There is much more to learning than just gaining knowledge. Unfortunately, a lot of people stop at that point when they finish their schooling and don’t value what learning is really all about, which is where personal development often comes in later in life.   The real value from it comes from application of knowledge and what is done with it and how it impacts a person or others.  This is why learning itself is only a portion of what makes up personal development and exactly why I’ve developed such a passion for the subject, since it can have such an impact on contribution to a better life for oneself and to others!

Personal development and realizing how impacting its cycle can be has become a huge proponent in my life to take on whatever challenges I face and apply my knowledge  in order to let it shape me and things in my life.  You can do the same and allow yourself to change through a learning or personal development cycle.  It takes a long time to understand the cycle through trial and error and its much more effective to have models for things that can be utilized to gain the most from it.  The same is true with the personal development cycle if you understand the whole cycle to be able to recognize it, and all then enable it to occur, you can take on new challenges and shifts in your life much more easily.  I have always loved change and learning new things, so this has become much more of a passion for me, but the cycle can build that passion for anyone who recognizes the value in changing themselves for the better.   Without it, you can easily fall to becoming very conditioned by people around you who are afraid of change and don’t think they can learn things well and you can easily become complacent and stuck within a very small comfort zone.

Make a Choice to Learn Something New

The first step is to make the decision and choose to learn something new.  This is a mental step and is to overcome the internal barrier that often holds us back.  This is more than it sound like as it is so easy to drop into a complacent life without venturing into new activities, learning new things or allowing change to be faced.  Often the security people have in the consistent lifestyle keeps them locked into that and they are afraid to change it as it seems to threaten that security.  The best way out of this is to know that change can bring about even more good things and a more enjoyable life, not less.  Especially in the realm of personal development as most things in it are about improving life, yourself or others and so the change that will occur will almost always result in bringing about more lasting happiness in life.  Who can argue against that just for a little short term work or risk to achieve it?  If you want to develop yourself, you must decide that you are ready and willing and commit yourself to making it happen!

Take Action to Learn

A choice on it’s own still has to backed up by action.  Goal setting, positive thinking, the law of attraction; whatever methods you use or are familiar with to motivate you, you still must put those thoughts and ideas into action for them to ever become reality.  One of the hardest things in learning something new is just how to start or to take that initial step or action.  The biggest reason for this is that people often make it more difficult than they need to.  Break the problem or goal down into simple steps.  Do some brainstorming to write down all the little steps and pieces that would have to occur to help get started.  For example, instead of looking at learning a new language, you might list a bunch of simple steps that could get you started, such as:

• Research which languages you might want to learn
• Find some online resources for languages
• Talk to some friends to find out who you know that speaks that language already
• Research some books, courses.
• Change your computer’s interface or a favorite program (that you already know well) into that language
• Create a month by month break down of your goals (set subgoals)
• Identify some small but important milestone to reach (learn 50 verbs or the sound of the alphabet in a new language)

Master it to Make it a Habit

Mastery takes time, and plenty of practice. All those small actions that you take will move you closer and closer to mastery and will begin to shift into a need to repeat and practice more of the same to really understand and be competent and confident in your new learned skills/tasks/etc. One aspect of mastery is the concept by Gladwell in “Outliers” about the 10,000 hrs it takes to become an expert in any skill or area.  An expert in a field or on a large topic may very well take this amount of time to truly master, however, it doesn’t mean everything takes that long to master and often something can be mastered in only a few hours of practice.  Whatever the size is of your new personal development, practice what you are learning over and over to make it easy and to gain that confidence to repeat it without difficulty.  The more you repeat something the easier it will become and you will slowly learn to make it a habit.

