In a previous article we looked at some of the learning techniques used by people who learn faster than everyone else. They included learning through repetition and taking in new concepts by building on what you already know, among others.
This time we turn to a Quora thread where, luckily, some experts on the subject have answered. Their points complement our previous article perfectly, with useful applications for business and your career.
1. The “Mourinho” strategy: ask why up to five times
Sometimes, when we need to solve a problem, we go straight for the solution. For Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, when we ask why a problem happened, each answer to each of those “whys” leads us towards the solution on its own, until we reach the underlying cause of a problem that looks superficial at first sight.
Take a hypothetical problem at a startup whose customers have been having connection problems. Some people would find a way to fix the error, but they wouldn’t stop it from happening again in the future. That’s where a minimum of five “whys” comes in, leading us to the underlying cause of the problem.
A new release caused connection problems for our customers. Why? Because the server failed.
Why did the server fail? Because a subsystem was used incorrectly.
Why wasn’t it used correctly? Because the engineer didn’t know how to use it properly.
Why didn’t he know how to use it properly? Because he wasn’t properly trained or didn’t have the knowledge needed to do it right.
Why didn’t the engineer have that knowledge? Because the company’s manager or supervisor doesn’t believe in ongoing training.
So what looked like a server error, where the patch would be to fix it and move on, leads us to the underlying problem: the lack of continuous training at the company. And that can be an even worse mistake than the server going down, because that business mindset would bring us more problems tomorrow.
2. Keep a positive attitude at all times
Thinking about how hard something new will be to learn is a poor investment of mental energy. At least, that’s the view of Alison Wood, a professor at Harvard Business School.
We’ve already given an example of how thinking something is difficult can bias us, simply because everyone else finds it difficult. If you believe learning Chinese will be hard, it will be. And believe it or not, some people say learning Chinese was much easier for them than learning other languages. In fact, Chinese is harder to learn simply because people expect it to be more difficult.
When difficulty makes you anxious, always think about the opportunity and its rewards. Your mind will take care of the rest.
3. There is no learning without practice
You can’t learn to play soccer by reading a book. To be a good soccer player, you’ll have to kick a ball. The same goes for business and the stock market. As Warren Buffett put it, a single day running a business is worth more than ten years of business management theory.
(Read: 5 keys to achieving excellence)
4. If you don’t understand something, don’t move on until you do
Imagine a meeting where new concepts are being explained. Everyone is nodding. In situations like that, if you ask for something to be explained again, you may look like the fool in the room. But if you don’t ask, you’ll stay a fool forever. Foolish people will take you for a fool, but intelligent people will know you’re the smartest one there for wanting to understand everything properly.
Small doubts are like cracks in the foundations of a solid building: they could put the rest of the structure at risk. When you’re learning something, don’t move on until you’ve cleared up those doubts.
5. Learn the hard things first
Despite the popular misconception that you should start slowly with the easy things so you don’t get frustrated, it’s actually far better to do the hardest things at the start of the day, when we have the most energy. That way, we leave the easy things for when our energy is flagging. We may get stuck on the hardest part, but once we get unstuck, the easy part is, quite simply, easy.
Further reading
Featured image: betsyweber, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
