Hyper-Learning: How to Adapt to the Speed of Change

by Edward D. Hess

Overview

"Ed Hess's Hyper-Learning is uniquely practical and is the essential starting point for charting new ways of thinking, living, working, leading, and being fulfilled in our new world."
—Gary Roughead, Admiral, US Navy (retired) former Chief of Naval Operations

The Digital Age will raise the question of how we humans will stay relevant in the workplace. To stay relevant, we have to be able to excel cognitively, behaviorally, and emotionally in ways that technology can't.

Professor Ed Hess believes that requires us to become Hyper-Learners: continuously learning, unlearning, and relearning at the speed of change. To do that, we have to overcome our reflexive ways of being: seeking confirmation of what we believe, emotionally defending our beliefs and our ego, and seeking cohesiveness of our mental models.

Hyper-Learning requires a new way of being and a radical new way of working. In Part 1 of this how-to book, Hess takes a practical workbook approach and helps readers create their Hyper-Learning Mindset, choose and embrace their needed Hyper-Learning Behaviors, and adopt their daily Hyper-Learning Practices. In Part 2, Hess focuses on how to humanize the workplace to optimize Hyper-Learning. Featuring case studies of three business leaders and two public companies, this book shows how to harness the power of human emotions, choices, and behaviors to enable the highest levels of human cognitive, emotional, and behavioral performance—individually and organizationally.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781523089246
Publisher:	Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication date:	09/01/2020
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Edward D. Hess is a professor of business administration and Batten Faculty Fellow at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. His professional experience includes twenty years as a business executive and eighteen years in academia. His research and thirteen books have a common theme: high individual and organizational performance. His work has been featured in over 400 global media outlets.

Editorial Reviews

If Inner Peace, Otherness, and Hyper-learning do not seem to you to be key Digital Age skills, then you’re in for a big surprise. Ed Hess takes you on a journey designed to enable you to continually adapt to an ever-changing world where jobs will be automated at a dizzying rate. Meaningful work and a meaningful life will be intimately tied to your developing the capacity to practice a ‘new way of being’ that enables you to excel at doing the types of work that technology won’t be able to do well. Hyper-Learning is a wonderful practical guide to help you stay relevant in the Digital Age workplace.”
—Amy Edmondson, Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School, and author of The Fearless Organization

“Hyper-Learning is a masterpiece ‘how-to’ and ‘why-to’ book that takes us on an instructional journey to a future where learning must change in profound ways because of advancing technologies. This book helps readers reflect deeply about feelings, mindsets, and behaviors to discover things about themselves in a way that sticks. The powerful goal of ‘thinking behaviorally’ is a great way to describe this book, which also helps leadership move from ‘command and control’ to ‘inspire and support.’” 
—Gary S. Calabrese, PhD, Senior Vice President and Director, Corning Global Research, Corning Incorporated 

“The future will require us to be more human, to continuously reinvent ourselves, and to excel at doing the things that technology cannot do well. Ed Hess gives us practical tools, based on learning science, to learn a ‘New Way of Being’ and a ‘New Way of Working’ that will enable human adaptation and life-long learning in the Digital Age. We all will need to excel at: knowing how to learn, unlearn and relearn; how to effectively collaborate; and how to manage ourselves in order to do our best work and to live a meaningful life. The workbook ‘learn by doing’ approach in this book is a winner!”
—Alex Hernandez, Dean, University of Virginia School of Continuing and Professional Studies

“Hyper-Learning is the ‘how-to’ road map for leading in the Digital Age. Enhancing one’s learning agility is the only way to thrive in a world of ever accelerating change.” 
—Fernando Mercé, former CEO and President, Nestlé Waters North America 

“Hyper-Learning offers readers fresh insights into how to learn, behave, and thrive in an era of unprecedented digital challenge and change. Professor Hess—through insightful commentary, rich research, and illustrative case studies—shows us how we can become better, fuller versions of ourselves and tells us why it is imperative that we do so. Hyper-Learning is psychologically astute, refreshingly pragmatic, and designed to help us move forward in a new and uncharted era.” 
—Ming-Jer Chen, former President, Academy of Management, and Leslie E. Grayson Professor of Business Administration, Darden School of Business 

