Edward D. Hess Adapt to the Speed of Change with Hyper-Learning

Hyper-Learning revolutionizes how we adapt to change. Edward D. Hess’s groundbreaking book offers a roadmap for thriving in our rapidly evolving world. You’ll discover powerful techniques to enhance your learning capacity and stay ahead of the curve.

Ready to transform your learning approach? Dive into our review and unlock the secrets of Hyper-Learning today.

Genres

Business, Self-Help, Personal Development, Productivity, Psychology, Education, Career Development, Cognitive Science, Organizational Behavior, Technology, Career Success, Leadership, Leadership Training, Workplace Behavior

“Hyper-Learning” explores the critical skills needed to adapt in our fast-paced, technology-driven world. Hess argues that traditional learning methods are no longer sufficient. He introduces the concept of Hyper-Learning, a mindset and set of behaviors that enable continuous learning and adaptation.

The book outlines four key elements of Hyper-Learning: quieting ego, managing self, reflective listening, and otherness. Hess emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and critical thinking in developing these skills.

Hess provides practical strategies for improving cognitive and emotional skills, including exercises for enhancing attention, reducing cognitive biases, and fostering curiosity. He also discusses the role of technology in learning and how to use it effectively without becoming overly dependent.

The author explores how organizations can create environments that foster Hyper-Learning, emphasizing the need for psychological safety, collaboration, and continuous feedback. He provides case studies of companies successfully implementing these principles.

Review

“Hyper-Learning” offers a timely and insightful perspective on adapting to rapid change. Hess’s writing is clear and engaging, making complex concepts accessible to a wide audience.

The book’s strengths lie in its practical approach. Hess doesn’t just theorize; he provides actionable strategies that readers can implement immediately. The exercises and reflection questions throughout the book are particularly valuable.

Hess’s emphasis on emotional intelligence and mindfulness as key components of effective learning is refreshing. He rightly points out that cognitive skills alone are insufficient in today’s complex world.

The book’s exploration of organizational culture and how it can support or hinder Hyper-Learning is particularly insightful. The case studies provide concrete examples of how these principles can be applied in real-world settings.

However, some readers might find the book’s focus on technology-driven change overwhelming. While Hess acknowledges the importance of human connection, more emphasis on balancing technological adaptation with maintaining human relationships would have been beneficial.

Overall, “Hyper-Learning” is a valuable resource for anyone looking to thrive in our rapidly changing world. It offers a comprehensive framework for continuous learning and adaptation that is both practical and inspiring.

Recommendation

Quickening disruption is inevitable as AI and machines invade work that people once routinely performed, writes business professor Edward D. Hess. To help workers deal with this development, Hess prescribes lifelong learning, unlearning and relearning focused on creativity, collaboration and critical thinking – which people still do better than machines. His approach to learning is holistic, marrying mind, body and spirit – and it’s based on hundreds of journal articles, books and 17 years of teaching experience. Hess also offers numerous thought experiments, assessments and journaling exercises.

Take-Aways

• Hyper-learning demands continual learning, unlearning and relearning.
• Humans evolved to connect, cooperate and learn throughout their lives.
• Learning requires a quiet ego and safe environment.
• Inner peace facilitates optimal learning.
• A learning mind-set frees you from the fear of making mistakes.
• Make learning stick through behavioral change.
• Hyper-learning demands different ways of working.
• Promote trust, collaboration and communication within your team.

Summary

You remain relevant as a worker if you excel at the skills that smart machines cannot do well. These skills include creativity, imagination, critical thinking and decision-making in conditions of ambiguity.

In this book summary of Hyper-Learning, business professor Edward D. Hess prescribes a holistic approach to lifelong learning that will enable you to develop and hone the skills that set humans apart.

Hyper-learning demands continual learning, unlearning and relearning.

To remain essential, workers must focus on the skills and abilities that machines perform poorly. These include soft skills such as critical thinking, improvisation, creativity, problem-solving, empathy and collaboration. As machines grow increasingly more capable, workers must stay a step ahead through continuous, focused learning and unlearning: “hyper-learning.”

“The opportunity exists for all of us to continually rewire our brains, update our mental models and improve our thinking.”

At present, humans outperform technologies in tasks requiring creativity, imagination, critical thinking and decision-making in conditions of ambiguity. Building these skills requires a mind and body approach combining physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological and social health.

Humans evolved to connect, cooperate and learn throughout their lives.

You must change and reinvent yourself at an unprecedented pace today, and do so many times in your lifetime. Dispense with the notion that you learn for the first one-third of your life and can forget about learning thereafter. Beware complacency. Continually question what you think you know, and connect with others to gain different perspectives, thoughts and ideas.

“All learning occurs in conversations with yourself (deep reflection) or with others.” (psychology professor Lyle Bourne, Jr.)