Let it Reshape Your Beliefs to Create Lasting Change

One of the best methods to create lasting beliefs and change around a new habit is to teach it to someone else. Write about it, show someone or guide a group to learn something that you have already done.  This will truly have you thinking and explaining why something is important, how to learn it most effectively, what are the things that helped or hindered you along the way and last but not least, it really proves that you know your stuff. True mastery of any subject matter or skill can easily be demonstrated when it is taught to someone else and to do it well reinforces your beliefs on the subject. Knowing all the pitfalls and struggles that you had in learning something gives you a significant advantage to help someone else avoid those and learn the skill more easily through your guidance.

Mastery of something will not only change what you know, but also what you believe you know, which is much more powerful.  Beliefs steer much of your decisions and lifestyle and as you change your beliefs on elements you learn, this slow start to also develop the belief that you can learn anything.  To me, this is the real secret of the personal development cycle and once this belief is formed begins to develop that you can in fact learn anything, it can make your choices and learning process much easier and faster.  So, let the cycle of personal development shape your beliefs and utilize that to repeat the cycle in other areas of your life.

You may also check out some information on learning management system from Halogen to quickly and easily see a return on your training investments.

Posted by Mike King under Learning | 6 Comments »

Change is not easy.  Change however is often necessary in order to improve the life we live and things we do.  Even the word “change” conjures up all kinds of different feelings for every person.  For a leader, change is part of what they do and so a good leader must have a solid process and set of steps to make change happen.  A leader must identify the need for change, drive what is necessary to make it happen, inspire those around them to follow and then carry enough momentum to see it through, while celebrating and recognizing any results along the way.  In fact each of these steps deserve a lot more detail and they are the foundation of this article on driving change.

Step 1: Identify the Need for Change

First, great leaders are gifted at identifying the need for change.  Whether its because of their surroundings jumping out at them and just screaming for help, or a subtle cue that they see and no one else does, leaders are great at identifying change.  This ability often comes by developing an objective perspective, even for their own life or surroundings.  It lets them separate their circumstances that clouds their judgment and allows them to ask questions that identify an opportunity.  That opportunity, no matter how great or small, lies behind some change before it can be reached.  Seeing that opportunity is the first step to change.

Step 2: Taking On the Change

Next, a leader must be willing to step up and take on a change.  There are lot of people who might see the need for change and stop short, scared at the effort, the risk or the journey to make it happen.  Taking on change takes courage and anytime courage is at play, there has to be some risk involved.  Change will not happen on its own and leaving something up to others is usually what creates the difficult circumstance that needs a change in the first place, since that is what most people do.  To make change happen, you must be willing to take on the change directly and face the challenge in doing do.

Step 3: Drive The Change

Willingness is not all it takes however.  While the courage to face it will be the start, perseverance to drive the change will be a much longer, tiring journey and is another crucial component to getting through the barriers of change.  Sometimes this means leading by example, other times it may be to stand up for someone or something that others are scared to do, and it might even mean a lot of time and labor poured in to get started changing things.  Whichever it is, driving the change is needed and a great leader knows this.

Step 4: Inspire Others to Follow the Change

Driving the change can only last so long without help and no matter how strong a leader is, they are even stronger with their followers and at some point, will have to rely on others to help them.  This might be right from the start or it might be after some barriers are eliminated to help others see light at the end of the tunnel, but along the journey, leaders must inspire others to gain help.  I’ve written before on many ways to inspire others and a leader will have to do so to develop followers.  Being consistent, expressive, positive and welcoming can definite inspire new followers, especially when a leader does those things by example in areas they are passionate about and noble causes.

Step 5: Create Momentum for Change

Creating momentum for change requires that same perseverance it takes to start and drive the initial changes, but now at a larger scale with any followers on board to help make things happen.  Keeping follows inspired and putting the effort behind any changes will require continuous effort and all the things it takes to inspire people in the first place but be maintained and emphasized to keep the momentum going.  Communicating the progress is important as well for showing momentum and you will likely have to start by communicating the size of the effort and as it ramps up, use that to show momentum, especially since progress or results may not be seen in the early days.

Step 6: Recognize Results

Once more efforts are being put it, it will not take long for there to be some results.  Of course, they will not be the end results and change you are after, but it is very important to identify early on any progress that is made.  These might be considered as major milestones or barriers to overcome.  It could be expansion or support levels.  Perhaps funding, ideas or collaboration that never existed before the movement.  Whatever is underway, its important to stop and recognize the results.  Recognition is there to keep the momentum as well.  Make sure that individuals are recognized for specific actions and behaviors.  Recognize in ways that re-enforce the messages needed to drive more change and continue to build momentum.  Use recognition as a way to inspire more followers and continue to build the expand all efforts toward the change.  A strong cycle of inspiration, momentum building and recognition is an incredible force for driving change.

Step 7: Celebrate the Change

Not only should the progress of effort be recognized, but even more important is to celebrate any noticeable change itself.  Change never happens all at once and so there will be people who change first, or perhaps areas or regions that change first, or even small changes that occur on the journey to a larger change.  Each of these small elements are crucial to celebrate to ensure that the change is an example to everyone who sees it and that the change is something that proves the results you are after.  Promoting whatever change does occur is another way to build momentum as well, especially among skeptics who need to see before they can believe!

Step 8: Share Your Story

And finally, sharing your story of change should be done to give others insight into what challenges were overcome, how the change was driven and all the methods used to implement it (such as the steps in this article).  Sharing the knowledge of how to implement change obviously others to repeat that both with the same kind of change (which is really building more momentum), but also to apply those tools to a completely new area, one that need change as well.  It sparks leaders and inspires people to take on their own areas of change and it can teach people how to do it.

So, I hope these steps can be used for your next change initiative and I’d love to hear if you’ve used these before or if you have some additional steps that really help to drive change in your leadership.  If so, please share them with others.

Posted by Mike King under Success | 8 Comments »

My friend Armen over at TimelessInformation had a great post that really got me thinking in a brief discussion and comment with him and still afterwards now.  His article titled Quality, Traffic and Criticism, included a piece about communities that form within sites or blogs and how some accept criticism and debates and others turn a cold shoulder and send visitors who challenge them away.   This practice of embracing visitors and welcoming a discussion I believe is a true demonstration of keeping an open mind.  On the other hand, bloggers and forums that tell people to leave if they don’t like something or agree with it, shows clearly how close minded they are.

Armen mentioned this is a sign of needing acceptance from their group and I think this very accurate!  When someone is not open minded, they tend to seek approval for what they believe in and don’t have the confidence to consider something else and then defend their point of view constructively or objectively.

Open Mindedness Stems From Beliefs

On the other hand, someone who is open minded will most importantly know that they could be wrong and that beliefs may change and likely will over time.  This is important since so much we do is shaped by our beliefs, having an understanding of those beliefs truly shapes our characters and in this case, how open minded we are.

• You cannot be open minded and never willing to let a belief change.
• You cannot be open minded and avoiding a debate you have not yet had because of some unknown risk to that belief.
• You can be open minded by knowing how your beliefs have changed in the past.
• You can be open minded by knowing that your beliefs are going to change again as you learn more about yourself and about life.

Kill the Need For Acceptance

So as Armen mentioned, being open minded can have a lot to do with acceptance as well.  To have an open mind, it is important to accept oneself but not be burdened by seeking acceptance from others.  The reason for this is because it is very easy to be locked into a mindset of way of doing things when struggling to be or stay accepted by others.  That struggling for acceptance will limit how open you are to change and new ways of thinking or behaving.  To change this, you must kill the need for acceptance  and be willing to risk change.  Know that there are possibilities to find acceptance in new things and by new people as well, but don’t rely on having or you will struggle to move on to new things.