“Hyper-Learning is a unique book. Reading it is like having a candid conversation with a wise close friend who cares deeply about you and about your happiness and success. It invites you on a journey that is actionable and science-based that can increase the probability that you will have continuous meaningful work in the Digital Age because you have learned how to be a hyper-learner. And, as importantly, it illuminates clearly how to build meaningful human relationships. Its workbook format will engage your mind and your heart. Enjoy!”
—Sean Ryan, President, School Group, McGraw-Hill 

“Ed Hess is prescient in identifying a challenge that all of us will encounter—the need to become hyper-learners—that is, to become more agile, quick, and efficient in our ability to learn and adapt to the future. His workshop-based book will engage you deeply in a hyper-learning experience that will grab you, enlarge you, and change you in ways that will help you become more like your best self.” 
—Kim Cameron, William Russell Kelly Professor of Management and Organizations, Ross School of Business, and Professor of Higher Education, School of Education, University of Michigan


“A must-read! Digital technology touches all aspects of life, and hyper-learning will be a major factor in everyone’s well-being and success.” 
—Chris Baer, former Vice President, Leadership Development, Marriott International 

“Hyper-Learning is a wonderfully comprehensive and enlightening book. For many of us, the pace of the technological revolution seems dizzying, dazzling, and hell-bent on destroying the jobs and professions that define us. Like many others worried by this seismic change, I’ve wondered how any of us can possibly compete with smart machines in the long run? In Hyper-Learning, Ed Hess offers a distinctively human strategy and a science-based path to enduring relevance through self-reflection, self-development, and the practices that are required for learning faster and transforming our abilities at the speed of change. Ed’s work demonstrates that we must truly love learning to become hyper-learners and that we must also have the emotional peace and humility required to learn from others and to unlearn some of our ideas as readily as we learn new ones.” 
—Peter Rodriguez, Dean and Professor, Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University

“Hyper-Learning shows us how to stay relevant in the Digital Age. It is a field guide for navigating the new ways of being, thinking, and behaving essential for teaching us to do what machines can’t. Synthesizing a vast swath of social science research, its advice covers every facet of the journey, from the intensely personal to strategies for humanizing the workplace. Along the way, its vivid examples and hands-on workshops provide us the opportunity to begin our journey, which our future depends upon.”
—Jeanne Liedtka, United Technologies Corporation Professor of Business Administration, Darden School of Business 

“The book offers a comprehensive and stimulating path to hyper-learning, capabilities for continuous learning at the speed of change. A must-read for anyone who wants to thrive in volatile and uncertain times.”
—Maryam Alavi, PhD, Dean and Stephen P. Zelnak Jr. Chair and Professor, Scheller College of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology

“Once again, Ed Hess is one step ahead, redefining the way we look at our technology-driven world that is evolving faster than our previous models have prepared us to handle. These technological advances are like an accelerating train that we will never be able to catch if we don’t change and adapt. Instead of a dystopian view, Ed provides a humanistic and learning-centric framework for us to effectively develop the skills and behaviors that will be necessary to be successful leaders and build high functioning organizations. As the head of a sixth-generation family business looking to the future, I encourage other leaders to pay close attention to Ed’s wisdom and embrace the concept of Hyper-learning before it’s too late!” 
—Frank H Foster, Chairman, Hixon Properties, and founder of the Legacy Center at Graziadio Business School, Pepperdine University

“As an educational leader, I believe no book is more relevant to the times in which we are living than Ed Hess’ Hyper-Learning, and no workplace needs Hyper-Learning more than America’s school communities. Ed’s own self-described journey to find empathy, kindness, and warmth in his personal and professional life illuminates what it takes “to bring our Best Selves (our hearts or souls) to work every day in the pursuit of meaningful work that creates value for others” (p. 183).  Imagine how different our communities and workforce would be if all the high school seniors in America graduated with Hyper-Learning behaviors.”
—Dr. Pam Moran, Executive Director, Virginia School Consortium for Learning, and retired Superintendent, Albemarle County Public Schools, Virginia 

From the Publisher