Recently I elected to take a 13 week education course on finance. Initially, I was very resistant to giving up a minimum of 20+ hours of my time over the course of 3 months, but the series of talks has come highly recommended. For context, I haven’t felt a compulsion to buy the course book to accompany the talks and I see the small recap/study groups afterward as a low return proposition. The topics aren’t rocket science, plus the material is online for free along with the accompanying work study projects. If I really wanna read the text, like a cheap college student I figure I can borrow it from someone who drops outs or that isn’t using it the 5 other nights of the week. As with most other things in my life, I have adapted the process to suit my style, needs, interests and study habits.
What should not have astounded me in the first 3 weeks of the course is how taking class with adults is similar to junior high school. Comments directed my way over the first few weeks, “I’m wondering, why you don’t bring your book to class?”, “Did you get your homework done?”, “Can you really be paying attention while you are checking your email & reading news on your phone?”
Simple leadership observations:
- Know your strengths, you best modes for learning and working, and regardless of what other people think about your methods, focus on the results and maximizing your effectiveness and time.
- Another way of saying it, you can’t run everyone else’s race, you can only runs yours. What is required for your optimal performance will be unique to you.
- If you do it the way everyone else does it you will get the same results as them, not exceptionally better results.
My challenge: Aspire to be different and see things from a different angle. Prepare yourself for the resistance, because when you don’t ‘fit it’ it will bother other people.
Here’s is a impact talk from Steve Jobs to expand on the concept.
The blog above seems to contradict this blog: http://www.redbikeleader.com/2010/surly-fail/
Is there more than one person writing these?
I agree with Walt. And I think this is terrible leadership advice. Are you saying that to be a good leader I should try and cheat the system? Get something for nothing? Not really commit to learning something my church thinks is important for me to learn? Sounds sketchy, I can’t imagine John Maxwell or Jud Wilhite or Cal Jernigan or Craig Groeschel or Rick McKinley or any of the other great leaders I know giving this advice.
I don’t think the advise is to cheat the system. Not everything your church says is important means you need to know every detail or take very class offered. I felt the post was about knowing your learning style and for the author he knows that it is important to be financially responsible so why waste money on another book that will end up on the self and never read. If you can get the information for free why waste money? He probably learned that in another financial class he previously took to this one.
Cousin,
I think what you get out of something is directly related to what you put into it. What you call “wasting” money, most leaders I know would call investing in an outcome. If you go into something with such a low commitment level, how can you expect to really get much out of it? And, I think there’s an integrity issue with attending a class for free at your church that you’re supposed to pay for. In my neck of the woods, that’s called stealing.
Hey stephen and ryan settle down.