Yesterday Scott Berkun wrote a very interesting blog post on How to call bullshit on a guru; equally interesting was the reader discussion which followed.
My favorites:
“Do you know how to innovate? How?”
“How interested is this guy in understanding my problem(s)?”. If they’re not, then they’re a hammer looking for nails, or you should just buy their book or read their blog or such.
Do they ever answer a question with “I don’t know, I’ll have to think about that someone more.” If they have an answer for everything then either the questions or the answers aren’t that great.”
I also highly recommend reading his essay “How to Learn From Your Mistakes.” I have a print out of it on my desk; as he notes, “The kind of mistakes you make define you.”
A few highlights from his essay:
The learning from mistakes checklist
- Accepting responsibility makes learning possible.
- Don’t equate making mistakes with being a mistake.
- You can’t change mistakes, but you can choose how to respond to them.
- Growth starts when you can see room for improvement.
- Work to understand why it happened and what the factors were.
- What information could have avoided the mistake?
- What small mistakes, in sequence, contributed to the bigger mistake?
- Are there alternatives you should have considered but did not?
- What kinds of changes are required to avoid making this mistake again?What kinds of change are difficult for you?
- How do you think your behavior should/would change in you were in a similar situation again?
- Work to understand the mistake until you can make fun of it (or not want to kill others that make fun).
- Don’t over-compensate: the next situation won’t be the same as the last.
But – don’t rely on this cliff notes version; read his whole post; you’ll improve your personal lessons learned process, and perhaps improve the quality of your professional projects, too.
“Success does not consist in never making mistakes, but in never making them a second time.” – George Bernard Shaw
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Tags: nails, desk, personal lessons, bullshit, cliff notes version, hammer, essay <BR/>
