Now that the video is available on YouTube, I thought I would share it with all of you.

The post TEDx Talk: Imagining a Better World appeared first on Great North Dynamics.

As we prepare for the official TEDxChilliwack event (at which I will be speaking), I thought I would share my four-minute audition with you. So, without further delay, here it is.

Deprioritization of Creativity and Imagination

Good evening, everyone. My name is Kyle Wierks. I am talking to you tonight about something that is very important to me: fostering imagination in young people.

Fostering imagination and creativity is a hugely important topic, and one that is very important to me, especially as it concerns the shaping of the minds of future generations.

Not only am I a millennial, but I also run my own leadership blog called “Great North Dynamics,” and I have self-published three works of fiction over the last 18 months. In my day job, I work for a local public figure, but I have also spent the last eight years volunteering in a youth mentorship program working with teenagers and young adults.

There are many ways to measure the priority given to imagination and creativity, but one factor that I want to highlight tonight is public spending on the arts. The National Endowment for the Arts is an American government organization that funds arts programs. In 1980, the National Endowment had a budget of just over $154 million. In 2017 dollars, that’s almost half a billion dollars. The Endowment’s budget for 2017 is less than $150 million. That is a 70% decrease over 37 years.

There is much more to imagination and creativity than public spending on the arts, but this is a crucial indicator in the habitual deprioritization of imagination and creativity over the last 30+ years. This is a huge problem. Why? Because at the same time that the US has been deprioritizing imagination, the American business environment has been deteriorating.

Since 1980, the National Endowment for the Arts has seen its funding levels drop by 70%. Over that same period of time, according the US Census Bureau, the number of new businesses started in the USA has dropped by 50%. Even more troubling is that 86% of all new businesses started in the USA today are started by people aged 36 and up.

I do not think that it is a coincidence that while America has deprioritized creativity as a society, fewer businesses are being started and fewer millennials – MY GENERATION – are becoming entrepreneurs.

I want to shape the minds of our future generation to be thought leaders, entrepreneurs, academics, community leaders. And I firmly believe that the way to do that is to foster imagination in them at a young age. This is what I hope to bring to TEDxChilliwack. Thank you.

Books that influenced this article:

Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace

The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson

The post The Deprioritization of Creativity and Imagination in North America appeared first on Great North Dynamics.

We have all worked with someone — or for someone — who was inconsistent in their communication or expectations. Not only is it annoying, it can also hurt morale and undermine your team. A team requires consistent communication and clear expectations in order to achieve set goals.

While we can all think of someone who has failed in consistent communication and/or expectations, we are all guilty of it too. Whether stress, apathy, lack of vision, lack of time, or otherwise, we have all been inconsistent at some point or another in the way we communicate with others or in our expectations of others or ourselves.

This post identifies three important areas of communication in which leaders must be consistent (and how they can achieve consistency), and then discusses how to set consistent expectations for your team and for yourself.

Consistent communication

I have met many leaders who are strong communicators — and some leaders who are not. Communication is a key to your success as a leader (more on that in another post).

The problem is generally not that leaders do not communicate, it is that they communicate inconsistently.

There are a few areas where leaders communicate with inconsistency. As a side note, these communication tips are good for mass communication as well.

1. Messaging

You need to use consistent messaging when interacting with your team. What you say to one team member does not need to be verbatim what you said to another, but the message should be identical. In the same way, the message you tell a team member on Monday and what you tell the same person on Friday should be the same. If your messaging is inconsistent, you will give mixed messages to your team, which leads to confusion and distrust.

2. Transparency

Leaders should always seek to be transparent with their team, except under circumstances that require confidentiality. If you commit to being transparent with your team, that is all the more reason to act with transparency. Again, with the exception of confidential or secret information entrusted to you by others, you should not give some information while with-holding other information from your team. Be consistent in your transparency so your team can trust you.

3. Timing

If you commit to regular communication your team — whether it is a project update, a check in, or anything else — you need to be consistent. As a leader, you should be checking in with your team members regularly anyways, so the commitment should not even have to be made. Be consistent in the timing of your interactions with your team. Don’t meet with each team member individually once every two weeks for a month and then wait three months before scheduling another meeting. Your team is judging you as a leader, and it is far more professional to have a consistent meeting schedule than not. If, on the other hand, you commit to only holding meetings when they are necessary, then do just that. Don’t waste your team’s time with unorganized meetings.

