Category: Learning

Lightbulb Moments – Lessons in Learning

Lightbulb Moments

Keira and I were walking to school this morning and this afternoon’s swimming lesson came up in conversation. Keira said, ‘I hope Mum lets us practice butterfly, today – it’s my favourite stroke’, before asking me, ‘Do you think it is difficult for Mum to come up with a whole load of interesting lessons. I flipped the question back to Keira, ‘I don’t know – what do you think makes an interesting lesson?’ The following thoughts emerged from my ten year old daughter in the next 100 yards.

What Makes A Lesson Interesting?

Make it hard, but not too hard

Make it fun, especially if you’ve been good

Use different techniques

Involve people, ask them what they want to know

Encourage and support people, help them with their fear

Show me don’t tell me

‘What do you mean, show me don’t tell me?’ I asked. Keira replied, ‘There’s no point in telling a small child that the deep end is two metres deep, you need to get in the water and show them what that looks like and feels like’. And there we were – close enough to school for Keira’s embarrassment alarm to sound. A quick kiss, an ‘I love you’ and she was gone.

I walked home, lifted by the conversation and the sunny day. We didn’t get round to talking about Keira’s opening question, I’ll see what Keira thinks about that later this afternoon, but as a simple guide to what makes a lesson interesting, I think Keira is pretty much on the money here. What might you add to her list?

The Essence of Trust

Ahhhhh, trust. We love it, don’t we. That elusive and vital oil in the machine of life, love and work. The perceived wisdom on trust is that it’s built over time and has the fragility to be shattered in seconds. I agree with the second point, I’m not so sure about the first, let me explain.

My default setting is trust. I trust you first, from the start. It’s your privilege to prove me wrong. Except, sometimes, life gets in the way and that sharp edge of trust is dulled. Dulled by forgetfulness, fear and failure. And so it has been with me lately. I’ve let life take the edge off my trust, and chiefly I’m grateful to Patrick Mullarkey for spotting this and making me aware of it (even though he may not yet realise it). Long story short – we met at conference last week and had a chat. At the end, Patrick observed I was tense. He was right, and my contribution to that conversation was poor. It lacked abundance, and was heavy on the negative. Sorry Patrick. On the plus side, later the same day I went out for dinner with some good friends and we laughed, a lot.

The following day I took my trusty sword of trust down to the blacksmiths and had her resharpen it. I rebooted, refocussed and reminded myself that I think trust is chiefly made up of two things.

1 – Come from a place of abundance, always.

2 – This.

And so – here I am rebooted, retrusting and coming to the end of a helluva week. I’ve experienced much fabulousness in many directions, and I know there is more to come. Much more. I’m not going to measure or manage it, I’m just going to roll with it, and I trust that you will do the same.

Love – Doug

Creative Leadership – Simplicity

One of the main reasons why collaboration doesn’t work stems from a failure to understand one another, which arises from unnecessary complication. In this short, sixty six second video I talk briefly about the importance of simplicity and how you can use it to build trust and a pathway to better collaboration.

We’ll be exploring this pathway to collaboration further in the Summer Creative Leadership workshop, and I invite you to join us if you’re interested in discovering ways of making your work more effective.