WILLINGNESS TO LEARN

We can’t know it all.  At some point in life most successful people figure out an important fact:  not only do they not know it all, they can’t know it all.  Any lawyer, physician, accountant or business executive can describe this phenomenon:  there is always more to know, to learn, to look up, another reference to check, journal article to read, stone to turn over for answers, future to predict . . ..  The more you know and discover, the more you find there is to know. 

The real issue is often when to stop -- preferably before exhaustion and burn out occur!  It may be better to work smarter rather than just harder, yet in many cultures where hard work is highly valued it can be difficult to determine just how to “appropriately” make that shift.  Admitting that we can’t know it all, may well be the first step toward knowing more. 

Additional steps are detailed below, including *actually saying “I don’t know” when we don’t, **leveraging our discovery efforts through a team approach, and ***establishing more efficient patterns of new learned behavior.

            * Build trust by saying “I don’t know.”   We live in a world that stresses higher education that in formal academic structures often means greater specialization.  That orientation makes it hard to feel like “I don’t know” is an appropriate answer, yet in the work world it can be a key to customer and co-worker loyalty.  Consider this paradoxical thought:  being willing to say “I don’t know” may well improve the trust others have in what you DO know -- the information you have already obtained and provided.  Adding a discovery response of “but I DO know how to find out” or even “Good point. I’ll check into that further,” puts us on the road to open discovery and greater learning.  It acknowledges the role of the questioner in the process and gives them reason to look forward to the additional response.  Very few work situations have the “single right answer” requirements and deadlines of a final exam.  More often in the business world confidence in one’s knowledge is built through open dialogue, practice and experience. 

            ** Another value of the team approach.  Creating a strong team and valuing the contributions of its members supports the ability to work smarter and easier and to more quickly acquire necessary information for a project.  The team approach is a form of leverage for learning and development.  Instead of operating as a “lone ranger” and feeling like we must know it all, we can enlist the members of our team to participate.  Teams can be formal or informal and members may include professional colleagues, staff, assistants, executives from different departments, contractors, vendors, or even family and community members depending upon the project.  Leveraging learning can be valuable whether the question involves a medical diagnosis, the proper accounting or tax treatment for a business expenditure, the supporting arguments for a legal transaction or court motion, the best information needed to close a sale, or the fastest way to get a project from conception to finished product.  There are plenty of “unknowns” and opportunities to learn in each such situation, made easier by tapping into the brilliance of the people around us.

            *** Establish a pattern instead of trying to break a habit.  Additionally, consider that learning may be easier than “unlearning.”  When we are willing to discover something that we don’t already know, and take new, more effective actions, our capacity to accomplish is enhanced.  For instance, it is easier to establish a new pattern than it is to break an old habit.  Anything repeated daily for 21-30 days becomes engrained as a blueprint or foundation for change.  Bad habits are built the same way, only less consciously.  Trying to wean yourself from watching too much television is much harder than setting aside a certain time to read a list of identified books that interest you.  Adding a salad and a walk to your daily routine is easier than trying to cut out all junk food.  In a short three to four weeks you will firmly establish the positive change of your choosing and other behaviors can simply fall away.  This is another effective form and use of learning. 

INGENUITY GEM:  

Where and with whom can you practice saying “I don’t know” and opening a dialogue of discovery?  Try it in several situations and see how you can use your own technique to build trust in that relationship. 

Who can you enlist to assist you with learning more about a given project?  What does each of them know or do well that they could contribute easily and willingly?  How can you acknowledge that effort and enhance your productivity at the same time?

Notice a routine (dare we say bad habit) that you have and would like to break.  Rather than focusing on undoing it, choose a small positive action you can and will take every day to establish a new healthy or productive approach.  Use your calendar or a simple 30-day chart as reinforcement to mark off each day’s accomplishment of the new behavior. 

As we like to say, “you don’t learn less.”

Back to Articles Index page