Learning & Growing with What Ifs

Today I am reflecting on the International Society for Technology in Education or most commonly known as ISTE.

In this space, I write about leadership, strategy, entrepreneurship, management thinking and Latin American markets. But mostly I look at “what if’s” and asking questions that get leaders in their fields thinking about human centered organizations.

So why am I writing about ISTE and technology in learning? First, it is part of a workshop I am participating in but also, it has a lot to do with “what if’s”. If we are to build learning organizations (organizations that continue to learn and grow through new markets and connections) “owning” own learning and seeking out questions and answers to questions are keys to doing this.

That’s the essence of ISTE Standards:

Promote future-ready learning

And if we look closely at Standards 3 & 4 specifically, “Knowledge Constructor” & “Innovative Designer”, these are really ways to construct knowledge and design solutions based on “What If’s”.

Specifically, Standard 4c called my attention because it is exactly what future ready organizations do when launching a product or service – prototype, test, and refine.

One of my favorite quotes relating to this is from Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, venture capitalist and entrepreneur promoter:

If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.

Striving for perfection (or what we believe to be perfection based on constructs) in a constantly changing world means that we may never get there. As the famous Lewis Carroll said:

My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.

Learning through exploration and design through “trying” are tenants of a successful organization. The problem may just be in staying knowledge-hungry students and asking the “what if’s” as we grow up…

 

• EMC

 

Savvy Saturday January 24, 2017

There’s alot of buzz lately about one of my favorite authors of today, Simon Sinek. Here is a timeless quote from a great book on leadership called Leaders Eat Last.

“the true price of leadership is the willingness to place the needs of others above your own. Great leaders truly care about those they are privileged to lead and understand that the true cost of the leadership privilege comes at the expense of self-interest.”

Visual Business Inspiration

Savvy Saturday December 3rd, 2016

Don’t raise your voice. Improve your argument.

-EMC

Embed from Getty Images

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Savvy Saturday October 15th, 2016

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said. – Peter Drucker

 

Savvy Saturday October 8, 2016

Courage is the commitment to begin without any guarantee of success.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Savvy Saturday October 1, 2016

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. – Albert Einstein

Visual Business Inspiration

Here is an info-graphic from Entrepreneur magazine with inspiring phrases from brilliant business minds. Read the full article here.

Chief Reminding Officers

I just finished reading the book The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business (2012) by Patrick Lencioni. We will be discussing it as a leadership team next week. I am always wary about the title “leader” since I think it is often misused, misrepresented and misappropriated; however, in my study of this book I came across an interesting point made by Lencioni:

Leaders should see themselves as “Chief Reminding Officers.”

As leadership, it is important to lead by creating clarity and over-communicating clarity. As a professional communicator, I relish the idea that leadership needs to be clear and consistent in messaging and coherent with how those messages take shape in the day to day operations of an organization.

Whether chaos or clarity reigns, leadership can contribute to organization health by being “Chief Reminding Officers” – helping members of the organization understand what is important, what is priority and what they/we should be focusing on.

 

-EMC

Savvy Saturday March 26th, 2016

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

• Silvia Plath