Learn Fast, Learn Forward, Learn Together

Several years ago, I wrote about my experiences as I learned how to launch and captain a pontoon boat.?Once you launch, learning comes fast and furious. Naturally, you are going to make some mistakes.? My family still laughs about one of our first trips with our grandson Davis, who was 3 or 4 at the time. He is a freshman at Ole Miss now!?Time flies.

Learn Fast?– Pushing to take in new knowledge and experimenting quickly to learn what does work.?

I had recently acquired the boat, so I was still learning everything about the boat and the skills to be a captain. Our lake of about 900 acres had a bridge over one end separating two bodies of water.??This was my first time cruising under the bridge.? ?What I didn’t know at the time was that the canopy was too tall to go under the bridge. So, BAM! Thank goodness it just collapsed and didn’t hurt anyone.? That day, I learned that you must know the height of your boat and the bridge clearance.?Davis has never forgotten that boat ride. I learned from that mistake, and I am a safer and better helmsman today.?

Learn Forward- Using the knowledge gained from experiments to try new things.

As I stated in my blog nearly 10 years ago, we should learn from our mistakes, and if we are not making any, then we are probably not doing enough new and challenging things. Mistakes help you grow and evolve?and teach you valuable life lessons.

I never ran the pontoon into the bridge again but I learned enough that I bought a War Eagle fishing boat where I learned additional new lessons.

We are in an exponential world where change is the slowest it is going to be today.?Think about that for a moment.?Change is at its slowest pace today.? Scary and exciting.? It’s one reason I have evolved from using the phrase fail fast, fail forward.??

Learn Together – Exponential change requires resiliency and a team that shares developing knowledge and experience can keep it on the road on the change curve.

Whenever we took Davis on a pontoon ride after that, he would remind me of the day when I broke the boat.? He had learned that we need to put the canopy down if we go under the bridge.?Davis never had to experience the mistake I made because he had learned along with me.? That’s the power of sharing our mistakes and experiments?with each other?— our team grows in knowledge faster and we build more resiliency as a team.?

Conclusion

I believe Learn Fast, Learn Forward, Learn Together is more relevant and presents learning as a positive mindset.?We already have a speed of change that leads to learning, unlearning, and relearning.?My encouragement to each of you (besides understanding how low the bridge is), is to embrace the concept of experimenting.?The teams and leaders who experiment the most will win the challenge of an exponential world.?

The Rest of The Story

CeCe: ??Do you remember when we were on the pontoon boat and hit the bridge?

Me:? No, I don’t recall that.?

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For more information on my presentations or to access my beBetter blog library go to?joeyhavens.com.