 Consistent expectations

All leaders should have clearly defined expectations from their team. If you expect your team to behave in a certain way or meet a certain goal, that should be made clear to them. If you, as a team member, are given a set of expectations, you should work hard to meet those expectations.

Leaders should also have expectations for themselves. These expectations should be higher than those they have for their team. If you expect your team to achieve excellence in their work, your work should be more excellent; if you expect your team to be punctual, you should be early. The same goes for leaders who are not in a leadership position (what I call “everyday leaders”). If you are a leader among your peers or wish to become a leader, you need to have very high, yet realistic, expectations for yourself.

In order for your expectations to be effective, they must be consistent.

Whether you have expectations for your team or for yourself, you must keep them consistent. If your team (or you) meets your expectations, they deserve congratulations. Don’t ignore their achievements; doing so will undermine the importance of your expectations.

Let me put it this way. Your expectations exist only because you make them so. It is your words that have created these expectations in your mind and the minds of your team. But words have a shelf life. You need to reinforce them. You could choose to continually remind your team of your expectations, and you probably should; however, it is far more effective to congratulate excellence when you see it. At the same time, if someone continually fails to meet your expectations, you need to address that.

No matter what, your expectations should be consistent. Your team needs to know exactly what is expected of them. If your expectations are not concrete, your team will suffer for it, because they don’t know what defines success for them. It is also important for you to have consistent expectations for yourself. You cannot expect excellence for yourself and then shrug it off if you miss that goal; on the other hand, you cannot expect yourself to put in three days of overtime in a week and then get upset if you reach three but fail to meet four.

There will be times when your expectations have to change. This is okay. When the time comes, make these changes very clear to your team (and yourself). If possible, give a reason for the change in expectations.

You may realize after you set out your expectations that you expected too much (or too little). You can change the severity of your expectations as well, but again make sure that your team is fully aware of these changes. They need to know what is expected of them, and in return they will expect that you will inform them if anything changes.

Dynamic Lessons

Even though leaders and their teams must be flexible and adaptable, people still thrive on a certain amount of consistency. As a leader, your communication with and expectations of your team should be consistent.

When exercising consistency with your team, you use the same principles that you would use to ensure consistency in mass communication with the public. First, ensure you have consistent messaging; the message you give to your team should be consistent (unless circumstances change, then you should communicate that change to your whole team). Second, you should have consistent transparency; your whole team should know the same thing (unless confidential information pertains to only a select group). Third, be consistent in your timing; check in regularly with your team members and ensure constant flow of communication.

It is also imperative that leaders keep their expectations consistent, both for their team and for themselves. Your team needs to know exactly what is expected of them. On the other hand, you need to know exactly to what standards you are holding yourself, and ensure that you hold yourself accountable to those standards.

Have you ever worked with or for someone who was inconsistent in their communication or their expectations? How did you handle that?

Books that influenced this article:

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell

The post How to Drive Consistency in Communication and Expectation appeared first on Great North Dynamics.

The Olympics were on TV this past August, and, true to form, I found myself watching more gymnastics in a single afternoon than I had over the past four years. I am always amazed at the sheer athleticism of gymnasts.

One of my favourite events to watch is the uneven bars. Gymnasts swing and jump between two bars and do all sorts of tricks that I could never dream of completing. This last Olympics, as I watched in amazement, I noticed something I hadn’t before: the coaches.

When gymnasts are about to do an especially difficult flip or transition on the uneven bars, their coach will step onto the mat below them and spot them. The coach is almost inconspicuous; he does not touch the gymnast, nor does he support her anyway, he is just there to catch her should she fall.

The coach’s position to catch the gymnast should she fall provides a sort of safety net. The gymnast can push herself beyond what may be comfortable with the knowledge that if she should fail, there is someone there to break her fall. This extra security allows the gymnast to push her boundaries.

This practice is based off of this theory:

If someone has a security net, they are more likely to take higher risks with greater rewards.

But here’s the thing: there is no safety net for life. Just like the uneven bars, there is no net waiting to catch us if we fall. Gymnasts have their coach standing by to help, but who do the rest of us have?

Leaders do not just lead others, they are the human safety net. A successful leader creates two different types of security nets: a security neat for their team, and a security net for themselves.