Have New Experiences

Experiences teach us more than any other activity and the more a person experiences and the more variety in those experiences, the more likely they will be to have an open mind.  Everyone knows someone or has some experience travelling to, learning about or living in difficult cultures and it can be very revealing.  Things can be done differently by others and seeing this helps us to realize that we don’t have to do everything the same way as may have learned it or developed habits with.  Variety in our experiences quickly teaches us to explore life, to seek out new exciting things around us and to not limit to what is already known.  This ties to tightly to learning I am very passionate about this.  Having new experiences gives us a lot to learn from and every time we learn, we carve away our borders of certainty and become a bit more open to change and new ideas.  This is very important for having an open mind.  Locking out new experiences and living life without new experiences creates a type of security in our minds that resists change. And I mean resisting change without a reason for standing up against it.

Embrace Change

So as I just mentioned new experiences bring about change.  Its inevitable and how we react to that change is really what shapes out openness.  Do you embrace the changes you face in life or do you resist them?  Are you optimistic that a change will have a good outcome or do you fear the worst?  Being optimistic and not being afraid of new things will help you embrace change and to have an open mind.  Embracing change is more than just accepting it as well, its really about seeking change and even promoting it or hoping for it.  Change is a powerful tool to shape the way we think and understanding how quickly our thinking is formed lets us look readily for change and what benefits can come about from it.

Expand Your Social Circle

Another way to learn to have an open mind is through your friends and relationships.  Every person is such a unique individual with their own perspective on life shaped their own experiences, there is a lot to be learned in relationships with others.  Having a variety of friends and lots of social interaction inevitably leads to discussions about experiences, stories and shared opinions, debates and likely disagreements.  All these things challenge what you know and think about and its a fantastic way to explore new ideas, learn from others and to create a need to have an open mind.  The social environment with others relates back to the topic of acceptance I mentioned above and its common for people to use acceptance positively in this situation.  Seeking out new friendships and connections often forces some level of compromise and acceptance of the other person in order to get along with them.  This acceptance of other people and their ideas helps you to be more open minded  and willing to consider something you may not have on your own otherwise.  So, if you want to know how to have an open mind, expanding and seeking a wide set of friends and social circle is a great way to do it!

Nurture Your Creativity

Creativity is the last area I consider important in learning how to have an open mind.  Being creative and doing creative activities help to develop right brain thinking, which also enables us to think outside the box and not be as limited and close minded about life and our experiences.  Take opportunities to develop and nurture your creativity by actively taking on hobbies, writing, creative content creation or building things, basically anything that requires you to be creative.  Many people have this opportunity in their work as well which is a fantastic way to truly nurture creativity.  Whenever you can, participate or volunteer for creative projects to practice and develop more creativity.  Natural creativity and open minded thinking go hand in hand, as you must let your mind seek new things and be creative to truly have an open mind.

Posted by Mike King under Learning | 18 Comments »

How One Great Team Can Transform an Entire Organization

Author : Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton

First off, I have to say I love the topic of change and any book that covers how to make change happen is one of interest to me.  There are however many books on the subject of change that give unfounded advice and tips and anecdotes from personal experience that is not then easily applied to other situations.  This book is quite the opposite of that and I am happy to say this book is based entirely on data for its conclusions and everything in it is backed up by a huge 350,000 person survey that was used to identify the characteristics and behaviors of the most effective teams.  That is the other element of this book that makes it so wonderful, all of the aspects of change are from the perspective of teams and teamwork in organization and it is easily the best book I’ve read on the subject so far.  The authors Gostick and Elton clearly outline their findings and how they break down great teams into specific actions that can not only easily be understood, but replicated since it covers the behaviors of what they do and how they act, instead of their opinions or thoughts on the subject by themselves. The book has a wide range of team topics and it reinforces some of the best practices, which the authors call the basic 4 plus recognition, which are:

• Goal Setting
• Communication
• Trust
• Accountability
• +Recognition

With each of these areas, there are short point form lists of specific actions that people on breakthrough teams do for each of the 4+ areas.  I found these lists to be extremely valuable and a great resource for considering performance, creating regular feedback to encourage and excellent measures for any transformational team.  Beyond the basics and these excellent examples of each of those elements, I also really how there is a strong focus though the book on what you can do to actually cultivate a team.  This is immensely valuable for any leader and it was explored in a variety of ways to help you gain a high level of engagement from everyone in the team.  There are 3 basic concepts behind the breakthrough teams in the research and they are:

• Wow – One word that describes everything from excellence and high standards to impressing customers do more than is expected
• No Surprises – All team members are involved understanding expectations, having open debates and sharing ideas with everyone.
• Cheer – The team fully supports and roots for each other, appreciating great work and encouraging the best.

