Posts Tagged listening

Sometimes the well-honed skills of another can get in way of real learning. If you are always rushing to the local confident expert to find your answers you may be missing out on the learning and exploring you will achieve while either fumbling around with it on your own or grappling together with a selected group of novices working at your same level of discovery.

What I am saying here is that several hours in front of the collective minds of a few beginners working towards a common goal could have more impact than one hour listening to the wisdom being handing down by the expert.  Now, that is not to say that a group of fumblers muddling through theories together with an expert lurking nearby for guidance isn’t also ideal.

How do you learn?

Or better, how do you learn when it really sticks and stays with you?

Don’t overlook the fumbling process.  Real learning takes time.  Those of us who are addicted to immediate results will prefer the short version supplied by the expert.  This has its place.  When baking a cake all you need to know is the facts, the ingredients, the tools, measurements and the timing.  But when we are engaged in having to change our behaviors, learn how to bake the better cake or learn how to draw potential clients to our services there is no tried and true, one size fits all, top ten list to step us through to our ultimate goal.  Ideally in these situations our goal will shift and change with our deeper learning along the way.  A combination of brainstorming with colleagues, trial and error, some sound advice, sought after constructive feedback, and most of all, sometimes lengthy sessions of self-reflection will lead us down the new path that seems to be calling to the answer an expert could never know about.

Have you surrounded yourself by a support team?

Does your support group or confidants value the fumbling process?

Do you find yourselves jumping to quickly into an action you find you need to back out of later?

What are you learning in the process?