Security net for your team

You want your team to take risks. Risk-taking is an important part of growth. If your team does not take risks, they run the risk of growing stagnant and apathetic.

A leader needs to let their team know that it is okay to make mistakes.

If you allow your team to make mistakes, you have to create a safe environment for them to do so. For example, if a team member takes a new approach to a sale and loses the sale, your reaction to the loss of a sale will determine that team member’s future action. An angry response will make that team member more likely to stick to the script the next time and not take a chance; a compassionate response will make that team member more likely to take further risks, which could lead to a future breakthrough.

Most leaders are not at the top of the corporate ladder. If a team member takes a risk and makes a mistake, there could be repercussions from upper-level management. As a team leader, you have to make a decision if you are going to support your team or your managers.

If you want to build a safety net that promotes risk-taking, you have to support your team when things don’t go as planned. That will mean taking responsibility for your team’s mistakes (and giving credit to your team for their accomplishments) as well as supporting their actions to your own superiors.

There is a stark difference between supporting your team in their risks and dealing with misconduct. If a team member is consistently making mistakes, or their mistakes are due to carelessness rather than taking initiative, it may be time to reevaluate that person’s value to your team, or to consider some sort of punishment. A security net provides the foundation for your team to take risky initiatives, but it is not an excuse for poor behaviour.

Security net for you

Successful leaders take risks.

Whether you are a leader of a team or a leader among your peers, if you want to succeed, you need to be willing to take risks.

It is not easy to take risks; that’s why it’s called a risk. You need to be smart about your risk-taking, ensuring that you work with a high reward potential (more about his in another post).

When you have nothing to lose, taking a risk is not so hard; it is when you have everything to lose that risk-taking becomes difficult.

If you have children, you know that your life changes dramatically when you have another human being (or multiple human beings) who completely rely on you for their survival. If you don’t have kids, you’ll have to take my word for it. When my daughter was born, a sudden responsibility fell on my shoulders to provide for her. Such a responsibility can make risk-taking suddenly distasteful.

There are a lot of life changes, responsibilities, and other items that can scare you away from taking risks.

There is no perfect time to take a risk. There will always be something important at risk.

I talk a lot about vision on this blog, because I believe that vision is what sustains both a leader and a team. When it comes time to take a risk, your vision is what will propel you forward. If you do not have a strong vision, the risks will seem much more daunting than they actually are.

Even if you have the vision to pursue a dream and take a risk, you need to have a security net. I should be clear that I am not talking about planning to fail. Confidence is key when taking initiative in a risky business, and you should never enter into anything with the expectation of failure.

But let’s face it: if you take risks, eventually you will fail. It’s inevitable. Denzel Washington gave the graduation address at the University of Pennsylvania in 2011, and his entire speech was about failure and the importance of persistence. I am not suggesting that you have a fall-back plan; I’m suggesting that you have a safety net so that you can survive long enough to try again.

1. Save money. If you are taking risks that will put you in danger of not meeting your financial obligations, you need to make sure that you have money saved up. Dale Partridge of StartUpCamp.com writes an article about starting your own business. In it he says that you should have $1,000 saved for emergencies, plus a year’s worth of expenses already saved before you start a business. I don’t think that such a large amount of savings is feasible for most people, but financial security is important. If you are in a position where you can put money away into savings, do it.
2. Build a network. Life is hard enough without trying to do it alone. If you are in a leadership position that involves risk, you need to have a support network. This network can be friends, family, peers, colleagues, or mentors, but the point is that when things go wrong, you need to have someone(s) to go talk to. No, the team under your leadership does not count. You cannot go crying to your team; they are your team, not your peers. If you are a peer leader, find someone outside of your peer group. Find someone or some people who know you, respect you, and push you to be the best you can be.
3. Craft a vision. I’ve already touched on this. Your vision will drive you and carry you through the tough times. Craft a vision that is detailed and expansive. Dare to dream. I will be posting more about this in December.

Dynamic lessons

If you want someone to take risks, it is vital that you, as a leader, give them a security net. For your team, you need to allow them to make mistakes and foster an environment that does not punish failure and supports them in their initiative.

Successful leaders also take risks. In order to protect yourself from your risks, it is important that you create your own safety net. This net should include saving money for emergencies, building a network of people you can go to when you need help, and crafting a vision that will sustain you in the tough times.

Have you taken a risk and failed? What did you do to protect yourself? What do you wish you had done differently? As a leader, how do you provide a security net for your team?

Books that influenced this article:

Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace

The post Risk and Empowerment: Lessons from a Safety Net appeared first on Great North Dynamics.

Leaders adapt to change.

We have all heard someone say that leaders adapt to change, but there is a huge disconnect between believing in adapting to change and actually going through with it. Adapting to change can be the hardest thing you have to deal with as a leader, especially if you have to lead other people through a change.

1. Don’t make it personal

When change happens, a good leader does not take it personally. Often, change is outside of our control. Something happened in the outside world that has affected the way you do your job. If the change is part of a bigger trend, either in your organization or in the larger world outside of your corporation, there is nothing you can do about it and you need to accept that the world is not out to get you.

In other circumstances, change might be completely within your control and you have had to make the choice to make a change in your organization or team. It might be a change to a structure or a process, but it heavily affects the way you do your job. Even if it is within your control, change can still be difficult. As a leader, even if it is a difficult choice, you still have to own it, but that does not mean you make it personal. If someone disagrees with your change, do not make it a personal vendetta. I will be talking more in a future post about how to win your team over on large-scale changes.

Sometimes change comes from someone in leadership over you. Whether a boss, manager, or Board of Directors, this leadership figure dictates a change that directly impacts you and your team. Regardless of whether this change has a positive or negative impact on you, remember again to not make it personal. Business decisions are rarely (and should never be) made based on personal feelings toward someone else. Your boss is not out to get you, so don’t think that he/she is.

In very rare instances, a change might be made that affects you that is, indeed, personal in nature. For example, you may get laid off simply because you have a personality clash with your supervisor, or you have an emotionally-unstable boss who has made a rash decision based on personal feelings rather than reason. This is so rare that if you think this has happened to, it probably hasn’t and you took a business decision far too personally. But, in the rare cases where this does happen, my advice is, again, don’t take it personally.

When you make change personal, you are building emotional walls and attachments that have no place in leadership. Emotional responses lead to people getting hurt. If you make a personal connection with changes occurring in your organization, not only do you risk hurting yourself, but you risk hurting your team. Yes, you should take ownership and buy into the mission and vision of your organization, but do not make changes personal.

2. Remember to breathe

Change often brings stress. After all, people are hard-wired to be cautious of change and to desire consistency and routine. There is security in familiarity, and when your security is threatened, you experience stress.

The most important thing you can do in a stressful situation is to take care of yourself.

Sometimes you just need to stop what you’re doing and focus on breathing. You need to deal with this stress before it burns you out. You have enough problems without adding mental health to the list.

I have written about mental health before and will continue to do so because your mental health is vitally important. You cannot be a leader if you cannot take care of yourself. Sometimes simple breathing exercises are enough to help you manage the stress. Sometimes you might need to seek professional help. The good news is that there are many options available to you in between breathing exercises and professional help.

3. Imagine the opportunities

It is easy to get stuck on the negatives when considering change. While this is a common conception, it is a narrow-minded view of change.

With change comes opportunity.

In a new environment, you will have new opportunities available to you. Consider the story of Andre De Grasse, Canadian Olympic sprinter and winner of two Olympic medals in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Before he became a world-class sprinter competing with the likes of Usain Bolt, De Grasse was a high school basketball guard in Markham, Ontario. In his final year of high school, his school was unable to put together a roster for a basketball team, so De Grasse’s senior basketball year vanished.

Without basketball, De Grasse ended up competing at a track meet, something he had never done before. He ran the 100 metre sprint in 10.90 seconds. His performance caught the attention of a professional sprint coach, and De Grasse’s whirlwind ride to the top of professional sprinting took off.

Change is inevitable. There will come a time in your career that something will happen that dramatically changes your situation, or even your career. Always remember that with change comes opportunity. Andre De Grasse would never have won two Olympic medals in 2016 if he had chosen to mope about his school’s lack of a basketball team. Instead he accepted the change and took advantage of a new opportunity. Today he is one of the world’s elite sprinters.

4. Maintain your vision

At the end of the day, your vision is what defines your success. Everything else can change, as long as your vision remains absolute.

The organization with which you work should have an overarching vision. Any changes made to organizational structure or processes should be made in order to better achieve the goals set out in the corporate vision. If you are bought into your organization’s vision, you need to frame these changes in a way that asks, “How will these changes help us achieve the goals set out in our vision?”

This can be a huge roadblock for some people. I have been in a situation where an organization I was working with went through a structural change that I did not support (this has happened to me several times, but I am thinking of one instance in particular). At the end of the day I had to get past my personal biases against the change and ask if these changes would help us better reach the goals we had set for ourselves. When I realized that the changes would have a positive impact on the vision, it was easier for me to accept and embrace the changes.

You should also have a personal vision for your own life, a place that you want to be with goals of how to get there. Ask yourself, “Will this new change have an effect on my personal vision?” If the change provides new opportunities, it may even help your personal vision.

There is still the possibility that this change will have a negative impact on either the corporate vision or your personal vision.

If the changes affecting your organization do not harmonize with the corporate vision, you should expect your organization to face an identity crisis in the near future.

This is an issue that needs to be addressed by the leadership, either in amending the corporate vision or removing the change. If you are not in a decision-making capacity, it is still your responsibility as a leader to express your concerns to someone who does have the authority to make these decisions.

If corporate leadership decides to not address the issue, your corporate identity and vision could be in jeopardy. At that point it is up to you to decide if you want to continue working with the organization.

In situations where your personal vision conflicts with the new corporate policies/environment, you face a similar crisis. It is up to you to decide if you want to compromise your vision, change your vision, or leave the organization.

There are times, too, when your vision must change. For Andre De Grasse, he had to change his vision from basketball to sprinting. Even Walt Disney changed his vision several times; he began with cartoon shorts, which evolved into cartoon feature films, which eventually evolved into designing and building his own theme parks.

As long as you remain true to yourself, your vision can change.

Just remember that changing your vision will take a lot of work and a lot of soul-searching.

If you are in charge of a corporate vision, then there may be certain situations where your corporate vision must be altered to accommodate a new situation. Once again, such a change should only take place if it is in the best interest of the organization and if it maintains the spirit of the corporate vision.

Dynamics Lessons

In conclusion, I presented four ways that strong leaders adapt to change:

1. Don’t make it personal. The world doesn’t have it out for you, so don’t act like a victim.
2. Remember to breathe. Take care of yourself and your mental health.
3. Imagine the opportunities. With changes come new opportunities. Don’t miss out on them just because you were focused on the changes.
4. Keep your eyes on the vision. At the end of the day, your vision is what sustains you. The changes you are facing could have a positive, neutral, or negative effect on your vision. If you have to change your vision, make sure that you remain true to yourself (or your organization).

Have you had to adapt to a massive shift in corporate culture, environment, or processes? How did you deal with it?

Books that influenced this article:

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell

The post Four Ways that Strong Leaders Adapt to Change appeared first on Great North Dynamics.

Successful leaders have strong problem-solving skills. If you do not have these skills, then I challenge you to follow these steps and train yourself to become a problem-solver.

You cannot train a problem-solver if you do not have the skill yourself.

This post will cover three ways to teach someone how to become a problem solver. A team full of problem solvers works efficiently.

1. Ask for solutions

Most people are really good at recognizing problems and pointing them out. This is why you can’t go on social media without seeing someone complaining about something. We are good complainers.

Most people are good at recognizing problems; a strong team member goes one step further and develops a possible solution.

When someone brings you a problem, challenge them to develop a solution. Ask them how they would solve it, or what they think about the problem. Don’t let them get away with identifying a problem; give them the opportunity to solve it.

2. Include them in your process

Some people learn through instruction, others through execution, and still others through demonstration. If someone is not a problem-solver, it may be because they have never had the opportunity to observe the problem-solving process.

Everyone has their own technique for problem-solving; some operate through intuition, others have a very strict set of steps. Include your trainee in your process; walk them through it. Do not expect them to follow your technique exactly, because everyone is different, but allow them to see how you solve problems on a daily basis. Alternatively, have them follow someone else on your team who is an accomplished problem-solver and have your veteran mentor the other.

3. Task them with problems to solve

Tackle the issue head-on. If someone doesn’t know how to solve a problem, make the problem unavoidable: give it to them.

By this point you should have some degree of trust in them, and you have to be willing to run the risk of it backfiring. Don’t give your untested trainee the biggest client you have and tell him to fix their problem. It’s not a smart risk. But if you have already prodded the person in question to come up with solutions to routine problems and have shown them how you solve problems, it is a worthwhile risk to give them their own task that will require them to solve their own problems.

