History of the Scholarship

by Colette Gunn-Graffy

In his 1877 “Confession of Faith,” the 23-year-old Cecil Rhodes proclaimed that, the “chief good in life” was “to render myself useful to my country” (Flint 1877, 248). At the time, he envisioned himself posthumously creating a secret society dedicated to the expansion of the British Empire; however, in Rhodes’ last will, written nearly a quarter of a century later, this vision had been refined to the provision of education for “young Colonists at one of the Universities in the United Kingdom” in order to “[give] breadth to their views for their instruction in life and manners and [to instill] into their minds, the advantage to the Colonies as well as to the United Kingdom of the retention of the unity of the Empire” (quoted in Kenny 2001). That this education should take place at Oxford University was no surprise.  Rhodes was fascinated by the prevalence and prestige of Oxford graduates in British public life.  An Oxford man himself, he believed the university’s residential college system played a vital role in the personal and social development of the student.  Rhodes believed it essential the Scholarship be given to those who would “esteem the performance of public duties [their] highest aim” as opposed to mere bookworms.

At his death in 1902, Rhodes had provided for 52 Scholarships per year: 20 to be allotted to countries that were (then) part of the British Empire and 32 to the United States (two every three years for each then existing State). In a codicil to his will, Rhodes allotted an additional five Scholarships to Germany, it being his belief that “an understanding between the three great powers [would] render war impossible and educational relations make the strongest tie” (Kenny 2001, 5).  The terms of the will called for an award of £300 per year to be awarded to Scholars for three consecutive years of study at Oxford.  In 1903, the first twelve Scholars from Germany, Rhodesia and South Africa arrived at Oxford.  The following year, all constituencies were represented.

Much discretion was left to the Scholarship trustees as to how the selection of Scholars should be regulated, and whether new Scholarships could be created.  Since 1904, the list of Scholarship jurisdictions has grown to include India, Pakistan, Kenya, Hong Kong, Bermuda and the Commonwealth Caribbean.  The Scholarships originally granted to the former country of Rhodesia have been reallocated to present-day Zambia and Zimbabwe.  The Scholarship was opened to women in 1977.  Scholars are now able to pursue graduate degrees.  The typical term time for a scholar is two years, although, depending on the degree program chosen, the Scholarship may also be held for one or three years.  The Rhodes Trust pays the entirety of each scholar’s educational and travel costs, as well as a maintenance allowance to support the scholar both during term time and over vacations. 

For Information : 

http://rhodesproject.com/history-of-the-scholarship/

 

Read More

Over the past 40 years, fewer English majors but more journalism majors

By Catherine Rampell

College is still generally a good investment, when you compare the job prospects of those with and without bachelor’s degrees. But if college students really want to maximize their earnings, they might make some different choices about what they study.
Here’s a comparison of the distribution of bachelor’s degrees awarded in 1970-71 (the earliest year for which data are available) and 2011-12:

Source: National Center for Education Statistics.

You’ll notice some big shifts in undergraduates’ choices of majors over time, and the shifts don’t always reflect where the jobs are.
Among the disciplines that have lost share in total degrees awarded: education (21% of degrees awarded in 1970-71, 5.9% in 2011-12); English (7.6% vs. 3%); social studies and history (18.5% vs. 10%); math and statistics (3% vs. 1%); physical sciences and science technologies (2.5% to 1.5%); and foreign languages, literatures and linguistics (2.5% to 1.2%).
My hunch is that the decline in education degrees, in both raw numbers and as a share of all degrees, reflects both changing career opportunities for women, as well as perhaps changes to teacher licensing requirements. (Readers, do you know?) I don’t know how to explain some of the others. Mathematical science occupations are projected to grow rapidly in the next 10 years, yet the country is graduating fewer math majors today than it did in 1971 — in raw numbers, not just percentage of all degrees. Four decades ago, 25,000 bachelor’s degrees went to people who studied math and statistics; today the number is just 19,000, even though college enrollment overall has grown.
The majors that have gained the most share: business (13.7% in 1970-71 vs. 20% in 2011-12); health professions and related programs (3% vs. 9.1%); and communication, journalism, and related programs (1.2% vs. 4.7%).
Isn’t that kind of crazy? That means almost one in 20 bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2011-12 was in communications/journalism. Why, I have no idea. Probably not because of the hot job prospects.

The share of degrees awarded in computer and information sciences has grown since 1970-71, but remember there were almost no computer majors back then. If you just look at what’s happened so far this millennium, both the share and raw number of BA’s going to computer and information sciences has fallen on net, though it’s crept up slightly in the years since the recession.

 From : washingtonpost

Read More

27 myths about the developing world

I have a pretty embarrassing confession to make: I used to believe a lot of these myths.
Much of my initial experience with the developing world came from TV commercials of Westerners asking people to sponsor a child. It's an all too common story for people in my generation. The kids in these ads were always African and always portrayed to be barefoot and helpless. While there's no doubt that the NGO's who crafted these images had good intentions, this picture does not come close to telling the whole story. We're determined to change that.
Below are 27 myths about the developing world. Are there any that surprised you? Let us know in the comments.

 1.) There is an agreed upon way to decide what is a developing country 

Flickr: Sudhamshu Hebbar

There is no agreed upon metric for deciding which countries are considered "developing". The standard of living for a given country can be calculated a dozen different ways with different factors. There is even debate as to whether the term should still be used because it assumes a desire for Western style economic development.



 2.) When people say "developing world" or "third world" they mean Africa. 

Wikipedia Commons

Yes, there are many developing nations in Africa. And yes, most of the myths on this list apply to how people think of Africa. There are developing countries in North America, South America, Asia and Europe. And Africa isn't a monolith of poverty. This myth feeds into a lot of misconceptions about Africa like...





3.) Africa is a country.

Flickr: US Army Africa
It's not as though people don't know that Africa is a continent not a country. The problem is that people make sweeping generalizations about Africa. Whereas most people in the Global North have a clear idea about the differences between Germany and Italy, African nations often get painted with the same brush. In fact there are 54 different African nations all with different cultures, ethnicities, and economic statuses.

4.) Poor countries are just short of natural resources.  

Wikimedia: Alexandra Pugachevsky
This is one of the most damaging myths because it makes people believe that there isn't much that can be done to help. But it's simply not true. For example, about 400 billion dollars worth of resources leave the continent of Africa every year. There are a lot of reasons why developing nations can have a lot of poverty, but a lack of natural resources is rarely a big factor. This myth also leads people to conclude that...

5.) Developing nations don't have their own cultures or histories (because they have always been 
 poor).  

