Amazingly, you can learn so much through doing. By concrete action, you can learn much faster than if someone explains it to you. I was once a tutor and I had to explain to my students the basics of writing and comprehension. They had to look up a book and read some text from a chapter. A lot of them had learning disabilities, and thus it was a big challenge for me to ensure that they understood all the essential details. I definitely became a much better reader when I had this job, because I was using the learning tricks that I taught my students in how I read in daily life.

I once wrote articles on leadership which had the same effect on my skills as a leader. At work, you see, we have what is called slacker culture. I characterize this as getting the work done, but not rising above it or giving it more than 100%. Our office has tried leadership seminars, courses, life coaching, NLP and other trends. One day, our boss had a brilliant idea, saying that all of us would learn better if we explain what we are doing to another. Thus, he gave us each a task to come up with article on leadership, then sharing it in a group.

Of course, we were not thrilled with the whole fuss about article on leadership. We liked seminars better, since this means that we would be given a salary to listed to a self-named guru and jazz up or life skills with things that are commonsense. Seminars are also great because they usually include slogans that makes one feel good about himself and of course, free lunch. In many of these various seminars, we have read much on article on leadership. Therefore, we sort of figured out that it would not be too difficult to come up with article on leadership, based on the same tried and tested mantras that we have heard before.

Time came when we finished writing our very own articles on leadership, and started to share with each other. Then something interested took place. We did not fake our way through writing the article, but all of us really found time to really think about things. We made good explanations and observations about our thoughts on leadership. Because we had to explain the personal meaning of leadership, it was time to dig deep into our feelings. We became better leaders by being forced into writing one’s personal article on leadership. Even our boss never expected a great outcome.

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