Knowledge is Power. Does Your Learning Match Your Aspirations?

Years ago, after hear­ing Mark Cuban speak at a con­fer­ence, a small group of us joined him, court­side, before his Dal­las Mav­er­icks bas­ket­ball team played.

As we talked about learn­ing, he told us about his habit to read four to five hours a day – which he con­tin­ues, today, to keep up with local and nation­al news, and espe­cial­ly with AI, quan­tum and nano tech­nol­o­gy. He had fig­ured out, when his com­pa­ny was small, that the only way to com­pete with big com­pa­nies was to be smarter.

“Par­tic­u­lar­ly in the tech indus­try, the only con­stant is change…

you’ve got to stay up, because oth­er­wise, there is some 12- or 18-year-old kid

that is com­ing in with a bet­ter idea to kick your a – .”

- Mark Cuban

Knowl­edge is Power

My team and I recent­ly had a con­ver­sa­tion about how to bring a cul­ture of con­tin­u­ous learn­ing to a com­pa­ny. We have found that, when we first start work­ing with one, peo­ple are seri­ous about learn­ing, but don’t sus­tain it, over time. And that’s a prob­lem if peo­ple and com­pa­nies want to improve and grow.

At Lawrence & Co, learn­ing is part of our cul­ture, as we – indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly – con­tin­u­al­ly look for new and bet­ter ways to help our clients. And it’s the norm for most of the com­pa­nies we work with.

Get One Per­cent Better

Over almost 30 years, I’ve noticed that the best, most effec­tive CEOs and lead­ers con­stant­ly learn, improve and apply their knowl­edge of this game of business.

They use James Clears’ One Per­cent Rule (from his book Atom­ic Habits) that small dai­ly gains accu­mu­late over time to take you clos­er to achiev­ing your goals.

This applies if you want to mas­ter busi­ness, brain surgery, engi­neer­ing, or be a top triath­lete. It takes con­tin­u­al study and prac­tice to match the con­tin­u­al change and inno­va­tion in the world.

These days, learn­ing can take many forms includ­ing read­ing or lis­ten­ing to books and pod­casts, tak­ing cours­es and attend­ing conferences.

“Lead­er­ship and learn­ing are indis­pens­able to each other.”

– John F. Kennedy, 35^th US President

While there are many vari­ables in achiev­ing suc­cess, you can eas­i­ly spot the dif­fer­ence in lead­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly in mid or lat­er stages of their careers, who are keen to con­tin­u­al­ly learn, grow and thrive and those who fall behind.

The lead­ers who suc­ceed have the humil­i­ty to rec­og­nize that they must con­tin­ue to learn so that they can meet their aspi­ra­tions for the long-term growth of their organization.

And I think that’s the best part of being a leader: to con­tin­u­al­ly increase our abil­i­ty to cre­ate, man­age and grow a great com­pa­ny, in chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions, and to make a pos­i­tive impact.

The Chal­lenge

• Does your learn­ing and growth match your great aspirations?
• What about your team?

More on this top­ic next week.

Addi­tion­al Blogs

• Learn Like Your Life Depends on It
• The Cost of Doing Nothing
• Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment: Inte­gra­tion or Intervention

Past Pod­casts

• Liz Wiseman’s Mul­ti­pli­ers: How the Best Lead­ers Make Every­one Smarter
• Is Your Lead­er­ship Team Too Big?