Wikimedia: Cordanrad

This one will probably seem obvious but there is a misconception that developing nations have no culture or history because they've always been poor and cut off from the rest of the world. Aside from the racist assumptions about poverty in tribal civilizations, this myth ignores the rich and powerful cities, kingdoms and empires that have existed in areas that are now impoverished. Look into the Malian Empire or the Mughal Empire if you don't believe me.

6.) The people in developing nations are all poor.

Flickr: Christophe

There are clearly poor people in developing nations. But there are also poor in developed countries. Worse, the belief that a developing nation is entirely populated by poor people erases the many success stories of the rising global middle class people. Only focusing on those in desperate poverty makes for ineffective policies and leads to false assumptions about how people live in other countries.


For the 21 more http://www.globalcitizen.org/Content/Content.aspx?id=2925b243-a89c-48a4-ae86-8e2f84a3b92f

Read More

Why You Hate Work

By TONY SCHWARTZ and CHRISTINE PORATHMAY 30, 2014

THE way we’re working isn’t working. Even if you’re lucky enough to have a job, you’re probably not very excited to get to the office in the morning, you don’t feel much appreciated while you’re there, you find it difficult to get your most important work accomplished, amid all the distractions, and you don’t believe that what you’re doing makes much of a difference anyway. By the time you get home, you’re pretty much running on empty, and yet still answering emails until you fall asleep.

Increasingly, this experience is common not just to middle managers, but also to top executives.

Our company, The Energy Project, works with organizations and their leaders to improve employee engagement and more sustainable performance. A little over a year ago, Luke Kissam, the chief executive of Albemarle, a multibillion-dollar chemical company, sought out one of us, Tony, as a coach to help him deal with the sense that his life was increasingly overwhelming. “I just felt that no matter what I was doing, I was always getting pulled somewhere else,” he explained. “It seemed like I was always cheating someone — my company, my family, myself. I couldn’t truly focus on anything.”

Mr. Kissam is not alone. Srinivasan S. Pillay, a psychiatrist and an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School who studies burnout, recently surveyed a random sample of 72 senior leaders and found that nearly all of them reported at least some signs of burnout and that all of them noted at least one cause of burnout at work.

More broadly, just 30 percent of employees in America feel engaged at work, according to a 2013 report by Gallup. Around the world, across 142 countries, the proportion of employees who feel engaged at work is just 13 percent. For most of us, in short, work is a depleting, dispiriting experience, and in some obvious ways, it’s getting worse.

Demand for our time is increasingly exceeding our capacity — draining us of the energy we need to bring our skill and talent fully to life. Increased competitiveness and a leaner, post-recession work force add to the pressures. The rise of digital technology is perhaps the biggest influence, exposing us to an unprecedented flood of information and requests that we feel compelled to read and respond to at all hours of the day and night.

Curious to understand what most influences people’s engagement and productivity at work, we partnered with the Harvard Business Review last fall to conduct a survey of more than 12,000 mostly white-collar employees across a broad range of companies and industries. We also gave the survey to employees at two of The Energy Project’s clients — one a manufacturing company with 6,000 employees, the other a financial services company with 2,500 employees. The results were remarkably similar across all three populations.

Employees are vastly more satisfied and productive, it turns out, when four of their core needs are met: physical, through opportunities to regularly renew and recharge at work; emotional, by feeling valued and appreciated for their contributions; mental, when they have the opportunity to focus in an absorbed way on their most important tasks and define when and where they get their work done; and spiritual, by doing more of what they do best and enjoy most, and by feeling connected to a higher purpose at work.

Continue reading the main story

THE more effectively leaders and organizations support employees in meeting these core needs, the more likely the employees are to experience engagement, loyalty, job satisfaction and positive energy at work, and the lower their perceived levels of stress. When employees have one need met, compared with none, all of their performance variables improve. The more needs met, the more positive the impact.

Engagement — variously defined as “involvement, commitment, passion, enthusiasm, focused effort and energy” — has now been widely correlated with higher corporate performance. In a 2012 meta-analysis of 263 research studies across 192 companies, Gallup found that companies in the top quartile for engaged employees, compared with the bottom quartile, had 22 percent higher profitability, 10 percent higher customer ratings, 28 percent less theft and 48 percent fewer safety incidents.

A 2012 global work force study of 32,000 employees by the consulting company Towers Watson found that the traditional definition of engagement — the willingness of employees to voluntarily expend extra effort — is no longer sufficient to fuel the highest levels of performance. Willing, it turns out, does not guarantee able. Companies in the Towers Watson study with high engagement scores measured in the traditional way had an operating margin of 14 percent. By contrast, companies with the highest number of “sustainably engaged” employees had an operating margin of 27 percent, nearly three times those with the lowest traditional engagement scores.

Put simply, the way people feel at work profoundly influences how they perform. What our study revealed is just how much impact companies can have when they meet each of the four core needs of their employees.

Renewal: Employees who take a break every 90 minutes report a 30 percent higher level of focus than those who take no breaks or just one during the day. They also report a nearly 50 percent greater capacity to think creatively and a 46 percent higher level of health and well-being. The more hours people work beyond 40 — and the more continuously they work — the worse they feel, and the less engaged they become. By contrast, feeling encouraged by one’s supervisor to take breaks increases by nearly 100 percent people’s likelihood to stay with any given company, and also doubles their sense of health and well-being.

Value: Feeling cared for by one’s supervisor has a more significant impact on people’s sense of trust and safety than any other behavior by a leader. Employees who say they have more supportive supervisors are 1.3 times as likely to stay with the organization and are 67 percent more engaged.

Focus: Only 20 percent of respondents said they were able to focus on one task at a time at work, but those who could were 50 percent more engaged. Similarly, only one-third of respondents said they were able to effectively prioritize their tasks, but those who did were 1.6 times better able to focus on one thing at a time.

Purpose: Employees who derive meaning and significance from their work were more than three times as likely to stay with their organizations — the highest single impact of any variable in our survey. These employees also reported 1.7 times higher job satisfaction and they were 1.4 times more engaged at work.

We often ask senior leaders a simple question: If your employees feel more energized, valued, focused and purposeful, do they perform better? Not surprisingly, the answer is almost always “Yes.” Next we ask, “So how much do you invest in meeting those needs?” An uncomfortable silence typically ensues.

How to explain this odd disconnect?

Continue reading the main story

The most obvious answer is that systematically investing in employees, beyond paying them a salary, didn’t seem necessary until recently. So long as employees were able to meet work demands, employers were under no pressure to address their more complex needs. Increasingly, however, employers are recognizing that the relentless stress of increased demand — caused in large part by digital technology — simply must be addressed.

