I’m sure you’ve all heard of the quote “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
It’s true, in so many ways.
Brace yourself, we’re about to take another stab at the consulting profession. While virtually everyone agrees that education, reading, and coaching all benefit us, doing may actually be the thing that most organizations lack.
We’re often engaged with companies, who in their quest to always do the right thing, present their employees with all kinds of theories and coaching through consultants – which, especially in leadership roles, can’t hurt. But nothing beats the simple act of doing.
When a leader at a client is confronted with a difficult situation to handle, we don’t just tell them how to masterfully handle the situation. We could of course offer up all sorts of advice and role play with them on how to approach it all like a business coach who hasn’t ever made a payroll, or a lawyer who plays in a black and white legal world. But then we’d be just like your consultant, or your lawyer wouldn’t we? We’ve found that the best approach is always to teach by doing, because frankly, there’s a whole lot of suggesting out there, but not a whole lot
of actually rolling up your sleeves and helping you “do.”
Everyone learns differently. If you have any notion of individual learning styles, you’ll know that they’re segmented into three distinct areas – auditory, visual and kinesthetic. Generally, a consultant is going to have one of those areas licked, but in the simple act of doing, you’re showing an individual all three. Navigating through a motivational discussion with an employee means that you’re using words, visual cues, and expressing yourself with body language – likewise, you’re analyzing the response you get with all three areas of learning. Not only that, but with more experience through doing, you’re teaching people to successfully navigate through life’s more difficult issues – and gaining confidence as a nice little by-product.
We don’t want to over-simplify – but truly, if
more people were willing to “do” as opposed to shell out theory, we’d be building much stronger leadership in this country.
Have to go, have big fish to fry…….