Tag: Learning

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Why Great Leaders Never Stop Learning

A recently published podcast by Harvard Business Review focused on the importance for leaders to never stop learning. The interview with David Novak — formerly of Yum! Foods — had a range of insights but the ones that stuck with me included:

  • If your job has become rote — it may be busy but you know how to solve for all the challenges that arise — then it’s likely time to find a new challenge
  • If you’re looking for a way of inspiring yourself to improve your organization or team, ask yourself “what would be the first priorities of someone who assumed my role after I left?” And then work to address those priorities!
  • Find people in surrounding fields that are different from your own and learn from them. If another organization is doing great things learn from them and how the underlying intentions or principles guiding their success can be adapted into your own organization.

Highly recommend this episode if you’re looking for a bit of inspiration in how you can develop yourself and your professional organization.

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Writing

Sources of Learning

One of the things I’m trying to do this year is actively learn composition, framing, etc from professional sources to improve my photography. I feel like I’ve hit a wall just looking at other people’s images in terms of my creativity and the reading/watching/listening is really helping me to think more carefully about what I’ve shot to date (and why I like what I do) and what I want to try going forward.

The different challenges I’ve participated in and the technical videos I’ve watched have been helpful in teaching me about my camera and lenses, and how to do very limited post-processing, but really hasn’t been that useful for teaching me colour theory, framing theory, etc. I’m hoping to read (and take notes from) at least one book every month or so as to inspire, improve, and motivate my photography.

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Amateur Hours

Nir Eyal:

… we not only build skill but we strengthen our willpower. Studies have demonstrated that rewarding your brain with small “success experiences” builds willpower over time. Once the MEA [Minimal Enjoy Action] turns into a habit, it allows for expansion into slightly more advanced behaviors, such as walking for a few minutes more or increasing the pace. Through consistent practice of the MEA, both skill and willpower are increased until doing what once seemed difficult, becomes easy.

Eyal hits it on the head on how to become an amateur at something: engage in an activity on a sufficiently regular basis, with that engagement based on some kind of pleasure in the activity, and you’ll eventually become an qualified amateur at the activity in question. The degree to which one is an amateur varies, of course, with there being gradients of expertise within amateur communities.

We can’t all be responsible for creating the mountain bike, as just one example.