Are you a learner? Are you consistently looking for ways to upgrade your skills and knowledge? Are you investing in your own personal development?
Jim CastigliaIt’s very tough to do because we want to be seen as competent. And learning new stuff can make us look like idiots, at least for a while. And if you’re insecure in yourself, you don’t want to look like an idiot.
But here’s the thing: business is so complex and has so many elements, it’s a major challenge to “know it all.” As Warren Buffett’s partner of five decades, Charlie Munger, reputedly said, “Business is complex, and anyone who says it’s easy is stupid.”
We could say the same thing about life and relationships.
The Gift of Personal Development
Author of The Slight Edge, Jeff Olsen, states that the greatest gift you can give yourself and the wisest business investment you can make is in your own personal development. I agree.
Olsen goes on to declare that there are three principal kinds of learning:
- Learning by studying.
- Learning by doing.
- Learning by studying, then doing, then studying, and then doing again.
He says:
“Read about it, apply it, see it in action, take that practical experience back to my reading, deepen my understanding, take that deeper understanding back to my activity… It’s a never-ending cycle, each aspect of learning feeding the other. Like climbing a ladder: right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot.
Can you imagine climbing a ladder with only your right foot?
The two work together. What’s more, they not only work better together, each amplifying the other, but the truth is, they really cannot work separately. At least not for long.”
Worth Repeating: Managers Must Manage
In last month’s article, I said that managers must manage. I learned this concept and its meaning in the mid-80s from ITT CEO Hal Geneen’s book, Managing.
Management means you must achieve the goals you set.
Having goals and striving to achieve them is one of life’s most powerful experiences of self-learning. Many lessons are available to all in the process.
How often in your organization or department are goals established but not achieved? What happens (or doesn’t)? Are you held accountable? Are you holding others accountable?
This is the perfect opportunity to exercise the discipline of execution as defined by former CEO and Chairman of Honeywell International, Larry Bossidy.
He says:
“Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing ’ hows’ and ’ whats,’ questioning, tenaciously following through, and ensuring accountability.
In its most fundamental sense, execution is a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it. Most companies don’t face reality very well.”
Ask the Tough Questions, Find the Root Causes
So, ask the tough questions, find the root causes, peel back the onion, and work at it until you find the problem(s) preventing you from achieving your goals. Don’t let up.
Use last month’s article as a tool to help you get better and improve.
Here are some areas of improvement and development for you to consider:
- Communication skills (at work, at home, and elsewhere)
- Emotional control
- Staying calm in the “heat of battle.”
- Focusing skills
- How you use your time
- Team management/team building skills
- Self-management skills
- Accounting skills (the language of business is accounting/numbers)
- Health (your energy, stress, the 10 biomarkers of health, negative factors)
- Leadership skills
- Motivation skills
- Mastering your specific strengths
- Minimizing your performance-relevant weaknesses (we all have them)
- Problem-solving skills.
You can start by grading yourself in these areas.
Freely Available information
What’s great today is the information that’s freely available to you in every area of improvement you can think of. It’s available at work from colleagues, from the various authors presented in this publication by Tim Pennington, from course instructors, from books, podcasts, and companies like The Great Courses. And with the dawn of AI, it can be simple, with the right prompts, to get powerful insights in any area.
Don’t fear looking like an idiot. You may inspire others to jump on the continuous learning, personal development bandwagon, and your company or department will be better off for it.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions or want any assistance. Contact me at JimC@BSF.consulting or my personal email, jvcastiglia@icloud.com, or text me at 949.338.7141.
Jim Castiglia is the founder of Business Street Fighter Consulting, supporting entrepreneurial business owners in their desire to grow and maximize the value of their businesses.
