Approximately a 7 minute read

When it comes to developing your knowledge so that you ‘know what to do in your business’, which option do you choose?

Think back to the last speaker that you listened to, the last workshop, webinar or class that you attended or article from an expert that you read. Estimate what percentage of the content you remember. Then estimate how much of the learnings (that were relevant to you and your business) did you action. 

Now, that number is going to be different for everyone and will depend on so many different variables, including your working memory, prior knowledge and confidence levels. It may also depend on how the content was delivered and whether you ‘interacted’ with the content on the day, on your own or with others. 

In most cases, you’ll have an expert or a range of experts talking to you. You’ve chosen to listen to them as you aspire to learn from them and possibly achieve what they’ve achieved.  They are trying to transfer their knowledge to you, however, whilst what they say ‘makes you think’, unfortunately in this most situations they’re doing most of the thinking. They’ve prepared what to present to you and present this verbally and may include some visuals, think PowerPoints, Google Slides or Canva decks. 

This is probably how they learned and is based on the misassumption that those that know (or can remember) the most facts are the ones that understand that topic the most.

But, remembering a fact doesn’t help us to apply that to other situations. So we may learn a step by step approach to doing X, but if we’re faced with different conditions, that approach doesn’t work. 

And teaching you in this way doesn’t help you to remember and action what you learn.

Research shows that an average learner forgets 70% of what they learned within 24 hours and 90% of what they learned in a week if they don't make an effort to retain it.

Do you choose a blueprint?

Following a ‘blueprint’ or ‘checklist’ or doing exactly what someone tells you to do may feel like the easiest route, you don’t have to think, right?! But does that help you ‘know’ what to do in different situations/the future or will you need to purchase another blueprint or checklist, pay another ‘expert’ or engage that mentor to tell you exactly what to do for this new situation? 

Do you seek to build your knowledge and capabilities?

For seekers, for people willing to invest in their own personal development, that want control, that want to lead rather than be lead, that want to take control of their own destiny, you will want to understand the concepts (the building blocks of understanding), rather than just the content, so that you can apply those concepts to different situations. But that isn’t always easy.

Do you take the easy route or the perceived hard option?

What if there was another option?

To help illustrate this further more and introduce an alternative, I’m going to use an analogy using the old saying

‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’

In this analogy, the ‘fish’ is knowing what to do to take your business to the next stage. 

Option 1

First up, there are a lot of people willing to sell you their ‘fish’. They sell the idea they know exactly what you should do in your business and why their knowledge - or their fish in our analogy - is best for you. 

You can purchase different ‘fishes’ from different people, but it will take trial and error to figure out which ‘fish’ is right for you (which of the provided knowledge about what to do in your business actually makes a difference in your business). And even if you find the right ‘fish’ you still have to rely on them to provide fish in the future because you don’t know how to fish yourself. 

Option 2

For the second option, there are some people that are willing to teach you how to fish, however, in most cases, they are teaching you how to do it a particular way based on how they think you should fish.

They tell you exactly what rod you need, how to hold the rod and where to fish. These people may have recent experience in fishing or they may not have fished in a while but they’re good at teaching people how to fish.  You can now fish for yourself, but your knowledge is still based on a particular way of doing it. If there was no more fish where you’ve been told to fish, you need to figure out where to fish next. This is how we’ve traditionally learned. 

Option 3

In this third option, we want you to imagine if you had been taught in a way that asked you how a fishing rod worked and asked you to reflect on how you might use it and how tall you are. It provided places that rods can be purchased and recommended you try a few out to get the right fit and then help you to reflect on why that was the best fit for you.

Rather than teaching you the places to fish, it asked you to consider where fish might flourish, where might their needs be met. It helped you to identify places that would work for you and where you might not have as much competition so you could fish there for longer. Your ability to fish will feel ingrained, you’ll be able to make decisions about how and where to fish reasonably quickly. Not only that but you could apply the principles of fishing to other situations, so that you could always feed yourself. You weren’t assessed on whether you knew how to fish, you were assessed on your outcomes (how many fish you caught based on how many you wanted to catch or feeding yourself). You also weren’t judged on the way you caught the fish, because you had found the right way for you to reach the outcome (to catch fish). Essentially, all that mattered was that you were always able to catch fish, no matter what the conditions.

