Philadelphia, 1727. A 21-year-old printer named Benjamin Franklin gathered a handful of friends who loved to read and called the group the Junto. They were tradesmen, not scholars: a copier of deeds, a self-taught mathematician, a surveyor, a shoemaker. They met on Friday evenings. Franklin’s rules were simple. Every member, in turn, brought at least one question for the group to work through. Debates were to be held in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory. In time, any expression of positiveness in opinion or direct contradiction was banned and carried a small fine. Franklin had already trained himself to drop words like certainly and undoubtedly and to say instead, it appears to me, or I imagine it to be so. A few years later the members pooled their books, and with help from his Junto friends Franklin launched a subscription library, which he later called the mother of all the North American subscription libraries.
The Junto worked because the person who started it went first. Franklin did not ask his friends to be curious while he played the expert. He brought his own questions, softened his own certainty, and made it safe for a shoemaker and a mathematician to think out loud in the same room.
That is the heart of Lead the Learning, one of the six domains of our BLG Leadership Framework. The best leaders we know are the most curious people in the building. They ask more than they tell, they learn in public, and they can say “I’m not sure yet” without flinching. Our teams watch what we do far more than what we say. If we want a learning culture, we go first.
Our Insights page carried three talks that point the same way. Steven Johnson on where good ideas come from, and why breakthroughs grow from slow hunches shared across a network of people instead of sudden flashes in one head. John Wooden on the difference between winning and succeeding, and why peace of mind comes from full effort to become our best, not from the scoreboard. Chip Conley on measuring what makes life worthwhile, and how meaning and belonging drive the results that matter. Shared hunches, full effort, and belonging. Each one starts with a leader willing to learn alongside the team.
This week we also offered a simple way to start with ourselves. BLG Leadership Lite is a free, 5 to 7 minute reflection across the six domains. Take it, pick the domain the results point to, and ask one trusted colleague, “What would you notice if I got better at this?” That conversation is where growth starts.
Here’s one thing to try this week. At our next team meeting, share one thing we are learning and one question we have not answered yet. Then invite the team into it. Keep it short and honest. Do it again the following week. A single question will not build a learning culture by itself. Done every week, it tells the room that not knowing yet is part of the work, and that the leader is learning too.
What would change on our team if we brought a question to every meeting instead of only answers?
Sources
- Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (Bigelow text, ed. Pine, 1916), Project Gutenberg #20203: Junto rules, members, “modest diffidence” habit, subscription library: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm