Looking Forward to 2015

Looking Forward to 2015

Having reflected on our successes in 2014, we look ahead to 2015. As we consider our highest priorities – program growth and reaching more community settings – our most important measure remains the experience of the individual.

In 2015, we will serve our 1000th reader. Since our very first program, we have carved out the time to listen as our participants tell us what Books@Work means to them – what works, what needs to be improved and how to reach and include a wider group. While we began these participant interviews to measure our impact, these conversations, with professors, participants and companies, have become a rich source of reflection and innovation for Books@Work. These qualitative interviews are not only helping us to “build the theory” around Books@Work – but to better understand our results along the three dimensions that we care most about: personal growth, company outcomes and community impact.

What have we learned from these conversations? Far more than we would have had we limited ourselves to the questions we initially thought to ask. One theme that has come up over and over is the pleasure, surprise and importance of the social interaction that occurs during and as a result of Books@Work. Comments include:

“I’ve gotten to know my coworkers in ways I never imagined before.”
“I’ve worked side by side with [one coworker] for fifteen years, but I learned things about her that I never knew before”
“One of our participants is so shy that I barely knew him – his insights and comments during the seminars were amazing – I would never have known that he was so thoughtful.”
“Hearing other people’s perspectives made me go back and read the book again – it was fascinating to hear how many interpretations people had that I had not thought of.”
“We talked as parents for the first time – not only as teammates.”

These examples are but a few of the many comments we have heard. But what do these stories of personal connection have to do with workplace? And should an employer even care?

Danish adult learning scholar, Knud Illeris, suggests that adult learning in the workplace requires a sophisticated combination of the individual and his/her surroundings. Specifically,  learning includes three “integrated dimensions:” cognition, emotion and social interaction. Illeris explains, “one cannot understand cognitive-professional content learning without also considering what happens in the emotional and social-societal dimensions.” The opportunity for emotional exploration and social engagement unlocks a completely different kind of learning that augments – and potentially enriches – work-based skills development.

Our participants tell us that Books@Work encourages this emotional and social engagement – the books create a platform for the discussion of broader human themes to which each participant brings a set of experiences and life context. By sharing this context, participants feel more connected to each other, find new relationships and gain new insights – driven by this unique opportunity to come together not solely as co-workers, but as co-workers and individuals.

In building new relationships, participants describe breaking barriers, gaining confidence to talk to others and building workplace networks that ultimately help them tackle work challenges. The program’s social interaction opens the door for empathy, compassion and deeper understanding of diverse views. A 2010 study demonstrates that social interactions in the workplace – those that permit people to engage and take each other’s perspectives – boost executive function and core mental capacities. For employers, these are hard-to-dismiss qualities for a healthy, functioning workplace!

As we continue to hone our quantitative assessment of Books@Work and its impact, these stories of social interaction help us to ask better survey questions – to “test the theories” and to begin to generalize the impact of the work itself. For example, our new questions might include:

  • How deep are the social interactions occasioned by participation in Books@Work?
  • How has Books@Work affected the quality of your interactions?
  • Is it about the book or does the book provide an entrée into deeper, more challenging engagement through the discussion?
  • Do these interactions carry over outside of the room? the workplace?
  • And what happens to these new or enhanced social relationships when the program is over?

By originating these questions in real Books@Work experiences, we hope to concurrently improve the program and assess the program’s ability to drive the impact we seek to achieve: personal, organizational and societal. In 2015, we will focus even more of our time and energy on these issues of assessment and evaluation, consulting with scholars and experts who may help us to contextualize our findings within the broader field of adult learning.

Stay tuned in the New Year – we will keep you posted! In the meantime, please weigh in! We look forward to hearing your views and your ideas.

Image: Winslow Homer, Sailboat and Fourth of July Fireworks, 1880, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop [Public Domain], via Wikimedia Commons.


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Ann Kowal Smith

Ann Kowal Smith

anksmith@thatcanbeme.org

Ann Kowal Smith is the Founder and Executive Director of Books@Work.