The Learning Agility GO is an online assessment and development tool in one - an interactive, digital module that empowers you to actively start developing your agility. Learning Agility is not set in stone; it depends on how you look at situations and how you respond to them.  

The Learning Agility GO report shows your current score and your growth potential at a glance. The online development module guides you through concrete, personalised tips to work on in order to achieve your growth potential.

We have collected various tips, research summaries and articles about Learning Agility on this page, with the goal of supporting you on your development journey. Be sure to browse through and get inspired.

Learning Agility is the ability to rapidly develop new effective behaviour, based on new experiences, and then to apply this behaviour successfully.

It is a form of learning ability and thereby gives an indication of a person’s potential. People with a high score on Learning Agility learn more and faster from new situations than people with a low score on Learning Agility. High scorers are able to benefit more from the experience, are constantly looking for new challenges, seek feedback in order to learn, recognise patterns in unfamiliar situations and effectively involve others, in order to give meaning and understanding to experiences.

The importance of Learning Agility 

Roles and positions are changing more quickly. A changing role demands a different way of working, the ability to effectively respond to the reality of the day and continuously learn. Learning Agility indicates whether you have the potential to generally learn new things quickly. This may not be relevant now, but it may be in the future. A focus on Learning Agility is a focus on development.

How is Learning Agility constructed?

Learning Agility is measured in four dimensions (Change Agility, Mental Agility, People Agility and Results Agility) and one transcending factor: Self-awareness, which influences the scores on all dimensions.

People with a high score on Change Agility are characterised by a constant curiosity, that is fuelled by new unknown things. They like to experiment, try things, and have a passion for new experiences. As a result, they experience more. They are able to learn more from their experiences, because they are intrinsically motivated to investigate matters and enjoy when things are not yet known to them.

People with a high score on Mental Agility enjoy using new ideas to create new insights when things are complex or unclear. They like to analyse and are often able to get to the bottom of things in new ways, by thinking outside the box. They have an open perspective and are challenged by new ideas. This helps them recognise patterns in new experiences more quickly than others. They quickly understand how the situation works and what they can learn from their experience.

People with a high score on People Agility are constructive to others and are open to people with different backgrounds and opinions. They have a need to properly understand what others mean and take others’ opinions seriously. This makes it easier for them to get in touch with others and they succeed better in learning from the input of others. In addition, they can adapt more easily, for example to people from other cultures. As a result, other people share more with them.

People with a high score on Results Agility have a strong desire to be successful and always look for the best way to achieve results. They are often ambitious, self-confident and remain calm under pressure. Because they are better able to set goals in new and unfamiliar situations, they maintain focus and learn quickly what is or isn’t important in order to make new things successful.

People with a high score on Self-awareness know their own strengths and weaknesses. They are often critical of their own performance and their actions. As a result, they are more keen on how they can do things better and their overall willingness to learn is higher. Therefore, Self-awareness has a special role in Learning Agility: a high score increases the possibilities on the other Learning Agility elements, while a low score limits them.

Wherever possible, try to get feedback from various perspectives and people so that you can take full advantage of your learning-oriented mindset to develop further. Also ask for feedback about your weak(er) points. Is there anything to be gained here? 

Self-awareness as a lever for development

Want to take steps yourself

Development starts with yourself. That might sound like a catch phrase or slogan, but it’s true. If you know and want to identify your own strengths and weaknesses and you would like to develop yourself, you will progress more quickly than someone who is satisfied with the status quo and doesn’t feel like learning more.

Self-awareness refers to the extent to which someone focuses on development, knows themselves and seeks feedback. The word self is key here. By wanting to develop yourself, you will also actively seek effective ways to do that. And that is exactly why Self-awareness has a special position in measuring Learning Agility. Higher Self-awareness strengthens the score on other Learning Agility dimensions.

Obviously: you need to want to learn to be able to learn. Or: it starts with the will to change to be able to change.

The development module Learning Agility GO has been specifically designed to increase your agility, by thinking about what you can do and learning to take development steps yourself, using concrete tips based on your score.

Set yourself a list of short and medium-term objectives, for your team and for yourself. 

Research- The men versus the women

Woman are more reflective; men feel success is more important

Always interesting: a male-female comparison. Without wanting to embark on a gender discussion, we generally see women scoring higher on People Agility and Self-awareness. Men usually have a higher score on Results and Mental Agility.  

From time to time, pick up a project where you cannot fall back on your existing knowledge and experience.   

Once again the men versus the women

Female engineers rule!

In 2017, HFMtalentindex was requested by KIVI (the Royal Netherlands Society of Engineers) and the magazine De Ingenieur to conduct a study into the Learning Agility of the engineer. The question in this research was: how learning agile is the engineer? Bearing in mind the following thought: the engineering profession is also subject to change, so how effectively can the current professional group manage that change?

An interesting result

The Dutch engineer did not score very highly on Learning Agility. The low Results Agility score is particularly interesting. Unsurprisingly, engineers scored extremely highly on Mental Agility. What was really interesting was that female engineers are better than their male counterparts in all areas. Not only in their People Agility and Self-awareness scores, but also on all the other scores.

Plan moments to think about your own approach and what can be improved. 

Try not to give counter-arguments for one day. Instead, only ask counter-questions and find out which new insights you have come up with.