I was so cross with myself the other day. Driving on the M25, I was due to come off at junction 20 where there have been tedious road works for some time now. I remembered my same journey the previous day: how the exit was not very well signposted and was down to just one lane. I moved into the nearside lane in preparation, but became distracted by the recollection that I had forgotten to send a colleague something I had promised. As I silently admonished myself, deep in thought, I sailed past the exit.
It was infuriating!
It also prompted me about the gap we so often experience between knowing something intellectually and actually doing it (that is, following through with the appropriate action). It happens in all sorts of contexts, for example we know we should drink plenty of water, eat our 5 fruit and vegetable portions a day and exercise regularly to stay healthy. We even know that we feel better when we do, and yet we so often sabotage our good intentions and fall ‘off the wagon’.
It happens in the training context too. We experience an insight or an ‘aha’ moment during a session and make a well meant commitment to do something different as a result. Then it can so easily become unsustainable when we get back into the ‘real world’. At Kaizen this is an area we put a huge amount of focus onto – not only how we make the learning ‘stick’, but how we maximize the chances that participants will use it in a ‘habit forming’ way to make a real difference for themselves.
Have you ever Googled ‘gap between knowing and doing’?
I just did, and phew, what a huge amount of material devoted to this topic, which, if we get it right, has the potential to make us more productive, save us time and improve our quality of life. Maybe that’s part of the problem though. We’ve created a world where the thirst for knowledge and the ability to sate that thirst is extreme. With the internet we have at our fingertips anything we could ever want to know about … well … anything!
I’ve had conversations with two wonderful women this month about knowledge and its’ applications. They both work in functions where they provide knowledge and information to support colleagues in client facing roles. Of course there are reams of data they could choose to provide – so the trick for them is to present what is both valuable and actionable.
Knowledge overload?
If you’re in a place right now where you are overloaded with knowledge that is not translating into action, consider this question (adapted from one asked by Stephen Covey in his excellent book ‘First Things First’):
What is the one thing that if you do it consistently and do it well, will create the greatest positive impact for you?
I like it because ‘consistency’ is the habit forming bit, and in choosing just one thing you are committing to a specific action.
Take a moment to apply this question to a challenge you are facing
What do you notice?
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