Squiggly sprint 24: Day 14 - Learning Agility

Day 14 of the SquigglySprint, we are over halfway, and the topic is Learning Agility. 

What struck me was the the definition that Helen and Sarah use for Learning agility is 

“Learning from experiences so you know what to do when you’ve not done something before.”

This reminds me so much of the concept of Phronesis, or Practical Wisdom. This is a rather academic principle, which has some wonderful definitions.

“Knowing what is good, right, or best, given a particular set of circumstances.”

“Being able to make the correct decisions despite there not being a process.”

This is quite different from Common Sense. Personally I often find appeals to common sense to be cynical, as invoking common sense often implies that no further argument is required. 

Practical wisdom however implies that what is being done is coming from a position of experience & reflection, and that at some level someone is able to explain where they learned this lesson.

The important thing to remember in all this is another old adage… 

“Wisdom is knowledge that you learn after you needed it.”

The podcast talks about the beginner mindset, and this is something that you see in social media a lot at the moment in catchy posts. That your first podcast will be rubbish, so learn from it. Or an expert is someone that made the same mistake as a beginner ten thousand times.

As a point of practical wisdom, these can look very schmaltzy, especially when you are young. The ones that stick around usually stick around for a reason, as they are often right.

 https://youtu.be/wTitVeabxHs