“The only job security is found in your own ability to keep learning!”
(Peter Drucker)

“Through learning, we re-create ourselves.”
(Peter Senge)

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For 2013, Focus on Your Learning – and on Remembering to Remember What You Learned Earlier (And, you know, don’t you, that until you can do something, and then you actually do this something, you have not learned?!).

A few years ago, the hot phrase was “The Learning Organization.”  Now it almost seems as though we have become so overwhelmed by the new reality – let’s call it “The Surviving Organization” reality – that learning is a victim of budget-cuts, a long neglected, if not fully forgotten, reality for many organizations.

But without learning, there is no change, there is no progress, there is no next step of success.

And you are surrounded by people who need to learn something  — they need to learn something new, they need to learn some new skill, some new way of collaborating, some new way of innovating.  There is always the next new thing to learn!

And, you have new somethings to learn – yes, you.  (And, of course, me too).

Now, I am a little biased on this essential in business.  I like “learning.”  I like to learn.  I want to learn.  I read to learn.  I listen to learn.  And I try to help people learn.

One way to learn is by reading books.  But just reading a book does not equal learning.  Reading, pondering, discussing, remembering… and then implementing.   Read, and then do.

There’s a Bible verse that fits here.  Found in James 1:22, it speaks of a sacred “Word,” but the principle is true with any words that you think are important.  Here’s the verse (from two different translations):

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. (King James Version)
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. (New International Version).

It’s that “and so deceive yourselves” phrase that really does it.  If you read, but only read, and you do not do, then you are deceiving yourself – you are not learning at all.

So, this year, for you, and for the people in your organization, focus on learning.  Provide training, send folks to seminars, help everyone learn from others in person, and from what others have written.

And – help people remember what they learned last year in their learning activities.

So:  for 2013, Focus on Your Learning – and on Remembering to Remember What You Learned Earlier.

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