Still, the forces of habit and inertia remain powerful obstacles to better meeting employee needs. Several years ago, we did a pilot program with 150 accountants in the middle of their firm’s busy tax season. Historically, employees work extremely long hours during these demanding periods, and are measured and evaluated based on how many hours they put in.

Recognizing the value of intermittent rest, we persuaded this firm to allow one group of accountants to work in a different way — alternating highly focused and uninterrupted 90-minute periods of work with 10-to-15-minute breaks in between, and a full one-hour break in the late afternoon, when our tendency to fall into a slump is higher. Our pilot group of employees was also permitted to leave as soon as they had accomplished a designated amount of work.

With higher focus, these employees ended up getting more work done in less time, left work earlier in the evenings than the rest of their colleagues, and reported a much less stressful overall experience during the busy season. Their turnover rate was far lower than that of employees in the rest of the firm. Senior leaders were aware of the results, but the firm didn’t ultimately change any of its practices. “We just don’t know any other way to measure them, except by their hours,” one leader told us. Recently, we got a call from the same firm. “Could you come back?” one of the partners asked. “Our people are still getting burned out during tax season.”

In his landmark Degeneration (1892), Max Nordau laid the blame for the exponential growth of mental disorders on the unnaturally accelerated...

Partly, the challenge for employers is trust. For example, our study found that employees have a deep desire for flexibility about where and when they work — and far higher engagement when they have more choice. But many employers remain fearful that their employees won’t accomplish their work without constant oversight — a belief that ironically feeds the distrust of their employees, and diminishes their engagement.

A truly human-centered organization puts its people first — even above customers — because it recognizes that they are the key to creating long-term value. Costco, for example, pays its average worker $20.89 an hour, Businessweek reported last year, about 65 percent more than Walmart, which owns its biggest competitor, Sam’s Club. Over time, Costco’s huge investment in employees — including offering benefits to part-time workers — has proved to be a distinct advantage.

Costco’s employees generate nearly twice the sales of Sam’s Club employees. Costco has about 5 percent turnover among employees who stay at least a year, and the overall rate is far lower than that of Walmart. In turn, the reduced costs of recruiting and training new employees saves Costco several hundred million dollars a year. Between 2003 and 2013, Costco’s stock rose more than 200 percent, compared with about 50 percent for Walmart’s. What will prompt more companies to invest more in their employees?

Pain is one powerful motivator. Often companies seek out our services when they’ve begun losing valued employees, or a C.E.O. recognizes his own exhaustion, or a young, rising executive suddenly drops dead of a heart attack — a story we’ve been told more than a half dozen times in just the past six months.

In a numbers-driven world, the most compelling argument for change is the growing evidence that meeting the needs of employees fuels their productivity, loyalty and performance. Our own experience is that more and more companies are taking up this challenge — most commonly addressing employees’ physical needs first, through wellness and well-being programs. Far less common is a broader shift in the corporate mind-set from trying to get more out of employees to investing more in meeting their needs, so they’re both capable of and motivated to perform better and more sustainably.

THE simplest way for companies to take on this challenge is to begin with a basic question: “What would make our employees feel more energized, better taken care of, more focused and more inspired?” It costs nothing, for example, to mandate that meetings run no longer than 90 minutes, or to set boundaries around when people are expected to answer email and how quickly they’re expected to respond. Other basic steps we’ve seen client companies take is to create fitness facilities and nap rooms, and to provide healthy, high-quality food free, or at subsidized prices, as many Silicon Valley companies now do.

It also makes a big difference to explicitly reward leaders and managers who exhibit empathy, care and humility, and to hold them accountable for relying on anger or other demeaning emotions that may drive short-term results but also create a toxic climate of fear over time — with enormous costs. Also, as our study makes clear, employees are far more engaged when their work gives them an opportunity to make a positive difference in the world.

The energy of leaders is, for better or worse, contagious. When leaders explicitly encourage employees to work in more sustainable ways — and especially when they themselves model a sustainable way of working — their employees are 55 percent more engaged, 53 percent more focused, and more likely to stay at the company, our research with the Harvard Business Review found.

Mr. Kissam, the Albemarle chief executive Tony first met more than a year ago, has taken up the challenge for himself and his employees. He began by building breaks into his days — taking a walk around the block — and being more fully focused and present during time with his family. He now sets aside at least one morning on his calendar every week for reflection and thinking longer term. He has also made it a practice to send out handwritten notes of appreciation to people inside and outside the company.

Mr. Kissam has also championed a comprehensive rethinking of his organization’s practices around meetings, email, flexible work arrangements, conflict resolution and recognition. By the end of 2014 more than 1,000 of his leaders and managers will have gone through a program aimed at helping them more skillfully meet their own needs, and the needs of those they oversee.

“I can already see it’s working,” Mr. Kissam told us. “Our safety record has improved significantly this year, because our people are more focused. We’re trusting them to do their jobs rather than telling them what to do, and then we’re appreciating them for their efforts. We’re also on the right path financially. A year from now it’s going to show up in our profitability. I saw what happened when I invested more in myself, and now we’re seeing what happens when we invest in our employees.”

Tony Schwartz is the chief executive of The Energy Project, a consulting firm. Christine Porath is an associate professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and a consultant to The Energy Project.

For more : Go to New York Time 

Read More

If I Were 22: You Want to Change the World, Do You? Then Unlearn These 3 Things Now

