Brief Moments

     At lunch Friday with one of my mentors we briefly discussed the old adage of those who can't do, teach .   Having grown up through the education system where learning the answers for the test on Friday and completely letting the material go by Monday (standardized testing) I certainly treated some subjects that way.  However, as a new teacher in both undergraduate and graduate levels who came out of 30 years of entrepreneurial experience in both for profit and non-profit I strive to Teach others to do .  Not that I'm alone in that philosophy as a teacher or have achieved a level of mastery in teaching.  I've met hundreds of teachers who feel the same way and are vastly superior (additional mentors) at all levels of education.  By all means life long learning, required in our global economy and information age, is a habit that requires less television and more reading in all of us.      In a previous discussion on...

     One of my graduate school professors in discussions emphasized asking "why" around five times for every question in an effort to get well below the surface level of the topic.   I rather like the concept.  Peter Drucker has volumes of quotes but in particular (paraphrased): "We don't fail from making bad decisions, we fail because we asked the wrong questions."      It's hard for me to avoid Daniel Pink because his work has so much potential impact on our organizations, or at least it should, but in the Flip-Manifesto rule number 11 is establishing a Department of Why ?  We become so entwined in the habits of both ourselves and our organizations that rarely do we make time to step away and ask "Why are we doing this?". Margaret Wheatley in a 2006 presentation in Halifax called " A Call to Fearlessness for Gentle Leaders ," asked these key questions: How do you call yourself? How do you identify yourself? And ha...