Hyper-Learning

How do we save our jobs from the robots? Darden School of Business Professor Edward Hess says we can keep our jobs by consciously and continuously developing the qualities that make us human, and hyper-learning is the key. How will you pursue a meaningful life when smart technology takes over most of the jobs that humans currently do? Darden School of Business Professor Edward Hess says the answer is hyper-learning: developing our uniquely human qualities as agile, adaptive, iterative learners without fear or ego inhibiting that learning. In the digital age, humans will succeed by doing what technology can't do well: being creative, imaginative, and innovative; engaging in higher-level critical thinking; making decisions in environments where there is a lot of uncertainty and little data; and connecting and collaborating with fellow humans. Hyper-learning is vital for optimizing every one of these tasks. Hess describes the core mindsets and behaviors that enable hyper-learning for individuals and teams and includes case studies of four business leaders who created personal hyper-learning development plans. This book is about harnessing the power of human emotions, choices, and behaviors to enable the highest levels of human cognitive, emotional, and behavioral performance.

“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.” …