Open-mindedness, curiosity, focused listening and challenging your beliefs don’t come easily. Your brain naturally seeks to conserve energy and to protect your ego. Cognitive laziness and many blind spots caused by biases create barriers to hyper-learning. This renders you – like everyone else – a “sub-optimal learner.” To optimize, you need other people to help you recognize and address your biases and overcome your cognitive resistance.

Learning requires a quiet ego and safe environment.

When listening, don’t think about how to reply or judge what you hear. Seek only to learn and understand. Pay deep attention. Hyper-learning needs a relaxed ego and a curious mind that remains open to new ideas. Set aside competition and self-promotion to engage in collaboration and experimentation.

“Collective flow reflects a team becoming one – an emotionally integrated group of people devoid of fear and self-centeredness, totally engrossed in the common task.”

Hyper-learning demands a psychologically safe and positive workplace that invites ideas from all. Everyone should feel safe to bring their authentic, whole selves to work, and caring teams must rally around a shared purpose and values. Command-and-control hierarchies – which impede or even forbid crucial openness, creativity and innovation – must give way to purpose, trust and strong relationships. These conditions often lead to “collective flow”: When team members think and collaborate almost as one person, losing their fears as barriers evaporate, their thinking crosses borders and performance soars.

Inner peace facilitates optimal learning.

Get your mind and body to a positive place that inspires meaningful conversations and learning. Inner peace comes from a quiet mind, body, ego and a positive emotional state; this peace forms the core of hyper-learning. Inner peace allows you to hear opposing ideas, build trust and see opportunity. With effort and practice, you can gain mastery over your mind and body. Prevent your mind from wandering by taking deep breaths and by monitoring your ego and emotions.

“Inner peace comprises four key elements: a quiet ego, a quiet mind, a quiet body and a positive emotional state.”

Don’t conflate your ideas or beliefs with your identity. Forge your identity around how well you listen, think, collaborate and learn. This helps you avoid reacting to triggers; you won’t worry about who likes you, care about sounding smart or become defensive when others disagree with you.

Your mind and body aren’t separate; they influence each other. Quiet your mind and ego by practicing mindfulness meditation and appreciating and extending positive thoughts to others. Slow down, smile more, be kind, stay humble and don’t approach life or conversations as competitions.

Listen to your body to recognize whether you feel tight or relaxed, anxious or open. Remain conscious of your body language as it sends positive or negative signals during conversations. Subconsciously and imperfectly, your brain works constantly by recognizing – or inventing – patterns and making predictions to keep you safe. You can change your brain throughout your life.

“Mindfulness meditation is actually inner peace superfood.”

To make new neural connections – to learn, in other words – you must prevent your mind from wandering and from making assumptions or coming to conclusions based on fast, subconscious thinking. In addition to mindfulness meditation, go for a walk in nature, read or listen to a calming podcast to aid this process. These activities can take your brain off automatic mode, so it can focus, and you can think critically about new ideas or evaluate emotions your brain may conjure that can impede new learning and the creation of new neural pathways. Keep a journal to record your state of mind and body and to learn what activities, places, tasks and communities put you in a quiet, positive place.

A learning mind-set frees you from the fear of making mistakes.

No one can force you to learn. You need to want to adopt a hyper-learning mind-set, love it and pursue learning out of passion. Make learning personally meaningful by adopting a growth mind-set that opens you to learning and frees you from fear of mistakes, being wrong or feeling stupid. Shed those fears to create, consider opposing ideas, acknowledge what you don’t know, imagine and think critically – the very abilities you need to learn and remain essential in the workplace. These are also the very skills that no machine can develop.

“We underestimate the magnitude of our ignorance, and we have been educated to avoid making mistakes, which means we tend not to take risks in exploring what is new or different.”

Consider the teachings of some of history’s wisest people, such as Aristotle, Plato and Einstein. Plato believed you should be careful not to be swept up in constant stream of thoughts that dominate your day. He, and other towering philosophers, discussed the importance of mindfulness, curiosity, imagination and kindness. They advocated living the Golden Rule, adaptability, constant reading and continuous learning as the foundations of a successful life.

What resonates most with you? To forge a hyper-learning mind-set, list 10 to 15 ideas, perceptions or thoughts in your journal that you discovered during your learning. Look for themes and compare the ideas you highlighted with the strengths you have and those you seek to develop.

Make learning stick through behavioral change.

Put hyper-learning into practice through your behaviors. Think about how you learn. For example, do you learn by asking questions, remaining open, staying humble or keeping focused? Do you prefer quieting the ego, exploring, collaborating, testing assumptions or examining data and evidence?
In your journal, list seven behaviors you find critical to your own learning. Then ponder the sub-behaviors that drive each of your seven behaviors. For example, if you chose “collaboration,” you might write “active listening” beneath. If “courage” appears on your list, add “challenging the status quo,” and/or “having difficult conversations.”

“Behavior change requires the utmost self-discipline and daily effort and vigilance.”

List the behaviors required to listen actively or others that impair active listening. This exercise results in a list of metrics against which to measure your progress. Reflect on your list and consider how it all comes together to encourage hyper-learning.

Take Hess’s Hyper-Learning Mini-Diagnostic at: https://www.edhess.org/blog/hyper-learning-mini-diagnostic. Analyze your results per the site instructions to gain further insight into your mind-set and areas in which you might improve. Re-create your story around your identity and what you must do to become a hyper-learner. Consider your fears and concerns and build your own business case for investing the time change demands. Choose one of your seven key behaviors – with its sub-behaviors – and begin working on it. Enlist a friend to keep you on track, measure your progress and ask experts for advice.

Hyper-learning demands different ways of working.

Even if you and the people on your team adopt the inner peace mind-set and behaviors necessary for hyper-learning, you all will not achieve optimal learning unless your work environment nurtures it. Unfortunately, most organizations still maintain outdated management practices based on fear and hierarchies. Leaders pretend to know it all, control and micromanage. Such environments stifle hyper-learning. Firms must instead emphasize collaboration, psychological safety, shared authority, autonomy, diversity, caring, trust, emotional intelligence and purpose.

“Overbearing, all-knowing, elitist leaders will be severely challenged under the New Way of Working.”

Seek to create a work environment that is a humanistic, “idea meritocracy” to which people bring their whole selves, engage with others warmly and have confidence in their leaders’ emotional intelligence. Employees must believe in their leaders’ commitment to enable, engage, support and serve them. Design people’s work in accordance with their strengths. Develop learning plans for everyone and create a safe environment for even the most junior people to share ideas, concerns and recommendations. Leverage the pillars of human motivation: autonomy, relatedness and mastery. Know your people’s strengths, weaknesses and aspirations. Don’t fear uncertainty and complexity; by example, encourage your team to embrace them.

Promote trust, collaboration and communication within your team.

People need connections at work to find meaning and thrive. Make work about joy, not dread. People can’t learn alone, and their best thinking occurs with others. Small, close and diverse teams of people who care about each other and who share a common purpose, values and goals gain from each other’s candor, openness, mutual respect and unique perspectives. They increase their abilities through trust and a collegial environment.

Positivity boosts people physically and mentally through the release of oxytocin, which engenders feelings of warmth and deeper connections – which in turn generate a virtuous cycle by triggering the release of more oxytocin. This cycle causes feelings of competitiveness to morph into feelings of safety, caring and the pursuit of mutual success.

In meetings, smile, say positive things and ask questions about people’s weekends, kids, travels and activities. Consider what makes you care about other people and what they do that makes you feel they care for you. Leverage diversity and ensure your team is at least 50% female, because women prove more proficient at collaboration and collegiality than men.

“High-performance teams have a specific purpose that every team member believes in and is committed to achieving.”

As the digital age accelerates, teams must coalesce, trust and collaborate. Many teams cannot, which impairs their effectiveness. Consider the best teams you’ve been a part of. What made them great? How did people behave and how did you feel? How can you replicate those activities and feelings within your teams?
Conversations drive connections and connections bring meaning. Help people build the necessary skills for meaningful conversations. Respect each team member’s uniqueness and perspective. Discourage telling; encourage asking. Meaningful and productive conversations happen in teams whose members ask: What’s missing? What alternatives exist? What data do we need? Which experiments should we run? Who else should we consult? What do you think? How do you feel?

About the author

Edward D. Hess is an American academic and author. For more than twenty years, he was senior executive at Warburg Paribas Becker, Boettcher & Company, the Robert M. Bass Group, and Arthur Andersen. Today, he teaches at the Darden Business School at the University of Virginia.

Table of Contents

PART 1

Hyper-Learning Requires A New Way Of Being
Chapter 1: Achieving Inner Peace
Chapter 2: Adopting a Hyper-Learning Mindset
Chapter 3: Behaving like a Hyper-Learner
Chapter 4: The Susan Sweeney Personal Transformation Story
Chapter 5: The Marvin Riley Personal Transformation Story

PART 2

Hyper-Learning Requires A New Way Of Working
Chapter 6: Humanizing the Workplace
Chapter 7: Creating Caring, Trusting Teams
Chapter 8: Having High- Quality, Making- Meaning Conversations
Chapter 9: EnPro Industries: Enabling the Full Release of Human Possibility
Chapter 10: Hyper-Learning Practices
Chapter 11: The Adam Hansen Personal Transformation Journey