Thursday, March 5, 2009

About LEARNING

Learning… is a simple word to say, however in reality, it is quite hard to do the learning activity. Some obstacles will face us, some temptation will come to us.

Every human being in this planet called Earth, have a thing inside the head… yes, it calls brain. Brain is small, but it will memorize all things that we learn. By learning (for sure learning in good thing), insya Allah will help us to develop and to improve our better live in this world and the live after.

I develop this blog to share my experiences for you who read this blog or maybe (and hopefully), we will have good discussion as another learning step for me (and you) to give new experience.

I’m not a biologist or doctor or scientist or ustadz, I’m just a human who already work for some multinational companies in some industries, such as biggest electronics, biggest toy, biggest car, biggest lighting and biggest steel industry in manufacturing/operation area including commercial (sales marketing) area.
During I worked with those companies, LEARNING is one of keyword.

Why? Start from operator machine level and now as a manager, I use word “learning” as my basic personal development and career development. Don’t be get a trap in COMFORT ZONE area.

Many ways to translate the word learning, such as:
- Learning by doing
- From other person
- Reading
- Benchmarking
- Get advice

At the same time by learning, it will improve the skill (technical) and soft-skill (behavior) of the person, it does not matter which area we work.

The next articles below will share the definition of many ways as learning as mention above.

Have a nice read !

Please give your comment to improve this blog, thanks in advance.

Learning by doing


Is an activity that everyone “CAN DO”.
Simple? Yes, learning by doing is one of the simple-way as a learning activity.
It started from we born !!
Don’t you believe?

After we are born, who teaches us to get milk from our mom’s breast?
While we were about 1.5 years old, who teaches us how to walk?
And now, if we work in a company, we only got a short induction session from some departments, and short direction from our superior then we will start and do “learning by doing” when we finish our job.

The spirit of learning by doing is, “CAN DO” and want to try, take a risk.
However, I am a Moslem, than I believe, we got a change to do something by learning by doing coz Allah gives us a chance to do.

Learning from Other Person


Sometimes we feel not confident or doubt or something that maybe we shy, coz we can not do it (yet). No worries, it is natural, we all only a human being, no one, nothing are perfect in the world except Allah The Greatest.

We may find a good person, maybe our friends, our brother(s), sister(s), our boss, even our staff and other relatives, then we start to meet them, have a chat (better in relax condition – lunch/dinner time, after office hrs with a cup of coffee) and ask about what we want to learn. Copy and learning about the good things, but, be careful, good for someone, it may not automatic good for us!

Why? Please consider about the experiences, ages, environment, situation and other parameters which may create good or bad impact to ourselves later.
Every person has a type about how to speak, how to walk, how to see, how to think, etc, select the good one, copy and learning about the good things will impact to us, and do it (try to implement) and please remember, BE YOURSELF or BE OURSELVES!

The simple example from learning by doing:
- Drive safely
- Do not be late when you have a promise
- Polite during speak to someone
Etc

As a Moslem, it is a must that I need to learn about our prophet Muhammad SAW, coz he was the best leader, the best husband and father, the best friend compare to all mind kind in this world.

Reading


Reading is another way to learn. Some person, reading is a hobby.
Currently, it is very easy to get books in book stores, a thousand of books that we can read and we can use it as a learning point, e.g. learning about cooking, learning about politics, learning about history, learning about religion and other learning area.

Again, before we start reading, we need to select what area that we want to learn. Choose the good and famous author who already well known in specific area, such as Dale Carnegie, Steven Covey, Florence Littaure, Said Hawwa, Sayyid Sabiq, Ibnu Katsir and others.

And now, when is a good time to read the book? It is depend on the person. Some person like to read after working hrs or weekend or while in the bus/train/plane etc. Find the best time for you to read, key point to find the time to read is RELAX. Some person will accompany by classic music during reading.

How to memorize the good things inside book? Quite simple, we may use pencil, color marker (yellow, green, etc) or we may write down in your special pocket notes.

The best book that we have to read is Quran. Quran is not only a book. Quran is God’s words who will tell us the good things and the bad things, laws, sample from past live, current live and future live even after live. Quran is the “Standard Operation Procedure” how to reach our dream, our hope, our wish to live in heaven.

Benchmarking


At a stage that we already stable doing something and feel and get good result, DO NOT stop to learn ! Do not feel that we are good or we already the best. If we have this feeling, it is danger for us.

Benchmarking is an activity as a learning activity from others (from other person, from other company, etc), however, we need to understand our level before benchmarking and we need to set the goal after benchmarking. This is the learning point from benchmarking. Introspection to ourselves is a good spirit and we realize that we need to learn to improve.

We need to have good maturity before we conduct the benchmarking activity as learning. Why? Sometimes, we need to change our mind, we need to change our skill, we need to change our behavior after we finish benchmarking.
(About Change, please see other topic later).
Benchmarking will not work if we do not want to change to get better and better.

Currently, we live in dangerous world. If we take a wrong step, then we may go a place that we will not want to live there, hell. After Quran, do not forget hadits Rasulullah Muhammad SAW. The best community which ever had was Rasul’s friends. Compare our live with them, set our target and do it as they did.

Get Advice


Do not stop to learn (till we die!). Do not feel satisfied to find good samples and do not stop to improve to be a good and nice person. Respect others.
Another way as a learning process is to get advice from others. We may ask to older or younger person to get advice as long as we got a good learning point from other person. Don’t be shy to raise question, don’t be trapped in uncomfortable/uneasy situation.

When we ask someone to give advice for us, we must open our mind, open our heart, open our eyes, open our ears, insya Allah, it will help us to develop to be better person.

As a simple example is an audit activity. Someone or some person will see our process in our department. Auditors/they will compare the written procedures/sop with our activity/our result. Auditors will give some advices to us based on the requirement and the goal is to be better.

In a fact, it is not easy to find someone or some person to be asked to get advices. Wrong choice, then goes to bad result and good choice, insya Allah goes to good result. Find a right ta’lim (find some ustadz with right manhaj – learning process) then join the ta’lim and implement in our daily live.