Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Don’t just encourage someone to do something – teach them how. Modeling the behavior yourself is probably the best method of teaching.

Sometimes it takes me a while to remember things I have learned. Someone comes along, does something, and it all hits me: What are they doing?  Don’t they know…?

I guess that is why we have blogs, so we can write things that we know and maybe remember them better. First point,

Don’t (just) tell, teach

Recently, I sat in a class and the teacher encouraged the attendees to do something. He encouraged them to do something again. He encouraged them to do something yet again, and again, and … well so on. This is like telling people to invest their money wisely without explaining what wise investments are. It doesn’t do anyone much good.

Then the class continued on and it occurred to me,

Don’t (just) teach, model

This is a twist on the old cliche, “don’t do as I do, do as I say.” (or is it the other way around, I forget) Again, if a person who is bankrupt walks in a room and says, “Invest your money wisely and here is how.” Not effective.

This takes me back to author and consultant Jerry Weinberg. I first met Jerry in person some dozen years ago at a week-long class he did called Problem Solving Leadership. All week long, Jerry led us in solving problems. He not only taught being a leader when solving problems, he did it, i.e., he modeled it. Jerry also teaches congruence. He doesn’t just teach it, he does it all the time when teaching his various classes, i.e., once again he models it. (For a chance to meet Jerry and others who model what they teach what they encourage, see the Amplifying Your Effectiveness conference.)

So, instead of sitting in front of a class and telling people, “take time to get to know one another,” bring another person to the front of the room, sit, face one another, and have a conversation where you get to know one another. Model how you would do that.

“But that would take all the class time,” protest some. Yes, it would. And, believe it or not, getting to know a person takes time.