In short

I may have lost you in this fishy world by now, haha, but to summarise. 

• Option 1 - The easiest route is to buy ‘knowing what to do in your business’ from someone else. It’s a gamble if it gets you those quick results you desire. If it does it may only have short term benefits and/or may take a lot of time, money and resources to get right. 

• Option 2 - We think is a better route is to learn how to know what to do in your business from someone with existing knowledge, this will benefit you if you are good at remembering facts and have the confidence and momentum to apply it to your business straight away before the knowledge is lost or you have to relearn it). This will have more of an longer term impact to you than just ‘buying’ the knowledge, but may not all be applicable at the time and so you may need to go back and relearn or revise what you were taught in the future, taking you more time. 

• Option 3- Which we think is currently the best option (and possibly the fastest if you calculate saved costs), the one with the biggest impact is where you learn the concepts of ‘knowing what to do in your business’ relevant to what you want to achieve in your business right now. Although it feels like you have to invest more time than buying knowledge or being told the way to do it, it will work out faster in the long run as you’ll intrinsically ‘know’ exactly what to do, or exactly how to find out what to do, to help your business. (Option 3 is how we educate at 25eight when we have full control over the delivery).

Which option can benefit the most amount of business leaders?

I feel that there will be a few objections to what I’m presenting here and I welcome all feedback! . 

Just like strategy, one size does not fit all, however, which of the three outlined options to acquire knowledge, do you think, gives the greatest amount of people the greatest amount of chance to succeed? 

Our education works really well for those that may have struggled to ‘remember facts’ in traditional education, for example. It also allows for creativity and individuality in the process of applying the knowledge. Yet we only feedback on the application, how you’ve applied the knowledge not your retention of facts or the process that you used to get there. 

Only for the lucky

Option 1 may work for some, you could get really lucky with a blueprint that works for perfectly for your business and you understand the fundamental concepts as you apply it for your situation. What percentage of people will it work for? 

Only for those with a great memory or time to continuously relearn

The second option may be great if you have an excellent memory and critical thinking skills, perhaps developed in previous studies. You’re an excellent holder of fact or you don’t mind relearning things that you have already learnt when you need to apply it again. This type of learning is useful in certain situations (perhaps an in depth review of area of your business or where you have to follow an exact process for a specific purpose) but when you’re a business leader that needs to adapt to a change quickly, it doesn’t always give you ability to apply your knowledge to this new situation quickly. 

Different options for different scenarios

It could also be that the different options work well for different scenarios. Workshops and webinars are still very popular and they usually provide some interesting insights and (if delivered well) something actionable. However, when it comes to very important things like ‘knowing what to do to take your small and medium sized business to the next stage’ (building your strategic capabilities) we believe that this should always be done with Option 3. This will give you the ability to adapt your approach in ever changing markets. 

Still undecided which is the best option for you?

I also realise the irony of me writing in long form to convey this new information to you and if you’ve read this far in one go, I applaud your attention skills!

I’d like to finish by asking you to think about a series of questions to help you further determine which option is right for you, right now:

• Why did you start or lead this business? Was it to get rich quick, for the status or to solve a problem or provide something for the community?

• What kind of leader do you want to be? Someone that leads exactly like their business idol, someone that follows the practices often set by corporates about how a leader should lead or someone that considers their people (all of their stakeholders, their customers, their staff, their suppliers) and develops an approach that works best for all?

• What kind of business to you want? One that’s here to make as much money in a short amount of time, one that follows a traditional path that you hope is successful long enough before the market changes and what you do no longer is relevant or one that grows, enters new markets, adapts, solves new problems and can be passed on to new leadership? 

• What kind of knowledge do you want to acquire? Knowledge you may pay for but don’t tell anyone you’ve paid for it, knowledge you think helps build credibility or knowledge that will last you a lifetime?

Or is the better question:

What kind of business leader do you want to be?’

Sam Hurley is the CEO of 25eight and as well as being incredibly passionate about helping people and communities to thrive, she likes to nerd out on pedagogy, data and tech with her exceptionally talented team.

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