“As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot.”
— Ray Kroc
Maintaining a teachable spirit is not so much about competence and mental capacity as it is about attitude. It is the desire to listen, learn, and apply. It is the hunger to discover and grow. It is the willingness to learn, unlearn, and relearn. At Atlas, we have made “Continuous Learning” one of our core values. I constantly remind my team that if we stop learning, we stop leading. But if we remain teachable and keep learning, we will be able to keep making an impact as leaders. Whatever your talent happens to be – whether it’s leadership, craftsman, entrepreneurship, sales, or something else – you will expand it if you keep expecting and striving to learn.
If you look for opportunities to learn in every situation, you will expand your talent to its potential. But you can also take another step beyond this and actively seek out and plan teachable moments. You do that by reading books, visiting things that inspire you, attending growth events for growth that prompt you to pursue change, and spending time with people who stretch you and expose you to new experiences.
We should be evaluating ourselves on a continual basis. Any time you face a challenge, loss, or problem, one of the first things you need to ask yourself is, “Am I the cause?” If the answer is yes, then you need to be ready to make changes. Recognizing your own part in your failings, seeking solutions (no matter how painful they are), and working hard to put them into place leads to the ability to change, grow, and move forward in life.
The secret to ANY person’s success can be found in his or her daily agenda. People grow and improve, not by huge margin, but by small, incremental changes. Leverage this truth by learning something new every day. A single day is enough to make us a little bit better or a little bit worse. If we move just a little bit in the direction of growth every day, day upon day, there is great power for change! The same is true for regression!
“Everything we know we learned from someone else!”
— Coach John Wooden
Ask yourself, “Am I really teachable?” All the good advice in the world won’t help if you don’t have a teachable spirit. To know whether you are really open to new ideas and new ways of doing things, ask yourself the following questions:
- Am I open to other people’s ideas?
- Do I listen more than I talk?
- Do I readily admit when I am wrong?
- Do I ask questions? (leading is not knowing everything. It’s knowing the best questions)
- Am I willing to ask a question that will expose my ignorance? (I probably do this one the most)
- Am I open to doing things in a way I haven’t done before?
- Am I willing to ask for directions? (men, be honest)
- Do I act defensive when criticized, or do I listen openly for the truth?
If you answered no to any of these questions, then you likely have some room to grow in the area of being teachable. Soften your attitude and learn humility. Remember, the greatest enemy of learning is knowing. And the goal of all learning is action, not knowledge. If what you are doing does not in some way contribute to what you or others are learning in life, then question its value and be prepared to make changes.
“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”
— Ken Blanchard
Do you have that person on your team that when you give constructive feedback, they get defensive or fight back? When your team gives YOU feedback(if they feel comfortable to do so), do you harden right up and get defensive back like you already know better, or think “who are they to tell you?”.. If you have a hard heart for learning, it’s most likely you will be cultivating this same spirit with those under your charge.
I can’t encourage or teach this enough… Approach each day as an opportunity for another learning experience. Even just the fact that you’re taking the time to read this blog is an opportunity to grow. Keep your heart open and mind alert for something new. Recognize that our success has less to do with possessing natural talent and more to do with choosing to learn something new and growing in what we consider ourselves “experts” at.
Living to your potential requires you to keep learning and expanding yourself. For that, there is no question that in order to be a great leader that others want to follow, you must have a teachable spirit. If you don’t, you will come to the end of your potential long before you come to the end of your life. Trust me on that one!