The simplest way to do this is find a non-essential task that needs completing. Provide the task without instruction and tell your protege to figure out how to do it on their own. If they complete that, then give them more complicated tasks or problems to resolve. Continue to build their confidence.

The key to problem-solving is believing that you can solve the problem.

Dynamic Lessons

A strong leader empowers their team to be problem-solvers. It isn’t always easy to teach others to problem-solve, so here are three simple steps you can take.

1. Ask for solutions. When they come to you with problems, ask them for solutions. Make them consider the options.
2. Include them in your process. When you have something important to decide or a major issue to clear up, involve them in the decision-making process. They don’t have to add value, but let them see how you problem-solve.
3. Task them with problems to solve. In other words, provide them with opportunities to problem-solve on their own. People learn best by doing.

Have you ever had to teach someone to become a problem-solver? How did you do it?

Books that influenced this article:

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell

The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson

The post 3 Steps to Train a Problem-Solver appeared first on Great North Dynamics.

One spring afternoon I was working alone in our front office and had to help an elderly gentleman who introduced himself as “the smartest person you will ever meet.” This customer told me that whenever he walks into a room, he is always the smartest person in that room. Apparently, all of his friends call him up whenever they have a problem they can’t solve, because he always has the answers.

Here’s a free tip:

The best way to get an arrogant person to like you is to let them brag about themselves.

Deep down, we all have an ego that loves to be stroked, so I let this guy go off about how much of a genius he is for over ten minutes before we finally got down to why he needed my help. It turns out that this self-professed genius had created a rather difficult legal problem for himself because, rather than follow specific instructions on a government form, he had knowingly chosen to put incorrect information on the form.

I explained the simple fix to this gentleman, and I advised him that though it might take a few weeks and a couple pages of paperwork, he would be able to rectify the situation without too much headache. The client’s response was that he was smarter than any bureaucrat, and he wasn’t going to do anything to fix the problem because it wasn’t his fault.

My client experienced a long period of difficulty due to his unwillingness to take advice from someone else; he wanted someone else to fix the problem, because he was positive that he was in the right. His behaviour is symptomatic of a deeper issue that has become prevalent today: an unwillingness to be taught.

People are often ready and willing to learn, but being taught is a different ball game. Learning is an action to be proud of because you are bettering yourself; being taught is a humbling experience because it means that someone else knows something that you don’t.

You must always be ready for someone to teach you something.

The willingness to be taught, or “teachability,” is an important trait for everyone, but it is vital for a leader. A leader should be searching for learning experiences in every situation.

1. You are not the smartest person in the room

No matter how much education you have, how well you scored on your exams, how much random knowledge you have, or how long you have trained in your field, there will be people who are smarter, have more education, more training, and better test scores than you.

It is important to have knowledge; after all, knowledge is power. It is equally important to not equate knowledge with prestige.

Just because you know something does not mean that you know everything.

Whether you are a high school drop out or a PhD, you have some knowledge that you can share with other people, but there is still so much that you can learn from other people.

One of my mentors and good friends, Mike Mannes, once said, “If you find that you’re always the smartest person in the room, you need to find new friends.” This is key.

Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you.

You should be seeking to learn new things, and you can only learn things from people who know things that you don’t. If you want to be a leader, your friends should be able to teach you stuff. Their knowledge might be about different topics than yours (maybe you’re a geologist and your friend is an English major), but they should be in a position that they can teach you.

Learning from friends or the people around you does not — and should not — have to be a formal affair. You can learn so much from people in general conversation, if you are open and willing to be taught. Whether they agree with you or not (more on this in point number three), you can still learn so much from someone just by listening to them speak.

Before you can learn from someone, you have to humble yourself and admit that there is something that they can teach you.

2. You can learn something from anyone

As much as you should be learning from your friends and the people you spend time with, you should also be learning every day from, well, anyone.

If you are willing to admit that you are not the smartest person in the room, the next step is to admit that, just possibly, the person who you consider to be less smart than you might still have something to teach you.

I have met too many people in academia who equate their degree or level of education with a position on the totem pole of intelligence. The higher your degree or level of education, the smarter you are, and if you have a higher degree of education than the next person, that makes you automatically smarter than that person.