post by Elliot S. WeissbluthInfluencer

This post is part of a series in which Influencers share lessons from their youth. Read all the stories here.
If you’re 22 today, you’re likely more concerned about making the world a better place than I was at your age. According to every recent poll, study and interview I’ve seen, today’s 22-year-olds just care more than those of us who grew up on John Hughes films and the boom boom “greed is good” ’80s.
While I may not have started my professional life with the audacity to change the world, I am one of the fortunate few who is actually doing it. And what we’re finding today is that Millennials want to work for organizations that support and drive innovation, because to them it’s a natural means to drive positive change. And they’re not wrong.
“Innovation” is a buzzword now like “culture.” I remember seeing a cartoon where a CEO instructs his HR director, “Yeah, culture, we need some of that.”
Plenty of businesses talk a good game, but don’t really understand innovation.
So, if you want to be an innovator, challenge your assumptions about what “innovation” really means. Here are three lessons you need to unlearn:
Unlearn Lesson #1: Innovation results from major shifts in thinking.
Uh, no.
Actually, innovations tend to be very modest, and often not very sexy changes. But, boy, are they powerful.
Consider four-time Iditarod winner Susan Butcher. Susan was a champion dogsled racer and the second woman in history to win the Iditarod. She won not because she reinvented the wheel (or in this case, the sled) but because she did a few things differently—and they were the right things.
Susan reexamined her relationship with the race itself. Instead of following the traditional pattern of running her dogsled team for twelve hours, then resting for twelve hours, she shortened the interval. Her dogs ran in four-to-six hour spurts, then rested for the same length of time. It was a small change that yielded a tremendous impact on performance. Her approach forced her competitors to adapt—and permanently changed the sport.
Unlearn Lesson #2: Innovation is driven by thinkers, not doers.
I love the charlatan CEOs who say, “I’m a visionary CEO. I do all the big picture thinking.” That’s complete crap. Real innovators are actually tinkerers. They like to build.
I grew up on tinker toys and LEGOs and to this day, if I find myself at a dinner party and my hosts’ kids have a LEGO set, you’ll find me on the floor working on a lunar landing pad rather than cocktailing.
Getting an MBA is the death sentence for tinkering. Nothing drives out the pleasure of experiment like a business degree, and the better the school, the worse the impact.
Back when members of the class of 2014 were still a couple of years away from getting their drivers’ licenses, Peter Skillman, a Vice President of design for Palm, gave a TED talk on an exercise he developed that today is known simply as “The Marshmallow Challenge.”
Skillman tasked teams of four with constructing the tallest tower they could out of 20 uncooked spaghetti noodles, a meter of tape, a piece of string and a marshmallow (the marshmallow had to go at the top). They had 18 minutes.
In a follow-up TED talk, Autodesk fellow Tom Wujec shared which participants do well and who does poorly at the challenge.
Perhaps not surprisingly, recent business school grads do the worst on average. They spend the most time talking, strategizing, laying out a vision for the completed tower, jockeying for authority, planning and sketching their creation. They focus on getting the spaghetti to stand up, and then, as time runs out, they plop the marshmallow on top and hope for the best. All too often, the whole structure collapses.
Who does well? Kindergarten students. They aren’t interested in being “right” or “in charge;” they just get down to it. And unlike the business school grads, they start with the marshmallow and build underneath it. Their structures may collapse, but they gain instant, ongoing feedback, while having enough time to improve their results.
Unlike the MBD students who focus on a linear plan with lots of "strategery", the Kindergarten students start with the end - get the Marshmallow on top - and work backward.
Innovation happens when you try something, fail, learn from it and try again. I’m not saying you shouldn’t go to business school; I’m saying that if you want to solve a problem, or innovate, stop talking about it, roll up your sleeves and do the work.
Unlearn Lesson #3: Mire yourself in expertise.
Ignorance is not the enemy of innovation: complacency is. Failing to recognize and adapt to change is tantamount to a death sentence, whether you’re a frog in a gradually warming pot of water or a business in the modern era.
The best ideas—true innovations— come from people working around the edges of their expertise. They know enough to be informed but not enough to be constrained by the “old way” of doing things.
I've named this approach the “Smart Stranger,” where fresh perspectives provoke new ideas.

Delta just introduced “innovation class,” an exclusive program that seats “big thinkers and innovators” together on flights to encourage mentorship in industries like entertainment, fashion, financial services, sports and advertising. The airline says it aims to “bring the ones succeeding in their field together with people who aspire to follow them."
But, if they really want to encourage innovation, they would be better off pairing up seatmates in different fields who have little in common. Otherwise, it’s just networking at 35,000 feet.
Millennials, your inexperience is your most valuable assets.
Your skepticism will guide you to better answers.
And the fact that you are the first generation in many to enter a workforce and economy that is not handing you success on a silver platter gives you the motivation not just to survive, but to excel.
Congratulations – now get to work and change the world.
Elliot S. Weissbluth is the Chief Executive Officer of HighTower,an industry leading financial services firm. Today marks the beginning of the firm’s 3-day innovation conference, HighTower Apex: Foothold to the Future, in Chicago. For more information and to see highlights of the event, visit http://www.hightowerapex.com/
Photo: Author as a lifeguard at 22.

Read More

6 Books That Will Change The Way You Think For The Better Read more

Reading is important to me. Not only is it one way to fill in the gaps left by my formal eduction but it is a meaningful way to better myself.
Reading alone, however, isn’t enough. What you read and how you apply it matters. In the past year, I started reading over 300 books and finished 161 of them.
Reading what everyone else reads is good for conversation, perhaps, but it’s not going to help you to think differently. And if you can’t think differently, you’re always going to be a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

With that in mind, here are 5 books that you’ve (probably) never heard of that will help you see things in a new light.

1. "Collected Maxims and Other Reflections" by La Rochefoucauld

Deceptively brief and easy to read, La Rochefoucauld’s unflattering analysis of human behavior will stay with you for a lifetime. His maxims and reflections influenced people like Nietzsche, Voltaire, Proust, de Gaulle, and Conan Doyle. “The reader’s best policy,” Rochefoucauld suggests, “is to assume that none of these maxims is directed at him, and that he is the sole exception. …. After that, I guarantee that he will be the first to subscribe to them.”

2. "The 48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene

I’ve never read this book in a cover-to-cover sense but I’ve read each of the laws. More than that, I’ve broken each of the laws. I’ll give you an example. The first law is “Never outshine the master.” Once I worked directly for a CEO. I worked as hard as I ever have to show off my talents and skills and at every turn it backfired over and over again. The lesson — “make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.” I wish I read this book earlier in my career, it certainly would have been helpful.

3. "Xenophon’s Cyrus the Great: The Arts of Leadership and War" by Xenophon

This book sat on my shelf for a year before I picked it up recently. This is the biography of Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, who made the oldest known declaration of human rights. The book is full of leadership lessons. Here’s an example. “Brevity is the soul of command. Too much talking suggests desperation on the part of the leader. Speak shortly, decisively and to the point–and couch your desires in such natural logic that no one can raise objections. Then move on.”

4. "Letters From a Self-Made Merchant to His Son" by George Horace Lorimer

This no nonsense collection of 20 letters from a self-made man to his son are nothing short of brilliant as far as I’m concerned. This is a great example of timeless wisdom. The broad theme is how to raise your children in a world where they have plenty but the lessons apply to parents and non-parents alike.

5. "Models of My Life" by Herbert Simon

An autobiography of Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon, a remarkable polymath who more people should know about. In an age of increasing specializing, he’s a rare generalist — applying what he learned as a scientist to other aspects of his life. Crossing disciplines, he was at the intersection of “information sciences.” He won the Nobel for his theory of “bounded rationality,” and is perhaps best known for his insightful quote “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
And one more… just for good luck.

