you to refresh your knowledge on a topic or update your know how, to bring it up to date. If so, why not contact me to arrange an interactive workshop online around your needs and those of your work colleagues. We can put together some reading, the watching of videos or listening to podcasts beforehand to address different learning styles. Then discuss together the issues around a case study or examples so there is no going to sleep online! This might help you and your team re-build a process or re-think your approach to bring it up to date with developments. Before you know it, we have blended together a number of different ways of learning to help you use them back in the office.
To find out more about LawSkills visit their website, call 01962 776 442 or email admin@lawskills.co.uk
You can also watch the full PLG Digital interview with LawSkill by visiting our YouTube Channel.
