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In 2015, the UN published the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which serve as the foundation for our efforts to create a sustainable world by 2030. The plan consisted of 17 goals spread across many areas, including clean water for everyone, gender equality and climate efforts. However, progress has since been slower than anticipated, which has triggered a complementary, separate initiative: Inner Development Goals (IDG).
The IDG initiative asserts that in order to have any hope of reaching the UN’s ambitious sustainability goals, we must also develop our own inner skills. Based on modern research, the pioneers of this initiative defined 23 different inner skills, divided into five categories:
After the Inner Development Goals were introduced, Berghs wanted to explore how they could help their students develop their inner skills using the IDG as a framework.
Patrik Hambraes, Learning Developer at Berghs, knew that we here at Knowly had worked on many kinds of skill training, and so he contacted us to help with their new project.
The project quickly came to focus on how we could help the participating students practice skills on a daily basis. We asked ourselves:
Robust learning, the kind that can actually lead to behavioral shifts, typically requires a firmly rooted feedback loop: We set goals, introduce new knowledge, then test and finally evaluate the outcome. Then we rinse and repeat, with new insights, new goals and new reflections.
Berghs started working on a concept aimed at establishing exactly this sort of learning loop in the participants’ daily routine, while also identifying each individual’s journey over time.
The first pilot study included both Berghs students and working professionals, creating a group of approximately 50 participants.
The concept, known as the IDG@Berghs Scorecard, divided participants into pilot groups and let each of them pick a specific skill from each category. They were then asked, first individually and then together with their respective groups, to define what that skill actually meant. The group feedback sharpened and refined the participants’ personal definitions, making them clearer and more concrete.
Presence
Complexity Awareness
Empathy
Cocreation
Perseverance
Unlike in most other training programs, no new knowledge was introduced to the groups. The aim was rather to facilitate the participants’ daily routine: Each participant got to define the skills they wanted to develop and then received support in the form of follow-up talks, comparisons, clarifications and daily evaluations.
One of the follow-up gatherings focused on the skill Being. Everyone present was asked to write another personal definition, based on the IDG framework and their own new experiences. These texts were then discussed within the respective groups, which immediately led to clearer and deeper definitions. This allowed group members to learn from each other. Finally, all group members were asked to assess how present they had been throughout the week, according to the definitions they had just outlined.
The scorecard concept was created to systematize and simplify reflection, so that it could also be done by each individual – participants assessed their own behavior and the behavior of others, and reflected on what they had done during the day and the week as a whole.
Many participants also expressed their approval of the format, saying that it made them curious to find out what presence meant to them specifically.
Lär dig enkla men kraftfulla sätt att applicera nudging i dina lärprojekt, så att beteendeförändringen faktiskt blir av.
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The concept is built on the assumption that when we regularly recognize our own behavior, even just for a brief moment, something magical happens: We gain new insights and learn important things. We become aware that we and others around us are present in a situation.
As part of the concept, each week the participants had a chance to talk to each other about their own learning. Many of the participants felt this created a strong sense of safety and comfort – they could share their struggles and success in using the method, and discuss the skills they were currently practicing.
Many participants found that the talks made the learning feel more meaningful, which in turn led to greater motivation.
The format consisted of five components:
Definition and goals. At the start of the journey, all participants wrote down their own definitions to clarify specific meanings and set goals for themselves.
Self-assessment. Each morning and evening a prompt was sent out via text message or e-mail in order to trigger reflection. Here, all participant got to assess themselves on the behaviors they had chosen to focus on.
Weekly talks. The participants had half hour-long talks about learning, definitions and eureka moments in their learning groups.
Reflection. Short reflections on progress and insights once a week.
Scorecard. All self-assessments and reflections were compiled on a personal scorecard.
The groups had productive and energetic conversations filled with personal discoveries of their own and each other’s behaviors, which were then summarized in the form of personal reflections.
Erica Bydin, who is studying to be a production leader, wrote:
“Put simply, I feel that my leadership skills have developed because I’ve worked on myself and my IDG skills daily.”
The participants shared all concrete aspects they’d discovered about their own behavior, and together they tried to sort out and define what each skill actually entails. As the project went on, the participants steadily became clearer and more insightful in their reasoning.
If you want to try out a similar format, whether you want to focus on IDG or something else, the following fundamental components are good to have in mind when designing your training program:
Knowly was the hub of the learning journey, and the place where the participants created their scorecards and did their daily reflections. Every day of the introduction of the project consisted of two parts: self-assessment in the morning and reflection in the evening. Here are examples of the different areas of use:
Your scorecard
Which of the Being skills will you focus on developing?
How would you define the skill you just chose?
What is your goal in developing this skill?
Name 1–2 things that could stop you from achieving your goal in the next two months.
How would you score yourself on this skill today?
Here are examples of questions included in the self-assessments that the participants filled out every morning, as well as the reflection they were asked to do each evening for the first week of the project.
Morning assessment
You chose to focus on the following Being skill
This is how you defined the skill on your scorecard:
This is how you defined the goal you hope to have reached in two months:
Imagine you fast-forward 12 hours and you feel like you’ve really developed your Being skill during the day. How would you score it then?
Evening reflection
You chose to focus on the following Being skill
This morning you were asked to look ahead toward this evening and imagine what a successful day in terms of Being would look like. This is what you scored!
Now that you know how the day went, how would you score it?
If you’re happy about something that happened today, you’re very welcome to share it here:
Over 80% of the participants in the pilot study found that they had developed significantly or very significantly in the behaviors they had chosen to focus on in their reflections. All without adding any new knowledge, only through reflection.
På Knowly älskar vi att lära om lärande, och att dela med oss av våra kunskaper.
Fyll i din e-post, så hör vi av oss så snart vi publicerar nya artiklar.
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