I just spent 3 days doing some leadership/coaching training, this wasn’t new or advanced training, this was a repetition of some great training I had done previously.
Why would I do that, why would I relearn something that I had already learnt?
There are a couple of answers to that, one of them is to refresh my skills and look to bring back, to front of mind, some of the things which although I had learnt them previously, I may have forgotten or have just stopped using.
The main reason though is that because I see leadership as a journey not a destination, and by doing a training a second time, or even a third time, I might pick up some different perspectives, my thought processes or thinking might be different now, such that I see the training differently, or its sparks a different thought process or a different deeper understanding than I had previously.
It’s like taking the same journey through a forest over and over again, the first time we go through we are focused on getting to our goal, ensuring that we don’t get lost, maybe our focuses is just on the path ahead and our eyes never leave that.
Whereas the second, third and fourth times we take that journey, we can now focus on our surroundings more, as we know where we are going, so now we can take more in and focus on the journey because the destination is assured.
When we do that, we see so many different things, things weren’t aware of previously, and we are open to experience more things because our focus had changed, we are no longer head down marching towards our target.
I would say I got as much, if not more, out of the training the second time, because it allowed me to reflect on how I had used some of the techniques, and I was able to question what had worked and what hadn’t and of course why. This helped me get a much better understanding of what I needed to do to be able to be more successful with some of the techniques I would use again in the future.
Not only was the training the same, but it was with the same trainer, which meant that I got great feedback and he could see where my understanding had increased, or where I still needed a little bit more support and guidance.
We shouldn’t just look to learn something once, we should look to be in a continual training mode, and I would recommend that everyone looks to either retake some training, especially if they felt they got a lot out of it, or to go back through the course and course notes again, in order to see what else we can learn from that training.
Training, like a forest, doest give up all it’s secrets the first time we journey through it, sometime we need to repeat that journey again and again, in order to reveal all of its secrets.
So my recommendation to you is, if you haves some training you enjoyed why not go back through it again and see whether you can get something extra out of it, you never know you might just deepen your understanding or see something in a different perspective giving you some different or deeper insights.
Gordon Tredgold
I am agree with what you have mentioned in your article, really your views on this matter I mean leadership is a journey not a destination it reflects the side of unseen issues some of the leaders who are in a top see themselves they got enough of traits that enable them to achieve their goals, plans and strategies . therefore, these results in the ground proof that they have just reached what they work for and there is no need for them to have a chance of relearn or training again and again. but if leaders already have the concept of shifting their minds to what you have mentioned to have new perspectives and views, in this points the success would be of course dabble in personal development and the job as well.
Zack, good points, you’re right this does have a double impact personal development as well as improved results.
We need to keep challenging our perspective on things, try to find a different view, to ensure that we see things as they really are rather than how we think they are.
thank you very much for your comment, nowadays, we have huge challenges in our personal and career life, however we have our own perspective about things and actions growing a day by day with the externals factors I mean our environment, moods, emotional changes then we do have challenges every where and this would require us to give ourselves once in awhile a chance to rethink, re-evaluate our perspective toward things around us.
This is a great observation. One of the greatest benefits of “re-training”, I think, is the perspectives that time and development provide. Simply put, you are not the same leader that you were the first time, so it only makes sense that you would gain new insights into the material. To use your forest analogy; everything in the forest grows and even a forest guide will learn and see new things as their level of knowledge grows and they gain a greater understanding of what to look for. Leadership is learning, and your column proves it. Thanks !
Barry, thanks for the feedback very much appreciated, i think i couldn’t have put it better myself. We are not the same leader we were the first time, so yes its obvious that we might learn something new.
Glad you enjoyed the post.