Your capacity to say “No” determines your capacity to say “Yes” to greater things.
E. Stanley Jones
I say no every morning to sleeping in so I can say yes to excercise and writting.
What have you said no to recently?
“Most organizations exploit only a fraction of the knowledge, experience, and intellectual capital that is available to them. But the healthy ones tap into almost all of it.” – Patrick Lencioni
This quote is very true and can not be emphasized enough. I work with some of the most intellectually talented people. I am an engineer from an above average engineering program in glass and ceramics, my grades were above average. But compared to some of the people I have worked with I feel quite simple. Our company is quite fortunate to have some of these people as employees, but one thing I’ve noticed is that no matter how intelligent some of employees are it really does not matter if there is not a healthy culture as their foundation. If there is a secretive, credit-stealing work ethic with unhealthy competition then the intelligence of these scientists, engineers and managers is almost completely neutralized. It is mostly culture that determines the effectiveness of an innovative team of researchers, the intelligence of the team is a factor but much less so than culture and health. When ‘crazy’ dominates an organization (no matter how smart they are!), and worse yet when managment routinely promotes ‘crazy’ it is under-cutting competance and pursuit of knowledge, it is throwing fairness and good ethics ‘under the bus’. I’ve seen it, I’ve experienced it, I’ve seen the impact it has on the quality employees. I look forward to the day that all R&D teams that I work on or lead are healthy and mature so that the intelligence and creativity of ALL team members is harnassed like it can be for maximum growth and so the fastest time to market can be realized. .
What qualities do you think should be in an healthy R&D organization?
I’ve read books and listen to leaders that speak about the person who is teachable. The teachable person is humble, is pliable and is willing to change his or her behavior. A teachable person is a learner, someone who is willing to be taught by other people. If only more of us were teachable I think we’d have a lot less problems in our culture. But I think that teachable ness is only half of the equation. There is another side that we are missing as a culture; yes we all should be teachable but what about being what I call “teacher-able”. This is a new word that I am proposing, an adjective that is defined as ‘capable and willing to teach others’. The attitude of a teacher is just as important and I think is more rare as is the attitude of a learner.
Teaching others can be done in a variety of ways, teaching others can be done through one on one mentoring, it can be done using software, it can be done with writing, it can be done in meetings, in presentations, in sharing of data. It’s true not everyone can or will teach, it’s also true that not everyone can be taught. Why do we as a society emphasize being “teachable” and not “teacher-able” ? Both require attitude changes, I think it is actually easier to become teachable than it is to be teacher-able.
The bible says in 2 Corinthians 2:14 Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.
Here knowledge is referred to as a fragrance and people are the diffusers of that knowledge, in every place. The teachable person is humble and is willing to change. The teacher-able person must also be humble, she must be willing to change if teaching doesn’t come easy to her, the teacher-able person must also become a giver. Teachable people receive benefit of the new knowledge. Teacher’s seem at first
glance only stand to lose; especially if they feel that what they are teaching could benefit them in some way by withholding. Herein lies the difference, the teacher-able
person is a giver. Being a giver is not a universal quality that we all share. Transforming our work behavior from selfishness and insecurity into one of selflessness and generosity is the essence of becomeing teacherable.
If we could transform our organizations from a siloed insecure place into a horizontal team of teacher/ givers, the rapid technology innovation would take care of itself much faster.
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