The same is true, however, outside of academia. People with less education tend to discriminate against people within academia. They assume that academics are being brainwashed by the education system and that Regular Joe can learn far more by reading stuff on the internet than Doctor Don can learn at school.

The truth is that neither person is correct. Yes, you have to work hard and learn a lot of information to earn a degree in college or university, but that does not necessarily make you more intelligent than if you never went to school; it just gives you a wider breadth of knowledge. It is true that by going to school, academics are learning what other people want them to learn, but that does not mean that their education is any less valuable for it.

No matter how much education or self-led learning you have, you still have so much to learn. You cannot prejudice who you learn from based on your judgement of their intelligence.

Everyone can teach you something, even if it is simply how not to do something.

I was once volunteering with a group that was putting on a weekend leadership conference. A couple of hours before the door opened, the technical crew was doing a final check of the sound, lights, and visual aids. In their check they found a glitch in one of their programs that would not allow them to run one of their video files.

With the clock counting down, the tech team was working frantically to fix the glitch and get the program running. I know next to nothing about these sorts of errors, so I was observing but not getting involved. Standing next to me was a young woman who, like me, knew very little about technical errors, but she had seen this error before and she had an idea on how to fix it.

When this young woman suggested her solution to the tech team, she was told in a polite manner that it wouldn’t work and to leave the fix to the experts. For another twenty minutes these experts continued to work on the bug with no progress. Finally, after trying everything they could possibly think of, the tech team allowed this young woman to attempt her fix. Five minutes later, the program was debugged and the file ran perfectly.

Like I said, I am no technical expert, so I can’t tell you how this young woman fixed the error, but she did. Even though she had no technical training, she had seen the bug before and remembered how to fix it. The problem was that the so-called experts refused to believe that an untrained person could have the knowledge to fix such a problem.

We can all be like this team, blinded by our own knowledge, or at least our perception of our own knowledge.

Never assume that someone cannot teach you something useful.

3. Debate is about learning

With both an academic and a professional background in politics and political science, you can be sure that I have experienced my fair share of debates. I found that debates among university students — especially political science students — could get fierce. It’s easy to dig your heels into the ground and give up no ground when you’re engaged in a passionate argument.

I had a professor in university who loved debate and always prodded it along. If someone was on the fence, he would force that individual to take a side. The same was true of presentations: the professor would ask you to research a topic, present both sides of the debate, take a position in the debate yourself, and then open up the floor to the rest of the class for their ideas. More than once his classroom devolved into a chaotic maelstrom.

My professor’s tactics were not, however, designed to foster disunity; rather, he promoted debate and arguments because this forced the exchange of ideas. He would urge everyone to keep an open mind and actually listen to the opposing arguments. The purpose of his debates was not to convince the opposing side, but rather to learn or consider something they hadn’t before.

I am not entirely certain that my professor’s tactics were the best-guided, but the theory behind them was true:

You can learn far more from someone with whom you disagree than agree.

Imagine two people discussing a controversial topic. Both people have the same opinion on the topic. How much critical thinking do you think will occur? Not very much. Sure, one person might bring up a fact that the other person never knew, but with no one to counter their points, how are they going to learn? If two people discuss opposing views on the same topic, they will be exposed to arguments and facts that they may have never considered before.

I am not suggesting that you should enter a debate with the intention of changing your mind. In fact, I am suggesting that you should enter debates with the willingness to learn something from your opponent. There are very few debates in this world that have one side completely correct and one side completely wrong.

Be willing to learn from your opponent; their knowledge may surprise you.

Dynamic lessons

Teachability is one of the most important attributes of an upcoming leader. There are three things to remember in order to be teachable.

1. Remember that you are not the smartest person in the room. There are always people who are smarter and better trained than you are; be willing to learn from them. You should also surround yourself on purpose with intelligent people so you can continually learn from them.
2. No matter how intelligent you are, you can learn something from anyone, even someone you might consider to be less intelligent than you are. People can surprise you.
3. You might like to argue, but debate is about learning. When you exchange differing ideas with someone, be willing to learn from them, even if you disagree.

Share in the comments section about a time that you learned something valuable from someone unexpected. Or if you disagree with me, tell me why!

Speaking of becoming teachable, if you want to learn more about how to be a strong leader, improve your creativity, succeed in life and business, or just become a better communicator, make sure you check out my page of Leadership Books That You Should Read. I have a lot of good material there that you should read.

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