MAAM Project – How Digital Learning can Bring Life into the Workplace

Abstract

Moving from conflicted situation between one’s own roles and life experiences to the synergy allows people to have greater awareness of their personal resources and to apply them in all areas of their lives. But how does this happen, in what way? How do people experience it? This is the question and objective behind the MAAM project. The research uncovers how digital innovation can build new bridges between people’s life experiences and the workplace. The research starts from the experience of motherhood, which is paradoxical in its nature – on one hand unleashes energy, strength and competencies in the woman, on the other hand it is often perceived as a condition of fragility (physical, psychological) and is not recognized as a bearer of skills at the workplace. The MAAM project is scientifically based on theories such as role accumulation, positive spillover, generativity, experiential learning and enriches them with two original views: life-based learning, that postulates that life is in itself one of the richest learning sources, and transilience, a meta-competence that identifies people’s ability to actively bring resources and skills from one life domain to another and vice versa. This is an action-research project, with the aim to investigate and simultaneously activate the development of personal resources and soft skills in people.This objective is achieved through an innovative digital platform that guides the woman in a process of self-reflection and awareness on different topics: the relationship with her identity and her own desires; the caretaking experience with the child and other people; the ways of listening, observing and empathizing and the consequences towards herself, others and the environment; the dynamics of delegation and decision making; the discovery of own “superpowers” and the reflection on the changes taking place. The research summarizes the results of the digital platform for the first 19 months and has been focused on mothers’ experience. It has the aim of investigating the impact of motherhood on the personal development and the soft skills of the women, highlighting which resources are active, which behaviours are adopted, how women perceive their roles and deal with the changes that comes with maternity. This is part of a broader framework, which has been starting to investigate / activate personal development and soft skills in fathers and whose aim is to investigate how caretaking activities trigger people’s personal development and embed them with soft skills that can be used in every area of life, including workplace.