6. "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius

Ok, this is a bonus pick as I figured a many of you might have read this already. It was, after all, on the 2013 Farnam Street reader’s choice list. If you bought it and haven’t read it, consider this a nudge. The best way to sum up this book is: A simple and powerful guide to life. This book was never intended for publication it was for himself. How many people write a book of epigrams to themselves? Get it. Read it. Live it.

Read more: http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/04/5-books-that-will-change-your-life/#ixzz30SnQL1lO

Read More

10 Reasons Companies Fail to Improve Their Customers' Experience

by Rick Conlow

Every year, a top five priority for most companies is to improve their customers' experience and loyalty. Unfortunately, most fail. For example, read the American Customer Satisfaction Index results or the Consumer Reports ratings. Considering the potential payoff for improvement, it doesn't make sense as you review this research.

• According to Harvard Business Review’s Employ­ee-Customer-Profit Chain, a 1.3% improvement in customer satisfaction scores results in a revenue increase of .5%.
• The Profit Impact of Market Strategy’s database found that companies who lead in service have 12 times the profit­ability and 9% greater growth than poor service providers.
• Bain & Co. found that a 12-point increase in the net-promoter score doubles a company’s growth rate.
• A report by the American Customer Satisfaction Index proved that the leading companies consistently outperformed the market. Customer service leaders outper­formed the Dow by 93%, the Fortune 500 by 20% and the NASDAQ by 335%.

Why do so many companies fail to take advantage of the obvious bottom-line impact for improving service? Here are ten reasons companies fail.
1. Ignorance is Bliss
Recently, a company executive proudly shared with me that they survey customers twice a year. (What if this company only looked at sales or profit numbers that often?) The company leaders always talked about service but made no serious changes and kept experiencing the same issues with customers and competition.
2. Vision Without Vitality
One company President said, "We don't want to be the biggest company, only the best service provider." The President gave a five-minute speech everywhere he went; however, no plan or action ever followed. The company floundered.
3. The Panacea Approach
One CEO decided to use a Just in Time production strategy because it worked for his buddy's company. He did it exactly the same way but failed. As a result he had to layoff a lot of people, and within two years lost his job.
4. Frontline Fanatics
A major airline responded to customer complaints by notifying customers of their new "Customer First" initiative for employees. In reality, employees weren't partners they were scapegoats. The airline's service never got better. It eventually went bankrupt, and was merged with a larger competitor. (According to service gurus, 85-95% of service problems are management related not employee related.)
5. Do It All and Have It All
One leader happily reviewed with his team three flipchart pages full of customer service improvement initiatives. Not surprisingly, employees were overwhelmed and business stalled. They had no focus and ended up with negative sales results.
6. I am a Rock – I am an Island
A $27 billion company I know has tried to improve service for a decade, but are still rated near the bottom of their industry. They refuse outside help or assistance. They have settled for dismal service, low stock prices, poor profits and meager growth. Their strategic goals outline a commitment to the customer, but they don't really mean it.
7. Drive by Training
Many leaders send their employees to an online course or to a class to get "fixed." I can't tell you how many times executives have asked me for that kind of training. They never tried to upgrade organizational design, systems, processes or cross-departmental collaboration. Even though training is a vital pit stop on the way to success, it’s not a one-stop solution.
8. The Secret is Technology
One retail organization spent millions to improve customer retention through expensive new technology primarily because a big six accounting firm told them to do it. It didn't help. Their sales growth continued to spiral downward. Investment and support of their people was an afterthought. Now, they are merging with a competitor to survive.
9. The Tool-Chest Dilemma
One company executive told me that they have consultants for everything. Take your pick from TQM, Six Sigma, The Goal, ISO, Kaizen and numerous other approaches to get better. (You have heard the phrase, "program of the month.") These multiple efforts were seldom executed well or sustained. Employees were drowning in meetings, data, paperwork and confusion. Guess how well they give service to customers?
10. The Perils of Poor Execution
How often have you been in a company that implemented a grand strategy (Or, a new customer experience plan.), but failed to achieve the desired result because of poor execution? The promises of change become false exhortations, which of course demonstrates a lack of integrity. The trust within and around the organization dies.
I believe companies need to get back to basics of focusing on understanding customer needs and wants, and valuing their employees. Businessman Ross Perot once said, "Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers." And, Doug Conant, former CEO of Campbell Soup added, “To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace.”
By the way, do you want to learn a proven approach for improving the customer experience? If so, I suggest you check out this complimentary white paper: Creating Sustainable Customer Loyalty and Sales Growth.

Read More

The Biggest Job Interview Mistake

by Andy LaCivita

 How many times have you thought, “I’m perfect for the job. Why didn’t the employer hire me?”
If your first thought is, in fact, true, the answer to your question is usually very simple. You, the job-seeker, weren’t able to highlight for the interviewer how you fulfilled the company’s needs. Keep in mind, it’s never a matter of whether you’re qualified, but whether you can convince the employer you’re a great fit.
“Hope, as they say, is not a strategy and you are now driving through the interview without a roadmap.”

Too often, candidates share their accomplishments, work history, and charming personality before they understand what the employer actually needs. During an interview, you’re selling the product you know best—you—and have a very short timeframe to do that. Remember, the first rule of sales is you sell what the customer needs. If you’re spending considerable time highlighting your talents and experience that are less relevant to the job, you potentially leave the employer with an impression that you’re not qualified. Interestingly, the employer mirrors you. When given the chance, they often share their offerings without first understanding the criteria you’re using to determine whether their company is a good fit for you.
The employer often causes these initial missteps by starting interviews with wildly open-end questions that leave entirely too much room for the candidate to guess and wander. Candidly, employers and employees would make much better hiring decisions and career choices if the interviewer simply started the conversation with, “Here is an exact list of what I need. Can you tell me in detail how you satisfy these needs?” The ever-popular “Tell me about yourself” often sends the job-seeker to rambling into areas that are unimportant. The candidate, who often feels pressure to dive into his response, starts a story while simultaneously speculating what the employer needs to know. Hope, as they say, is not a strategy and you are now driving through the interview without a roadmap, which is a significant job interview mistake.
How can you avoid this trap?
Passively gather the employer’s needs. During the early parts of the discussion, adept interviewers will ask questions centered on the areas and skills he needs the newest employees to possess. Pay close attention to these areas and confirm in your responses how your skillset aligns to traits he inquired about earlier in the discussion. People, regardless of who they are, want reassurance that they’re making the correct decision.
Actively gather the employer’s needs. When I teach our candidates how to properly ask a question so they gather insight they actually need to make educated decisions, I show them how to design questions for short- and long-term usage. Any question designed to elicit information you’ll ponder later, is considered long-term. “Can you describe your training program?” is long-term because that typically yields information you’ll consider in the employment decision, but rarely requires an immediate response. During the interview, however, there is a battery of questions you can ask to determine what the employer seeks in a new employee. These are short-term questions because you can use that information to immediately sell yourself. Some potent questions include, “What are the attributes that describe your best employees?”, “What type of person would do well in this role?”, and “What skillset is missing from your current team?” These questions yield information that highlight traits the employer needs. During the remainder of the interview (or interviewing process) you can incorporate these traits into your stories.
Gain control to neutralize the dreaded “Tell me about yourself” request. I honestly wish they could remove this question from the face of the earth. It also makes me wonder whenever an interviewer says to me, “I like that question because it helps me understand how the candidate sees herself. It also allows me to gather information I might not have known to ask for.” Clinically, those statements are true. In an interview, however, that question wastes a significant portion of your “hour” because the candidate will often highlight information that is less relevant to the employer’s decision. Candidates should remember that when an employer asks this question, they are turning the interview over to the job-seeker. So take control. Whenever you get this question, answer it with a question. Instead of diving right in to your 20-year work history, help the interviewer make a good decision by having him highlight which areas are most relevant to the company and position. (This is an extension of the previous technique.) A simple response such as, “I obviously have extensive work experience. It might be most helpful if I focus on areas that’ll help you determine whether I’m a good fit for the role. Are there specific areas in my background you’d like to ensure we cover?
There are obviously several ways to make these determinations. The most important technique to master is always identifying what the employer needs so you can continually reinforce how you satisfy those needs.

