Being Open To Learning In New Ways

“Start anywhere and be willing to follow it everywhere” is something our Children and Young People Officer, Kelly Bailey, has been living by. She’s been exploring the learning journey happening at Energise Me and how we live up to our values of being Bold, Open, Creative and Curious. Here she’s selected some top tips for others also on their learning journey.

By continuously learning, we empower ourselves, our partners and our communities to adapt, innovate and make informed decisions. From formal qualifications and workshops to a casual conversation with a colleague or local resident, all of those give us insights that will impact our work and the people in our communities.

Within Energise Me, we support each other to make the time and space for of all types of learning and often there’s a chance for you to join in too.

Engaging in opportunities that might not immediately appear relevant might just create the progress we strive for. We all want learning to feel purposeful and applicable – but those ‘aha’ lightbulb moments often happen when we’re being curious. They can inspire us to do something differently.

Imagine, 6 months from today, a new project knocks at your door and the curiosity that persuaded you to join a few hours of training in fact helped to shape, plan and do right by the participants.

Our curiosity to learn more from Arts partners about where our audiences may co-exist, has led to us delivering our Culture in Common Programme based in the New Forest.

We’ve managed to build a culture of openness, which has been essential to people sharing what they have learned, being able to collaborate and provide constructive feedback. Some of the things we’ve done to create this include:

• We’ve encouraged everyone to ask questions, exchange learning, or discuss recent project developments – either in team meetings or by scheduling 1:1s.
• We’ve added learning objectives to personal development plans. We’ve also added them to our organisational action plan – so we all learn together.
• We facilitate discussions so we can celebrate successes and identify any areas for improvement.
• We make sure working groups are open to all, not just the ‘experts’. Anyone can get involved in topics ranging from AI, to Safeguarding, or Measurement, Evaluation and Learning.

Leadership and advocacy play an important role in creating change. Being a bold leader can mean taking calculated risks, embracing new ideas and doing things differently.

Within Energise Me, the learning culture is facilitated at all levels, from senior management to those working within communities. We encourage all our team members to have ownership over their learning and to take on new opportunities to do things differently. We want to be the type of organisation that can speak out when things need to change.

We’re always looking for new ways to understand our communities. We’re testing ‘How and Why’ conversations to learn from them first-hand what works for them, when it comes to being more active. Something we’ve never done before!

By encouraging creativity in learning, we ensure that our culture remains dynamic and responsive to the evolving needs within the sector. More importantly, it helps us to support and understand the communities we work with.

Creativity thrives in an environment that supports experimentation without fear of failure. By developing a safe space where the team can try out new ideas and approaches, we’ve found it’s encouraged innovative thinking. Sometimes that’s been taking learning on the road, other times it’s finding new sources like a new podcast or tv show.

To hear the voices of the children at the Hampshire School Games Festival 2024, we hired Seekers Create to host artistic and creative activities so the children could share their thoughts. This involved physical activities, crafts and inclusive games that allowed them to provide honest feedback and shape future events.

Some ideas for getting creative:

• Absorb information from different sources – podcasts, books, articles, webinars, internal conversation or formal workshops.
• Seek new voices to hear multiple perspectives on a topic, then be inspired by what you learn and implement it into your work.
• Work outside of the office – Members of the Energise Me team often take the opportunity to work in different locations locally, engaging with communities and sector colleagues. This has increased the types of environments that we are comfortable stepping into.

Creating an environment where people feel like they can be bold, curious, creative and open takes some time. We all learn in different ways and have different comfort zones, so it’s important to get to know each other. To make a culture where everyone can feel and do their best, we’ve tried:

• The Marmite Line – We asked our team to rate their opinion on a scale of 1-10 on topics such as TV shows, celebrities, foods etc. and then elaborate. This gave us a friendly, fun environment to disagree with one another.
• To embrace mistakes – This is especially true from those in our senior management level so those with less confidence don’t feel embarrassed if they stumble over their words or misinterpret a point.
• Understanding our team’s communication styles – Using a variety of online resources, we’ve shared with each other how we prefer to give and receive information. Some of the tools we’ve used:

Personality Lingo – Find out if you’re a Connector, Planner, Thinker or Mover and learn things that can help you improve your communication effectiveness.

Communication Styles Quiz – Exploring preferences of Analytical, Functional, Intuitive and Personal Communicators.

Our commitment to continuous learning not only enhances our organisation’s adaptability but also empowers us to think about how we use our learning to have the greatest impact within the community.

That means we want to hear what you’ve been learning about too! Share and insights you have with us as a We Can Be Active Win.