Ask others what they have learnt

In my company, we have a program called "Wissendock" ('wissen' in german means knowledge). This session acts as a platform for the employees to enhance their knowledge in various dimensions, including carreer, personality development, technology etc. Experts from various fields are also invited on a regular basis to our premises to share their thoughts and perspectives. The program has been a success since its inception, and employees look forward eagerly to this weekly session.

Last week we had a screening of the video of a speech,"Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", delivered by Randy Pausch. During the lecture, Randy speaks about the dreams that he had as a child, and how he set about achieving each one of them.

We have had many Wissendock sessions. But rarely we asked each other what they had learnt. So this time we went one step further. At the end of the session, all the attendees were asked to share what they had learnt from the video. Most of us were able to capture only one or two tips from the video. But when we listed the lessons learned by everybody, everyone was able to take back much more with him/her.

There were many notable lessons that the attendees pointed out. But one lesson that I took away was:

"Always ask people what they learned during the session. They may point out something critical that I might have missed. In this way I leverage the attention that they have paid to the speaker."

More on the lessons learnt in next post.