Read More

The Meaning of Meaning

by Guy Kawasaki

I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must come out; that is the reason why I compose.

—Ludwig van Beethoven

When I was a venture capitalist, I noticed that entrepreneurs whose primary goal was to make money usually failed. This is because this kind of entrepreneur attracts other people who primarily want to make money, and then when the company doesn’t pay out big bucks immediately (and no startup does), these folks look for greener pastures.

• Many people recommend a rigorous process of self-examination before starting a company. That’s good, but entrepreneurs usually ask themselves the wrong questions: Can I work long hours at low wages?
• Can I deal with rejection after rejection?
• Can I handle the responsibility of dozens of employees?

The truth is that it is impossible to answer questions like this in advance, and these questions ultimately serve no purpose. On the one hand, talk and bravado are cheap. Saying you’re willing to do something doesn’t mean that you will do it. On the other hand, realizing that you have doubt and trepidation doesn’t mean you won’t build a great company. How you answer such questions has little predictive power about what you’ll actually do when you get caught up in a great idea. No one really knows if he or she is an entrepreneur until after the fact—and sometimes not even then.

The key question you should ask yourself before starting any new venture is:

Do I want to make meaning?

Meaning is not about money, power, or prestige. It’s not even about creating a fun place to work. The meaning of “meaning” comes down to making the world a better place. You can do this in two ways:

First, you can create, enable, or increase something that’s good. For example, Macintosh increased people’s creativity and productivity. Google and Wikipedia enabled all of us, rich and poor, to access virtually limitless amounts of information.

Second, you can prevent, eliminate, or decrease something that’s bad. For example, Tesla is trying to decrease air pollution and our dependence on oil. Palantir and other cybersecurity companies are trying to prevent the bad guys from hacking our computers.

The desire to change the world is a tremendous advantage as you travel down the difficult path ahead because focusing on a lofty goal is more energizing and attracts more talent than simply making a buck. And if you do make meaning, one of the natural consequences is that you’ll also make money.

It has taken me twenty years to come to understand the meaning of meaning. In 1983, when I started in the Macintosh Division of Apple, I wanted to beat IBM and send it back to the typewriter business holding its Selectric typewriter balls. Then in 1987, I wanted to crush Windows and Microsoft.

I finally figured out that these motivations were silly if not stupid. Focusing on your competition diverts you from what is really important. The DNA of great organizations contains the desire to make meaning – to make the world better for their customers and for their employees. Having this desire doesn’t guarantee that you’ll succeed, but if you fail, at least you failed doing something worthwhile.

So if you’re thinking of starting a company, your starting point is to figure out how your product or service will make meaning. Everything flows from the answer to this question.

Today, I’m launching my first online class with Skillshare, “The Art of the Start: Turning Ideas into High-Growth Businesses.” The meaning that Skillshare is making is providing access to high-quality learning. In the class, Garage co-founder Bill Reichert and I share some of the most valuable startup lessons we’ve learned over the years. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or about to launch your next venture, join us for guidance on getting a strong, successful, and meaningful start.

If you liked this post, please share it and click the FOLLOW button above to get more! And please consider subscribing to my mailing list.
Guy Kawasaki is currently the chief evangelist of Canva and the former chief evangelist of Apple. He's the author of twelve books including APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur — How to Publish a Book,What the Plus!, and Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Action. and Guy shares enchanting stuff on the topics of marketing, enchantment, social media, writing, self-publishing, innovation and venture capital.

Read More

Sometimes We All Need to Shut Up

by Jeff Haden

I was standing offstage with a NASCAR driver as he waited to do a question-and-answer session for around 2,500 eager fans. As the emcee announced him he nudged me and said, "Hey, why don't you go out there for me?" Then he smiled and walked out to thunderous applause.
His publicist leaned over and yelled over the roar of the crowd. "You know, it wouldn't have been that bad if you had gone out there," she said, gesturing towards the stage. "You would have gotten at least one question."
"Really?" I said.
"Absolutely." She smiled and said,"'Who the (expletive) are you?'"
It's a good question and, while phrased a little differently, one you should often ask yourself. Think about the meetings you attend, the presentations you give, the interviews you do, or the announcements you make. Are you the right person to speak?
If your answer is based on some version of, "(Expletive) yeah; I'm the one in charge," your answer is often wrong. And even if you don't realize it, I guarantee your audience does.
Who should actually do the talking? Here's how to decide:
When there's good news, it's never you.
OK, maybe you really did do all the work. Maybe you really did overcome every obstacle. Maybe without you, a high-performance team would have been anything but. Maybe you really were the hero.
Doesn't matter. Give someone else the glory. Pick a key subordinate who played a major role. Pick someone who could use a confidence boost from a healthy dose of public appreciation.
Everyone already knows you were in charge, so celebrate the accomplishment through other people. Stand back and let your employees shine.
And definitely do your best to keep someone higher in the company food chain from delivering good news, especially if that person had no direct role in that news. Otherwise, your team's efforts are devalued in the eyes of the eyes of others and, much worse, are devalued in your team members' own eyes.
When there's bad news, it's always you.
It doesn't matter if a supplier made the mistake. It doesn't matter if a key investor backed out. It doesn't matter if forces beyond your control negatively affected your functional area.
The person in charge must always deliver bad news. To your employees, to your team, to customers and clients... you are the company. So take the public hit. Answer the tough questions.Take ultimate responsibility.
Model the behavior you want your employees to display.
When there's no news, no one speaks.
Everyone hates a useless meeting -- except the person who called the meeting. Everyone hates a meeting that kicks off with, "I know there isn't much for us to talk about, but I still thought it was important that we get together..."
I once worked on a long-term project that included four scheduled hour-long meetings per week. We met, no matter what, simply because the team leader felt we needed to "develop the habit" of attending regular meetings.
In the spirit of forming habits I decided to form my own: I showed up but somehow seemed to get called away mid-meeting. (I'm not proud... but still, many thanks to the people who paged me right on cue to handle an "emergency.")
If a meeting will not result in decisions or plans or actions, cancel it. Let your employees do something productive instead.
That way, the next time, you will have a reason to meet.
Bottom line: Always take a moment and choose the right person to speak. And never assume the right person is you.
What gets said is certainly important, but who says it can make a bigger difference to the people who matter most.

