By ALEX OGUNDADEGBE
Learning fast is the key to optimum performance. If you can learn a new skill that enhances your capability in whatever profession you have chosen, you are likely to out perform your contemporaries and assume the position of one of the best at what you do. Some of us fall into the habit of skimming over new knowledge. The internet and mobile phones has so attracted our attention that it’s difficult to give new improved knowledge the time of the day without being distracted.
Superior earning ability generally grows out of superior performance that superior learning makes easy. So, today if you wish to out perform yourself and everyone around you adopt a superior learning system that will give you access to knowledge and abilities that others do not have. Here is a superior learning system you can adapt for ANYTHING new you want to learn and use in your line of work.
Superior earning ability generally grows out of superior performance that superior learning makes easy.
First of all you need to look for impact. A quick assessment of the programme will reveal how beneficial it really is. It is not enough to just get the certificate or qualification that is being provided. You need to know what it offers you and how spending time in the process will lead to benefits. Dwell on how much the knowledge will help in the aspirations of the future you have planned and laid out for yourself. If you can identify the benefits early enough, that knowledge will serve as a drive for you to learn the skill and capability and aim at mastering it within the shortest possible time.
Once you have got a grasp of the process, repitition is key. Repititon is the mother of learning. Keep doing the basic things you need to so as to get a thorough grasp of the process. All great sportsmen, artistes, salesmen and speakers started with the things they knew worked at the beginning.
Lebron James, the great basketball player once granted an interview to a journalist who agreed to meet him at the gym at 4 O’clock in the morning. When the journalist got there at three thirty intending to impress James by getting their early, the basketball player was already workinig out, sweeting through the processes of dribbling, practising free throws and suicide runs. The reporter was surprised and asked him why. He replied: “sticking to the basics and understanding them better is what makes you a world class athlete.” This truth is for every profession. Know the basics and repeat them as often as possible. Through that process you become a master.
Once you know the processes by heart, it’s time to utilize them. Use them as much as possible. Go through the motions in the line of work and master the process. Learning a skill, process or strategy is only one part of the process of mastery, the other is utilizing what you have learnt. If you cannot utilize it, what is the point of learning it in the first place?
There is a law of utilization and it simply states: Use it Or Lose it! What that means is, if you do not use what you have learnt as soon as you can, there is a strong possibility that you might lose the skill and get it muddled such that it is no longer useful to you. But conversely, if you use it immediately, it will become part of you such that it will be nearly impossible to lose. There is a great truth about skills and knowledge they do not wear out with use! The more you use them, the better you become at them. Knowledge takes on greater depth and meaning through great use. Skills become strong and endemic.
A speaker or a salesman gets to understand key phrases that work with his audience; he knows timing and studies the expressions of people and the atmosphere of the place where he is making his presentation. These things become understood by him deeply, such that he acquires a level of expertise as he progresses. We are in an age where the norm is all about renewable resources. We speak about renewable energy and power processes. Skill and knowledge is also renewable. It a great thing to go over our knowledge and skill as regularly as possible, giving updates where necessary and acquiring new possibilities and nuances in the training renewal process.
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From utilization we move to internalization. If you have used the skills and abilities you have learnt well enough, there is a strong possibility you will internalize them. What that means is they become second nature to you when you engage yourself in process of your work. So, you have exploited impact (the first stage we discussed) and you know the benefits of the skill you are acquiring. You have practised and repeated the processes over and over, and what will follow is what you have learnt becomes part of the habits you demonstrate. It’s like a singer who went for voice training. The coach has taught her how to control her breathing, she has understood the pitch at which her voice is the best and she has also understood voice modulation. Now with every opportunity she gets, the next thing is to practise regularly until singing comes with little effort and more ability for her. People who listen to her sing will likely be amazed how easily she hits the notes and how her melodies key into the message of the song. When she is able to belt out the song with minimum effort she has internalized the basics of her skill and it comes easy for her. Internalization of a skill is a new reality for the person studying. For the public speaker or salesman, a language of achievement becomes second nature. He will discuss with people around him with a flare of confidence and a conditionality that has a strong effect on the listener. Internalization is the next to last step of completing any form of learning. When the time comes that you can confidently say you have internalized any aspect of learning such that you know the basics off hand and they come naturally to you, then and only then can you say that you have mastered it. But that is not the time to throw the instruction manual away. That time never comes!
Relaxing and thinking you know it all will lead to complacency. This has been the end of many giants in various professions.
What comes next is reinforcement. Keep doing what you have been doing, only this time at a higher level. You know the basic skills by heart; you can take them and improve upon them in ways that suit your work process. A singer can create new voice inflections and harmonies that are pleasing to the ear; a speaker can learn new quotes or languages that he can put into phrases and anecdotes thereby making his presentations more exciting. When you become an expert, you might be tempted to despise the very process that put you there. This is dangerous. Everyone who becomes too comfortable with his skill set and does not seek to improve upon it, crashes and burns like the airplane that has not refuelled for a long distance flight. Refuelling, retooling and rekitting are all important for us. After you have achieved that super status you have sought for a long time the next thing you have to do is develop a process you engage in that will keep you there. If you become too confident about what you have achieved you risk the possibility of tottering and falling from that great height.
A soldier must go through drills, a boxer must keep training, a writer must keep writing and a leader must keep thinking up strategies to lead from a result oriented perspective. Relaxing and thinking you know it all will lead to complacency. This has been the end of many giants in various professions.
*Ogundadegbe is a renowned management consultant. He trains managers and executives in the arts of Customer Service, Human Resources Management and Management strategy ([email protected]).
