The Fair Ladies Wisdom

I love Audrey Hepburn’s words in that 1964 classic movie – My Fair Lady: words, words, words. She is sick of words and the lack of action that they are not conveying. Business can also fit this pattern. Sometimes, we speak and offer words, great ideas are brought forth and then no action is followed through with.

There is risk in action, something may go wrong or unexpectedly have unintended consequences. Many companies discourage action unintentionally by creating a punishment mentality for the consequences that follow. Let’s say I take an action, follow the best guidance and lay out a plan, get permission, build a team and then – OH NO – it flops! But, the key here is that action was taken. Now, we have more information before and we can find out why this plan didn’t work. Perhaps the solution is a simple tweaking of a process, a new team player that needs to be added, etc…

Action requires a bit of courage, but needs to be encouraged. If you have a team that is well placed, appropriately trained and developed for their task, they can accomplish great things. Before that takes place, it is your task to find inspiration, to set them up for success as much as possible. Then, when the team is ready, purpose and plan in place, set them up to do more than just speak. How difficult for your team to work and plan, then be poised on taking action only to have them realize that it was really only words and not action. If you aren’t sure, start with something small, and put the plan into place. When that first action has started, evaluate and then build on it to something bigger.

Imagine what can occur when you take action, and not have Audrey’s music ringing in your head.

All I Ever Really Needed To Know - I Learned Teaching Elementary School?

Have you ever head the phrase that expresses the sentiment everything you ever needed to know was somehow packaged nice and neatly in the walls of elementary school. I found myself wondering the other day if that were somehow more true that I gave it credit for.

I used to be a teacher and have taught elementary, middle and high school. Elementary school teachers know that the more senses you can lead students when teaching, the better chance you have for students to really learn. Those synapses fire and form stronger bonds of memory when you are making letters from play dough or making letter games with spelling words. Somehow though, we think as learners grow older they don’t need those strategies.

However, adult learners not only need to understand why they are learning something, but also need more multiple sensory inputs. Before you plan your next training topic, take a moment to think how you can make it interactive. This may mean putting your audience in a bit of a uncomfortable area. Most likely, they will not be expecting something that will put them into a multi-sensory environment. However, if you start tying what is being learned into multi-sensory approaches, go ahead and look for how changes are made in the affected work areas. Start looking for changes.