Read More

5 Harmful Career Mistakes To Throw Out With Your Spring Cleaning

by Ilya Pozin

It’s that time of year again; the flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping, and allergy sufferers are sneezing. This can only mean one thing: spring has sprung. Every year, as the weather gets warmer, we all take part in the tradition known as spring cleaning.
Cold weather attire is packed up, your house is dusted off, and everything suddenly looks sparkling and new in preparation for the warm weather months. But 68 percent of spring cleaners feel negatively about the prospect of picking up the broom and tidying up. Unfortunately, for those daunted by the prospect of spring cleaning, your house isn’t the only thing in your life that could use a warm weather update.
Your career could also use a fresh coat of paint if you want to reach the next rung on your career ladder. You don’t want to be a hoarder in your personal life -- and you certainly don’t want to hold on to negative career mistakes in your professional life, either.
This year, it’s time to take a spring cleaning approach to your work life and make sure these five harmful career mistakes end up in the dumpster:
Put Away Your Ego
Your ego might very well be what’s holding you back from accomplishing your career goals. If you think you know it all, you might shirk professional development opportunities, thinking there’s nothing else you need to learn about your chosen industry or position. Others in your company are learning new skills and innovative new approaches to old problems, while your ego is keeping you from growing.
Your ego might also be making you a less-than-attractive person to have on a team. No one wants to work with a know-it-all, and therefore you might be missing out on opportunities that organically arise from networking and team-based work.
It’s time to toss your ego in the dustbin and become a better team player. Really listen and communicate with your coworkers, share what you know, and don’t be afraid to ask for guidance. By deflating your ego, you might just be inflating your career prospects.
Clean Up Your Social Media
In today’s digital age, your personal brand is more important than ever. Yet social media channels provide us with untold opportunities to hurt our professional image with the things we choose to post. If you haven’t been paying much attention to what you put out in the digital ether on social media, now is the time to start.
‘Tis the season to clean up your online image and rebrand yourself as a professional superstar. If you have social media posts with inappropriate language or images, it’s time to scrub them clean. Online services like Persona can help you out with your scrubbing efforts, isolating inappropriate posts to remove and flagging you when you’re tagged in anything not exactly employer-friendly. Social media is a great platform in which to network and communicate with the movers and shakers in your industry, but first you need to ensure your social presence will impress.
Dust Off Those Skills
With technology changing things every day, the skills you had yesterday might not be the same skills you’ll need to thrive tomorrow. This is why continuing professional development is so important in all fields and across all industries. It’s time to dust off your professional skills and give them a polish if you want to progress in your career.
Spend some time researching the trends in your industry and then take out your crystal ball. What does the future of your industry look like? What skills do you envision being essential in this new environment? Look at job descriptions for the positions you’d eventually like to hold and jot down the skills needed you don’t currently possess.
Once you know in what direction you need to develop, it’s time to find educational opportunities in order to grow your skill set. Many employers will pay for professional development, but if they don’t there are plenty of valuable online alternatives like Lynda where you can gain the skills you need. These new skills you acquire will pay off by making you infinitely more employable and more valuable.
Stop Being So Disorganized
Could your messy desk be messing up your career? According to a survey by CareerBuilder, nearly two in five employers said a messy desk negatively impacted their perception of an employee -- and a further 27 percent of employers felt messy desks equated to a disorganized worker. While you can’t always judge a book by its cover, a messy desk certainly doesn’t give your boss or coworkers much reason to assume you’re an organizational all-star.
Devote the next slow day to cleaning up your workspace and making it sparkle. Just like the spring cleaning you do at home, be brutally honest with yourself about whether you really need to keep everything on your desk or whether some of your clutter might belong in the garbage. The CareerBuilder survey actually discovered 33 percent of workers are office hoarders -- you must break free from the hoarding cycle before it becomes a bad habit.
Scrub Away Complacency
It’s easy to get complacent in your career, but you should never stop striving for something better. The most important thing to scrub away during your career spring cleaning is your own sense of complacency. This doesn’t mean you should start looking at job boards and dreaming of greener pastures. Shaking off complacency could be as simple as asking to tackle a project which will challenge you and keep you on your toes.
Maybe you could ask to shadow another department to see how work is done elsewhere in your company and expand your skill sets. Or you could ask to be put on another team, so you can grow your professional circle and impress a new set of coworkers. Whatever you chose to do, it’s important for you to motivate yourself to keep moving forward and never stay stuck in one place for too long.
This spring, it’s time to clean up your act at work if you want to progress towards your goals. After you finish spring cleaning around your house, it’s time to throw away your worst professional habits in order to advance in your career.

What do you think? What are some career mistakes you’d like to throw out with the spring cleaning? Share in the comments!

Read More

7 Reasons Not to Use Internet Explorer ever, ever again

by Zachary Lukasiewicz

Since the recent security lockdown of Internet Explorer (IE) yesterday (read more here) I figured I should write a post to all those people who still may actually be using IE
Drum roll please...

Reason #1 - IE is broken beyond repair. Literally there is no solution.
"We are currently unaware of a practical solution to this problem," the Department of Homeland Security's United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team said in a post Monday morning.
Since the recent security lockdown of Internet Explorer (IE) yesterday (read more here) I figured I should write a post to all those people who still may actually be using IE
Drum roll please...


Reason #2 - You are safer from targeted software viruses
Because IE was used for so long and by so many people (and it still is to some extent), hackers find it an extremely valuable target to attack very large groups of people. You can be less vulnerable by choosing other browsers or using an Apple product.

