Lies about Learning: 2 and 3 of 7

There are "lies" about learning that we have allowed ourselves to buy into. On a personal level, these lies get in the way of our learning and growth. In business, we end up wasting money, time and energy after training that doesn't produce the results we expect. 

Lie #2: If I am "certified," I have mastered it

Most certifications are intellectually driven. Meaning that they are designed to get you to the point where you can "pass the test." Nothing wrong with that. The only problem, though, is that you have gone only one-thirds of the way towards truly learning. True learning takes you from the head to the heart, and then from the heart to the gut.

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Lies About Learning: 1 of 7

My apologies in advance if what I have share here jars you a bit. But I believe that it needs to be told. Let's put it this way: I just could not stand any more that folks like you are spending so much time and money thinking and believing that you are actually learning something while exactly opposite might have been the truth.

Billions of dollars get wasted world-wide on learning, training, coaching and such because of the lies that we have allowed ourselves to buy into. In the next series of articles, we are going to go through 10 of them, one by one.

Lie #1: Learning is an Intellectual Process

When did we learn the most? That’s right, when we were a little child, when our cognitive, intellectual brain was not yet fully formed. But as we get older, we begin to form opinions about things. We begin to reject more of the stuff that enters the mind. The intelligence becomes a filter through which we let ourselves get influenced by some things but reject the rest. Now for the most part, that’s a good thing. But when it comes to learning, it’s not.

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Business Lessons from the Presidential Primaries

Whether you agree with the election and selection process of the presidential candidates in the U.S. this year - or the choices of the candidates - one thing is certain. It's leaving us an unprecedented volume of lessons, even for us business people.

Here are some of the lessons I have been jotting down from time to time. They are not in any particular order, nor is this an exhaustive list, by any means. But it's a start and my hope is that you will contribute your own lessons by responding to this article.

So here we go. As you read these, think about whether your business is on the right track or it needs to make a correction.

Lesson #1: Secure the “three M’s” as Early as Possible. We need three things while starting and managing a successful enterprise - the three M's: 1) Message, 2) (Wo)Men, and 3) Money. Having these three ingredients in place won't guarantee success, of course, but we are bound to suffer if one of them is missing or weak. Hillary Clinton had money and manpower but her message was weak. Obama had all three. None of the candidates on the Republican side had all three to begin with. The only thing that John McCain had was message and he was seriously lacking in the other two.

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Are You (Your Business) Sales Sufficient?

I have been often asked by business owners and presidents how to create a great business with happy employees, satisfied customers and an admiring community.

A very noble thought. Yet, my first question to them often is "Are You Sales Sufficient?" Because until a business achieves a level of sales sufficiency "all the other stuff" does not matter.

It's like someone who has not secured stable means to feed, clothe and shelter himself yet wants to improve "the quality of his life."

In his ground-breaking work, Abraham Maslow proposed that a human being has three or four levels of needs. Physical (food, clothing and shelter), Emotional (esteem, affiliation etc.) and spiritual (he called it self-actualization).

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Buisiness is a Social Force! - Part I

The other day, I was watching Muhammad Yunus with Grameen Bank – the winner of the Nobel Peace Price in 2006 - being interviewed by Charlie Rose on Public Broadcastng Station. He has a new book out called Creating a World without Poverty. In that book he talks about "Social Business." His idea of a social business is the one in which you are only concerned about the society and not about profits.

Now that’s one side of the spectrum. On the other side of the spectrum, you have a business that’s only concerned with profits, sales and market share. One is a Social Business; the other is a Selfish Business.

I believe that a business can be both. I’m not proposing that you somehow need to strike a balance between the two. What I’m saying is that it’s possible for a business to hit all its financial target AND be making a contribution to the society. And when we get this right, charity, doing good, making the world a better place does not have to be a part-time activity; it becomes full-time activity.

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