Learning and Working

When I gathered a few trusted coworkers to preview my introduction of Transitions in our training class, one commented that he thought that considering “why we do things” made him more interested in learning “how to do them”. At the same time I received the best feedback of the year (for my other blog) when @jorgefusaro said on Twitter: “I like the why focus of your blog”.

In order to understand how things and perhaps how people work, we have to start by asking “why?” When we take the time to learn why things were made as well as how to make them, the lessons we learn can serve us beyond their original intent. I am reading Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford and I see this theme echoed in this book. In one example, he describes tracing a motorcycle valve problem back to a previous owner’s attempt to increase performance on the cheap. Having seen others motivated to achieve speed without spending, his mentor was lead to what he had come to know was a typical problem.

In Hollywood's Celebrity Gangster: The Incredible Life and Times of Mickey Cohen, author Bradley Lewis not only tells the story of Mickey’s life of crime, he explains Mickey’s motivation. As the book moves forward through time, we learn about Mickey’s exploits and we come to understand Mickey. The explanations offered by Crawford and Lewis come at the expense of experience and research, two things most people today aren’t interested in. Today, we settle for a quick peek at Wikipedia (that offers 1,200 words about Mickey Cohen) and say we understand something. Information is being packaged and consumed like the physical things in our life, with “no user serviceable parts inside”. One of my favorite TV shows, How It’s Made is great entertainment but in its short, made for consumption format, they show things like earthmovers being “made” from engines, transmissions and computer sub-assemblies. We simply accept that the engine must be more powerful than the engine in our car but we don’t care to know more than that. In the great children’s book The 20 Elephant Restaurant, the husband sets out to chop down a table-wood tree and some chair-wood trees. Sometimes, I think that’s what we want from the world.

Since starting this blog, I have wanted to tackle the subject of the lessons we learn from doing real work; from learning how to build things and then building them. Well, that is close to the heart of Mr. Crawford’s book and he makes the case better than I can. I may return to that topic, but for now I would recommend reading Shop Class as Soulcraft. In fact, I’d recommend reading all three books I mentioned as well as returning here in a few days. In this first series of 2010, I’m going to share three stories about learning, teaching and working with tools. I hope to illustrate how learning things at a greater level of detail, learning why and how things work, and experiencing work first-hand, broaden the effect of those lessons.

If you are interested in this topic, or if you have something to add to this, or any learning topic, see the box along the right side and consider joining the debate.