Reason #3 - Microsoft is a little slow
In addition, I get the feeling that Microsoft is just slow in fixing Internet Explorer bugs. The last release of IE patches included a fix to a bug that Microsoft had been told about six months ago.

Reason #4 - IE interprets code differently
There are certain "universal" standards by which just about every internet browser interprets coding. This consistency is what allows websites to maintain their design and functionality across multiple browsers on a variety of devices. While most companies work to keep these standards, Microsoft opted to follow their own set of rules. Because of this, you encounter websites that either look incorrect on Internet Explorer or just flat out break.

Reason #5 - No automatic updates
Internet Explorer does not automatically check for out of date plugins / extensions and prompt you to update them - both Firefox and Chrome do this. Out of date plugins are a favorite method hackers use to get inside your computer. In Chrome the most commonly attacked plugins (Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader) run in a safe area of your computer called a "sandbox" so, even if they are compromised, they can't actually do any damage.

Reason #6 - No synchronization
If you use multiple computers, both Firefox and Chrome have built-in features to synchronize bookmarks and more between different instances of the browser. Internet Explorer (at least up to version 8) can't do this.

Reason #7 - No compatibility
There hasn't been a version of IE for Mac since Safari was developed in 2003 despite the fact that there is a Windows version of Safari. Frankly, what Mac user would want it? The lack of compatibility, particularly with mobile devices and the iPad, makes IE nearly obsolete.
Conclusion
 
With other great options available at no-cost, there are very few reasons to continue using Internet Explorer.

Read More

10 Strategies Quick Learners Use To Pick Up Anything

Learning is a skill in itself.
We need to get good at it, since the tools we use to do our jobs are changing every year.
In a recent Quora thread, users answered the question: What learning strategies do people who are "quick learners" follow? We've outlined some of the best ideas for for optimizing the learning process, along with the latest in productivity research, below.  

To understand a problem, ask "why" five times. 

In "The Lean Startup," author Eric Ries offers the "Five Whys" technique for getting to the root of an issue. The idea is to get to the underlying cause of a superficial problem — one that, more often than not is more human than technical error. 
To see the quintuple-why strategy in action, lets look at his hypothetical startup example: 
1. A new release disabled a feature for customers. Why? Because a particular server failed.
2. Why did the server fail? Because an obscure subsystem was used in the wrong way.
3. Why was it used in the wrong way? The engineer who used it didn't know how to use it properly.
4. Why didn't he know? Because he was never trained.
5. Why wasn't he trained? Because his manager doesn't believe in training new engineers because he and his team are "too busy."
By pushing the inquiry five times, Ries says we can see how a "purely technical fault is revealed quickly to be a very human managerial issue."

Keep a positive attitude. 

Worrying that you're not going to be able to learn something is a poor investment of your mental energy, says Harvard Business School professor Alison Wood Brooks.
"Anxiety precludes you from exploring real solutions and real thought patterns that will come up with solutions," she says. But when you're feeling good about what might happen, you get into an opportunity-oriented mindset. "So you think of all of the good things that can happen. You're more likely to make decisions and take actions that will make that world likely to occur."

Don't just learn about it; practice it. 

"You can't learn golf from a book. You need to swing a club at a ball," says Quora user Mark Harrison, the head of technology at British financial company FundingKnight. "You can't learn Ruby on Rails from a book — you need to put together a site."

Find an expert, and then ask them about their expertise.

If you're trying to learn a subject, talk to an expert who can explain it. Buy them lunch, and ask them all about their craft. Tim Ferriss, author of "The 4-Hour Workweek," is a master of this. Whenever he's trying to learn a sport, he'll seek out the nearest silver medalist, arrange for an interview, and then grill them on technique.

Get an accountability buddy. 

Find somebody else who's trying to build the same skill as you — be it rock climbing, cello, or French cooking — and experience the learning process with them. Set up regular times to check in on your progress, whether in person or via Skype, Harrison recommends.

When you don't understand, say so.

Another tip from Harrison: When you don't understand something in a meeting, go ahead and put up your hand and ask, "Sorry, can you just explain why?" Dumb people will think it's dumb, he says, but smart folks will admire the curiosity.
As Mortimer Adler advises in "How To Read A Book," learning is very much a matter of being aware of when you're perplexed, and then following up on that perplexity.

Repeat, repeat, repeat.

It's not so much that practice makes perfect; it just makes actions go faster. This is because when you do something again and again — recall how you recited the alphabet as a kid — you strengthen bonds between brain cells.
"Repetition leads to synaptic conditioning," shares user Hwang Min Hae, a medical student in Australia. "The brain is plastic, and it allows the neural pathway to fire at a faster pace than before. That's why repetition over a long period of time creates an instantaneous recall — that's why you can recite your ABCs and 123s. Try reciting your ABCs in the opposite way, and you'll have a bigger difficulty than doing it forward."  

Don't just write it out; draw it out.

Dan Roam has written two books about visual thinking, "The Back of the Napkin" and "Blah Blah Blah." He also consults for companies like Google, eBay, General Electric, and Wal-Mart. They bring him in to help explore the "aspects of knowledge that can't be expressed through words."

Words and pictures complement each other.  "Often the best approach to solving problems and generating ideas involves a combination of words and pictures," he says. "When you add pictures, you add layers and dimensions of thought that are almost impossible to achieve with words alone ... It's a way to get your idea down while still keeping it in a fluid state."
You can do that with a "mind map," or diagram, that visually outlines interrelated ideas. 

Learn the difficult stuff at the start of the day.

Willpower is finite, research shows. We have lots at the start of the day, but it gets depleted as we make decisions and resist temptations. (That's why shopping is so exhausting.) So if you're learning a language, an instrument, or anything else that's super complex, schedule it for the start of the day, since you'll have the most mental energy then.

Use the 80/20 rule. 

The 80/20 rule states that you get 80% of your value out of 20% of work. In business, 20% of activities produce 80% of results that you want. Fast learners apply the same logic to their research areas.
Quora user Stefan Jerome, a student at the University of Leicester in England, provides an example: 

When I look at a book, for example, I look though the contents page and make a list from 1-5 with 1 being the chapter with the most relevant material. When looking through a instructional video, I often skip to the middle where the action or technique is being demonstrated, then I work backwards to gain the context and principles.

This works, he says, since the beginning of most videos will be fluffed with exposition, and most books are layered in with filler to make length requirements. So with a little cunning, you can extract most of the knowledge from those materials while investing a fraction of the time.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/strategies-quick-learners-use-to-pick-up-anything-2014-4#ixzz306ICrNUD

Read More