Who Do You Need to Know That You Don't Know?

In all my work with clients, whether in turbulent situations, corporate settings or in the lecture hall, I ask the same reality check questions "Who do you need to know that you don't know?" and "What do you need to know that you don't know?"  You know what you know. You know many people, but do you know what they know? How often do you sit around the table when a long time friend comes out with something and you turn, dumbfounded, because they shared something you didn't know of them?

Successful leaders don't know it all; they know who their go-to people are for what they do need to know. The more expansive your network is, the more thought partners you have access to. The world isn't slowing down any time soon and we can't be expected to keep up to its pace. It's even more critical that leaders align with people outside their immediate realm so they have access to a breadth and depth of knowledge and experience they need in order to lead.

But how can we grow the leaders of the future? In most cases, the traditional education model will not prepare them for thinking on their feet, nor for how fast the world is evolving through innovation and technology. Therefore some of the fundamentals have to change. Years ago, I was driving with my son and talking about just that. What he said to me stays with me for this day which was, "The traditional education system is failing not because of bad teachers, bad kids or low standards but because the content is not interesting and the environment isn't stimulating, but the rest of the world is. The educational model as we know it has lost its relevance. People learn more in online communities. The physical environment is too structured and doesn't allow for individuality".

Well, that's being addressed, I'm happy to say. Enter TED-Ed, Lessons Worth Sharing. Users can take any educational video as well as a TED video and easily create a customized lesson with it. Now there are TED-ED clubs, school-based programs that supports students in discussing, pursuing and presenting their big ideas in the form of short TED-style talks. Many of my clients now invite their staff to share a favorite TED talk and then discuss why they shared it and what the learning was.

Today, I'm happy to say, I read a position paper from the British Columbia Ministry of Education on their Curriculum Transformation Plans where they state "The current curriculum has too many objectives to cover and with so many objectives it can in some ways restrict student learning. Moreover, its highly prescriptive nature puts it at odds with the vision of a more personalized learning experience. With the improved curriculum, students will have increased opportunities to gain the essential learning and life skills necessary to live and work successfully in a complex, interconnected, and rapidly changing world. Students will focus on acquiring skills to help them use knowledge critically and creatively, to solve problems ethically and collaboratively, and to make the decisions necessary to succeed in our increasingly globalized world."

This is exciting! It's time leaders enabled their people to learn, share, create strong thought partnerships and evolve all those around them. For parents and teachers, it's about helping the next wave of leaders-to-be learn, and integrate the learning every day and to use the outside world as the global classroom it can be. You want to have a sense of where your kids are heading in the future? Bring back those dinner table discussions around something that blew you away that day and ask them to share the same. Watch a TED talk with them and then discuss it. Invite them to embrace curiosity and inquiry. We will never know all we need to know which opens the door to global relationships, to percolate on and design what we need to build a strong future.

Learning Environments

Monday afternoon my son and I were having this fascinating conversation. He had borrowed my book Wikinomics and I knew he would be fascinated not only by the content itself but by all the insights and ideas that would fly through his mind because of it. Global collaboration might be a fairly new concept for those of us boomers, but for the younger up and coming generation who have been raised on technology, it's not so new (or so he told me about 10 times in the conversation).

Knowing his brain would be percolating, I asked him to throw some of those ideas at me so I could talk to him about them and perhaps write about some of them.

I have 3 pages of ideas to write about. (Thank you Mike for a wealth of blog content).

He spoke both of education and the work place and made a comment that stuck in my mind which was "The traditional education system is failing not because of bad teachers, bad kids or low standards but because the content is not interesting and the environment isn't stimulating, but the rest of the world is. The educational model as we know it has lost its relevance. People learn more in online communities. The physical environment is too structured and doesn't allow for individuality". We then spoke about open courseware and all the knowledge available online as well as increasing field trips etc.

I agree whole-heartedly. We then spoke of the work place and the anonymity of some of the places people 'live in' for half their day. I look at government departments where offices are a sea of cubicles with no individuality other than perhaps a plant or a picture as there is no room for much else. There are no walls per se so you're limited to what you can hang on a fabric covered metal frame. How in the world is a person supposed to be stimulated when surrounded by claustrophobic walls of blank fabric, poor lighting and air quality and when separated from others by sight but not sound. Many have to wear headphones to keep the noise out so they can think straight. We also spoke of lateral moves to other parts of the organization so you can learn and know what the rest of the organizational world is doing.

A while back I read an execuBook summary on "Seeing is Believing: How the New Art of Visual Management Can Boost Performance Throught Your Organization". It captured my imagination enough for me to run out and order the book.

"Imagine a workplace that's so visually coherent that it can instantly shape the impression or point of view of the outside world the minute a visitor enters. Visually, this would be a place that's special, a place that's filled with innovation and creativity"

Just reading that excerpt, what does it bring to mind for you? If you are working in an organization that's a sea of generic cubicles, could you imagine the difference in your energy and productivity if you were surrounded by an environment that nourished you instead?

I'd love to hear your three cents on this as well as would love to hear from anyone who decided to change their organization from visually and creatively stifling to one that packed a punch of energy and stimulating thought.

Best!
Donna Karlin

*Note: Some sites I really recommend for a wealth of knowledge and information are Open Courseware Consortium: Universities working together to advance education and empower people worldwide through opencourseware. And one of my favourites is The Wayback Machine: Archiving the Internet for future generations. You can browse through 85 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago.