Tjip de Jong
Netherlands
Learning starts with experience
In the film ‘The Game’ the main character suddenly finds himself in an intricate web of simulations and surprises. At one point he asks the man behind the game: ‘What’s your point? Why do you do this?’. The answer: ‘I provide experiences’.
That’s really how I see my work: I give people the opportunity to have an experience and to learn from it.
That is important because we have a tendency to “talk about” issues and make plans. However, real learning begins with an experience. Learning is always connected to the realisation of something in your work.
I like to use research as a learning intervention. By examining positive experiences with people in an organisation, new solutions always present themselves. Often, these were already there, but you don’t always see them.
What I find exciting is creating new experiences, doing research in the form of games and experiments. An issue which is actually quite dull then comes alive, and everyone joins in. By creating an experimental or game situation you create a new platform, a stepping-off point for approaching an existing issue in a fresh way. Learning then happens almost spontaneously: people explore, investigate, discover.
What’s important is to do that jointly. Significant ways of learning, where there is innovation and people break through existing patterns, always take place in interaction with colleagues. By searching together and trying out new things. Knowledge flows. People learn from each other’s perspectives.
The quality of the relationships within an organisation -fascinates me. In my view, we can develop that far more strongly. That’s why, alongside my projects, I also carry out a PhD research in that field: how do we utilise social capital? How do we mobilise it to tackle difficult issues and to fuel innovation?