Archive for the ‘Human Nature’ Category

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This morning I have been catching up on reading some of my favorite blogs. As always, I saw really thought provoking content by Tammy Lenski, Victoria Pynchon, Kevin Eikenberry, and Kare Anderson.

The post that struck me the most was Common Courtesty Should Not Be An Oxymoron by Diane Levin.

I’m not sure why it struck me so strongly today, but it did. Maybe it’s because I’m not always so great at following-up with thank-yous myself. Maybe it was a selfish motivation to inspire others to thank me. At the moment, I can’t tell whether self-reflection or self-protection really triggered me today. I just know that Diane’s thoughts resonated strongly, and I want to add my two-cents to her comments by way of asking a few reflection questions for all of us to consider.

• Why haven’t I taken action to genuinely thank someone who has gone out of their way to help me?
• What is stopping me from acting with common courtesy?
• Is it really that hard to just say “thank-you?”

I’m asking myself these questions today. In the name of common courtesy, will you join me?

(BTW – In case I’ve failed to properly thank you for your contributions to the blogosphere and for your encouragement to me, I would like to say: “Thank-you Diane. I’ve learned alot from you.”)

We all have experience. You get experience by simply living life. However, our experiences really don’t matter if we fail to reflect on and learn from them.

Over the last few days, I have been reading a fascinating book titled The Brain that Changes Itself. I haven’t finished the book yet, but I really like what I’ve been learning so far. I’ll likely have more insights from this book in the next few weeks.

The key point of today’s post is this, experience without reflection is rather pointless.

Here’s a quote from the book referencing a study on brain plasticity (changes in brain structure and function) done by mapping brain activity in monkeys:

…Merzenich (the researcher) discovered that paying close attention is essential to long-term plastic change. In numerous experiments he found that lasting changes occurred only when his monkeys paid close attention. When the animals performed tasks automatically, without paying attention, they changed their brain maps, but the changes did not last. We often praise “the ability to multitask.” While you can learn when you divide your attention, divided attention doesn’t lead to abiding change in your brain maps.

In short, failure to focus – reflect on your experience – does not lead to long-term learning and improvement.

I have often noticed that some people have 20 years of experience and other people have 1 year of experience 20 times.

I’m guessing that the former group thinks about and reflects on the lessons from their experiences and the latter group keeps having the same experiences without ever stopping to reflect or focus on them. The former group “changes their brain map” and the latter group doesn’t.

To become a better communicator, parent, teacher, student, or leader, I suggest that you stop to reflect on your experiences so that you can learn from them rather than consistently experiencing interactions on autopilot so that you have the experience but not the learning.

Remember, experience is mandatory but learning is optional.

Photo courtesy of www.sxc.hu.

Great insights by my friend and colleague, Kevin Eikenberry. Once again, the video says it all.

So, what’s lulling you to sleep? What seems comfortable right now, but could really improve your performance if you changed it?