Serendipity and Learning

Today I was listening to someone talk. The topic of was the future of work in a post pandemic world.  What was striking that the leader was saying the right things - yet nothing was strikingly new. It was what everyone has been saying on Linkedin or in any other report. And that led me to think - given that there is the internet and what people write typically and know as typical - it is very easy to believe that "you know everything" because everybody knows it and believes it to be  true.  To find original thought, you have to go beyond that. Else you will be taken by surprise when a different thought comes along. Or caught unawares when the market moves.  Sometimes our confidence in what we know is foolhardly  (this was written when the pandemic had just made an appearance) and will prevent us from seeing beyond what we know. So, at every point, how do we ask this question of ourselves? The title of the post is a question that is ostensibly asked by Jeff Bezos...

A few weeks ago I had to go to a doctor for a small orthopaedic condition. I went to the doctor. A junior doctor heard me out, examined me - made me do a series of movements with my arm, asked me to take a <machine test>. Armed with the report, I went to the main doctor who in turn read the report (all normal) and the diagnosis for 30 seconds and sent me packing with some medication and said I might have to come back for some physiotherapy. For a week, nothing happened - the pain came back after the course and no discernible improvement for another week after that and then I decided to to take a second opinion. The second doctor heard me out. He glanced through the report. And made me do a series of movements with the arm. He also gave me a couple of tests to do to check for secondary indicators. And thats it. He had identified my condition- gave it a name. He put me on a physiotherapy regimen for 6 weeks. He said there was no need for any further machine tests of any nature...

Five days of live training - and then you realise why an e-learning done in the way e-learnings are traditionally done just doesnt cut it. No, it is not about interaction, engagement and all that - while that exists. It is also not about jazzy content. It is not about making people do unintellectual activities in the name of engaging the audience. And all these 5 days, there were none of those irritating energizers, no bullshit. So what makes a great live training? These are my observations: Dont get me a trainer - get me a person who has been there done that, or done research into what she has come to talk to me about. So, I get real answers, not hypothetical. Build on my knowledge - you may be an expert trainer, but do not underestimate what I bring to the table. Get groups to work, bring out collective knowledge. Use what I know and build on it. Show me something I have not seen despite all that I know - you may be an expert, but you still need to make me think and make...

A significant part of my job goes around answering the question, "How does one increase domain knowledge?" There are no easy answers to this, but there is a short answer and that answer is experience. Now experience, does not mean standing the non-strikers end in a cricket match all day long- though that too is undoubtedly experience. Experience means, real, solid, experience of doing things. In short practice. There is no shortcut. Read that again. There is no shortcut except putting in real solid hours of practice. Read this story of 2 pilots and how a simple error made things go catastrophically wrong. Reading through the entire thing will only make you realize that the pilots, a) disregarded some common protocol and b) substituted it with the wrong protocol and c) failed to identify checkpoints and take appropriate action. Why did that happen? Because, they were never exposed to a particular situation. Now they are flying planes - that carry people - so their trai...