Practice & Time

Why worry?

How many times have you left some form of training experience having made a commitment to change an important aspect of your work or life?

Yet as soon as you are outside the training ‘bubble’ you seem to actively forget almost everything your have learnt. Invariably, after two or three days your firm personal commitment to change has become an unfulfilled distant memory.

This type of scenario plays out in multiple settings. We see similar dynamics following New Year resolutions, our promises to a doctor or therapist or the lengthy to-do list after a ‘highly productive’ off-site. In hindsight, what often feel like sensible plans in the moment fall victim to the engrained momentum of our day-to-day reality. This is a shocking waste of time, effort and money. But there is also a sizeable personal cost. The eventual drip-drip of cumulative disappointment can eat away at our confidence and undermine our capacity, and capability to change.

What is the underlying problem?

Despite our best intentions we tend not to do what we say we will do. We make grand commitments to change…but intentionality seems to evaporate the moment it encounters the action, traction and distraction of everyday life.

In the nineteenth century Hermann Ebbinghaus nicely captured this phenomena with his ‘forgetting curves’. One hundred and twenty years later, after volumes of academic research on ‘transfer’, we are still no closer to cracking the issue.

Those of us who work in the field know only too well the complexity of this problem. We can finely tune our pedagogy during teaching, learning or training but more often than not something seems to get in the way afterwards. Arguably recent developments in cognitive neuroscience only made the situation worst. A naïve focus by many on brain plasticity misses the fact that the brain is also elastic and tends to revert when back in familiar and comfortable contexts. Unless we practise new behaviours over time we end up doing what we have we have always done.

How is time relevant?

Temporal World addresses the limitations of intentionality. We highlight the power of temporal context in getting things done.

Our approach involves a post formal-learning intervention that enables disciplined practice and tangible activity. Focusing on linear and non-linear temporal dynamics, this approach unpacks the personal world of the learner making that world visible and measurable. In the process, it exposes the hidden temporal traps that sabotage learning and undermine the commitment to action.

Temporal World is a private limited company based in London and Dublin. Our broad goal is to transform the way we think about learning, doing and time – a goal supported by a proprietary research and application framework. Building on this framework, the company is currently testing its approach alongside a leading European multinational, with the first phased roll-out expected in Q4 2017. As we grow, we are eager to develop what we do with a diverse, multi-disciplinary workforce that can flourish through alternative forms of working and engagement.

Who are we?

Barry Rogers is the founder of Temporal World. As a leading educator in the field of customised executive education Barry designs and delivers programs on a global basis.

He has worked with a cross-section of organizations in a variety of sectors including Shell, Prudential Insurance, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, E&Y, News Corporation, LinkedIn, Google, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, QNB, JP Morgan, RMB, Swiss Reinsurance, J. Sainsbury, UBS and GAVI.

His work has a strong international focus delivering programs in Ireland, Holland, Scandinavia, France, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Russia, Qatar, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kenya, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, USA and the UK.

Previously Barry worked for 16 years at Morgan Stanley, Nomura and JP Morgan. Since 2000 he has taught at the London School of Economics and Political Science where he is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science.

His course on the Masters program (Organizational Life) unpacks the emerging aspects of our relationship with work in an increasingly complex world.

As a ‘pracademic he has a specific interest in the relationship between organisational theory and practice – the temporal dynamics underpinning this relationship has informed his doctoral studies at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.

Barry was born in Ireland and educated in Dublin (TCD), London (LSE) and Cambridge (Clare College).

He is married with three children and has a keen interest in music, politics and road cycling. He is an active member of a number of campaigning charities and a Fellow of the RSA.

Barry is a lay reviewer for in-patient mental health services (ED) at the Royal College of Psychiatrists and a member of both the Accreditation and Advisory Committees (ED) at the Royal College.

Where can you find us?

TEMPORAL WORLD LIMITED
71-75, Shelton Street
Covent Garden
London
WC2H 9JQ
UNITED KINGDOM

Contact 

If you want to contact me, please send me an email.
I will do my best to respond as soon as possible.

barry@temporalworld.com

Copyright© 2017 Temporal World