From the research, Gostick and Elton cite many worldly examples and they develop their case well with these examples of exceptional teamwork and results.  Overall, I was pleasantly impressed reading the book, pleased to see many of the examples and activities occurring in my own workplace and I’m happy to have learned many new techniques for enhancing my own team and organization.  I am impressed by their writing and thoroughly enjoyed the book and I recommend it to anyone leading a team, interested in leading a team or any managers or executives with influence about the culture or teamwork occurring in their organization.  For a sample of Gostick and Elton’s writing, you can see the guest post they authored here a couple months back called, Risky Business: It’s One Way to Build a Breakthrough Team.

Posted by Mike King under Book Reviews | 2 Comments »

How to Change Things When Change is Hard

Author : Chip Heath and Dan Heath

This is a great book, I really loved it!  The authors give incredibly convincing content around a subject that is so hard for many people, that is: change.  I personally love change, drive a lot of change in my own live and those around me and love anything that helps me to be more of a change agent.  I expected the book to be great considering their first top selling book, Made to Stick, I also highly enjoyed and recommend.  The authors take what is such a common problem and struggle in people’s lives and they break it down into pieces that are easier to understand individually yet still highly related and well tied together in the book.

Dan and Chip Heath break the topic down into three simple sections:

1. Direct the rider
2. Motivate the elephant
3. Shape the path

These concepts or sections represent what is necessary for change and are used by comparing to what is needed for a rider on an elephant.  The rider is the logical, rational or thinking body of the system and responds to triggers of rationalization, fact and well thought out ideas. The problem for the rider is then the elephant itself, which cannot be physically controlled and has to be motivated to respond by triggering its emotions or by any short term influence possible.  The idea then of shaping the path is to make changes to the environment and other outside influences easier on yourself and the elephant so the change can be carried through with the least effort.

The authors do an amazing job of breaking down complex situations and examples to these same 3 aspects with concise examples that really demonstrate the ideas well.  I love the authors’ ability to do this and while they do break it down for you, the book leaves a lot to think about in the way of applying the concepts and similar breakdown to your own problems and changes you face in life.  There are 9 steps to examine for handling change and 3 of them I’ve outlined below that really really resonated strongly for me:

• Find the bright spots – This aligns very well with the appreciative inquiry work I’ve discovered this year and I am happy to see the overlap and recommendation here to seek the positive aspects of a change to help drive it.  I agree completely.
• Shrink the change – break down the change into small management parts and deal with them on a scale that makes it easier.
• Tweak the environment – Change the surroundings and environment to influence the change desired and lead people toward the new path, which might include yourself as well in that steering process.

Switch take abstract and complex ideas and breaks them into easy to digest pieces through brilliant examples, memorable points and quotes and enough content to leave you thinking about the book for some time.  It’s one of those books that really needs to be re-read and to some degree studied to fully digest the content.  There are levels of change to consider for any situation including individual, societal and organizational levels of influence that are expanded on with each area of the book as well.

So, I urge you to read Switch, let the authors educate you on how your mind reacts with both a rational side an an emotional one, explore the components of influencing change and to enjoy the perfectly matched examples and stories that both prove the points made and more importantly, teach the content in a powerful and memorable way.  I can assure you its a great book, you will be entertained reading it and it will give you more power in making change happen, wherever you desire it.

