Early life experiences and their impact on effective learning and development

Abstract

Purpose

This paper highlights the role of an individual’s early life experiences (formative years’ experiences) in the learning and development (L&D) journey of their careers. Hence, it is useful for the individual managers as well as organizations to better understand and improve the effectiveness of their L&D processes.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws insights from a small subset of the data collected as a part of a larger study on leadership development processes in the context of medium-sized rapid growth organizations in the Indian software services industry.

Findings

The respondents, i.e. senior managers in the software services firms, shared some of their experiences in their formative years (family/school/university/career) which they felt had a huge impact on the way their careers had shaped up. These stories spanned across diverse experiences like values instilled in childhood by parents/grandparents, influence of schoolteachers, friends and peers during growth years, academic performance during college/university days, and successful or positive experiences during early career years.

Originality/value

The paper can be useful to managers in their career development, as well as to organizations in making their L&D processes more effective. It provides a more nuanced understanding of how the experiences in formative years can help improve one’s development and performance in organizations; while the organizations allow, and create, conducive environment for the managers to harness these experiences gained early in life.

Citation

Pandya, S. (2020), "Early life experiences and their impact on effective learning and development", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 34 No. 6, pp. 49-51. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLO-09-2019-0210