Posted by Mike King under Book Reviews | No Comments »

This article is a short story of the struggle that life can present and how it aligns with personal development.

A young man that had grown up with taking on new things developed a real love for adventure and uniqueness.  He was always comfortable doing things that others dare not do.  Some of these things were in regular activities like hobbies, sports and school.  School was easy since the teachers told him everything he needed and quickly realized that if he actually paid attention the content was easy to digest and understand.  This was especially true, as he was a audible learner so quickly picked up on the classroom teachings.  Sure, he had some learning talent and inspiration to start well in school but this become a much larger cascade effect.  In his case, school became easier and easier and it only continued to build his confidence and learning skills.  Doing well in school and learning quickly was his first obvious experience with going against the grain.  Others struggled to learn and had a hard time in school and that seemed to be the general theme for the masses.  This independent style he had in learning added more to his confidence and he continued to develop a sense of self that didn’t fit into the mass mentality.

In going against the grain and knowing he could learn quickly, he also challenged himself to develop that skill in new uncommon sports, hobbies and skills.  Each of these presented a challenge to overcome and he developed an internal motivation to tackle any challenge head on and with full force to quickly overcome it and move past it.  Years went by mastering this skill and going against the grain of society’s seemingly normal outlook that life is bleak and tough.  He would have no part of that however, every challenge was welcomed and he continually overcame adversity with hard work, dedication and that massive motivation that was built up inside him to grow and conquer whatever he faced.  All this made him feel even more confident and satisfied by experiencing many successes in life through achievement.  He chased more and more achievements and as years started to pass, realized that the achievements were leaving him less and less content and that success had to be more than this.  He started to know that success was more than this but never realized what he was missing or what he was needing in order to have that.  For a some time, the confidence he had built up inside surfaced as arrogance and egotism which quickly impacted his influence on others and success was not something he could grasp when it came to his influence with others or even with himself.  Influence with himself is really one’s ability to change them self and grow.

Finally with the support of close friends, a deep spiritual journey and a number of significant events and training courses, he was fortunately enough to face the bitter truth which would reveal to him that his confidence had been shielding him from seeing what was really important in his life.  In fact, he had so much to discover about himself that he literally felt like a different person.  He changed drastically and stepped away from directly chasing success and started applying his learning skills to learning more about his influence on others and how to interact, work with and to connect with others at a deeper level.  It wasn’t until he was able to get past the confidence shield that self-discovery was even available to him.

So, with having a new appreciation for no limits learning, it became a much more valuable area in life and the realization that the best things to learn and experience are only available when he gets past his own limits, whether they are known or not.  Often the limiting beliefs are unknown without stepping out of the common safety box we live in and seek out adversity, challenges and all the other skinny branches of life.  He put this into action and started taking on new things not previously explored and putting his opinions on the back burner in order to have a more open mind for new activities and connections with people.  It was in these new adventures, new challenges and areas previously unexplored in life that really helped him to enjoy more, learn more and experience the best things in life.

With all these changes, the change itself actually becomes the journey of his life, since the value of change becomes more and more apparent he’s realized that it is the one factor that limits people more than anything else.  His own shift has changed him, created new beliefs around the fact that change is required to create opportunities, experiences and improvements in life and should not be avoided.  If improvements come about from change, then to improve is to change.  Both for himself as a person and in how he can impact the world, these beliefs have changed and the fear and limiting beliefs around it have faded away and completely out of mind and consideration.  His now strong beliefs in the ability to change is what makes improvement and personal development easier for him.  And he knows this is necessary to impact the world.  It’s this ability to go against the grain, learn from it and eliminate the fears of facing new challenges and instead learning from them.  This same belief bleeds out to the process of changing the world and improving it as well.

Morals of the story:

1. Success should never be measured by self achievement or at a single point in time
2. Confidence is the biggest shield against self discovery
3. The “skinny branches” in life are where the fruit is
4. The belief of change enables changing the world

Posted by Mike King under Success | 20 Comments »