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It is in our nature, and we love it.

What images are evoked when you hear the word "learning"? Sitting passively in classrooms or meetings and listening? 

Taking in information is not the same as learning.

When we have learned we are able to do something we never were able to do. Learning is about expanding our ability to produce the results we truly want. We never "arrive". It's a process.

The best learners get comfortable being uncomfortable. The way you like to learn is what makes you comfortable, but isn't necessarily how you learn best. Practicing something before you master it is uncomfortable, so you often avoid it. Accelerating learning requires you to use your knowledge as you acquire it.

The most powerful learning comes from direct experiences. As babies we learn eating and walking by trial and error. We didn't learn to speak our mother tongue in a textbook, starting with grammar and, checked by bi-quarterly exams, systematically fitting words to the acquired rules.

There is a dilemma here. Yes, we learn best from experience but we never directly experience the consequences of many of our most important business decisions. How do you and your organization learn then?

Teams, not individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations. When teams are learning, the individual members are growing more rapidly than could have occurred otherwise.

Is it crazy to say that the primary objective of a team is to learn? Isn't the primary goal to deliver value? But how do you know you deliver optimal value without learning? The faster you learn, and the quicker you can integrate those insights into your delivery, the more value is created.

One of the best measures of any group's culture is its learning velocity - how quickly it improves its performance of a new skill.

You probably have performance goals. What about learning goals? Getting A in French vs. Learn to speak French. Which one leads to mastery?

But hey, we don't learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience someone said. But we are busy, so we don't have time to just sit around and talk, right? We barely have time to think. 

Reflection that isn't connected to action is what makes people think they don't have time for this. We need a culture and the discipline to integrate reflection and action.

Teaching others is a surprisingly powerful method of learning. My favorite. The protégé effect. 

If we know that others are going to learn from us, we feel a sense of responsibility to provide the right information, and fill our own gaps. It is simple. Next time you have learned something, explain it to someone else.

Learning starts with me. I can never expect the people around me to be more open and willing to learn and improve than I am. 

To learn I must be humble enough to realize I have something to learn.

They planet ...

We fear uncertainty

We fear uncertainty. We don't start walking until we find an approach that's guaranteed to work. How can you know what you are doing when no one has done it before? 

The secret is to start walking before you see a clear path. If you stick to the familiar, you won't find the unexpected.

First-principles

Reason from first-principles. Doubt everything you can possibly doubt until you are left with unquestionable truths. That's where you start. With each commitment, each presumption, each budget item, ask yourself, what if this were not true? Why am I doing it this way? Can I get rid of this this or replace it with something better?

Compare oranges and apples

Approach life not with the assumption that we know (or should know) the answers, but with the desire to learn, experiment and absorb. Compare oranges and apples, look for connections between seemingly unrelated things.

Tackle the hardest part first

If your goal is one percent improvement, you can work within the status quo. But if your goal is to improve tenfold, the status quo has to go. You must then start with a blank slate and question all assumptions. Picture the perfect and ask what it takes to build it. Move backwards. Tackle the hardest part first.

Problem reframing

In schools we are taught to answer problems, not to reframe them. Problems may have multiple causes, don't stick with the first that pops to mind. Don't fell in love with your favorite solution and define the problem as the absence of it.

Opinions are sticky, hypotheses not

We undervalue evidence that contradicts our beliefs and overvalue evidence that confirms them. Opinions are sticky. Instead, generate several working hypotheses. Opinions are defended, but working hypotheses are tested. Your goal should be to find what's right, not to be right.

Failure is success if we learn from it

Celebrate lessons from failure, not failure itself. Good decisions can lead to bad outcomes. In uncertainty, outcomes are not completely within your control. Focus on the variables you can control – the inputs – instead of the outputs. Even if the project fails, you can take the input that worked and use them elsewhere.

Surviving your own success

When we succeed, we believe everything went according to the plan. When we succeed we stop pushing boundaries. Surviving your own success can be more difficult than surviving your own failure. Instead of risking something new, we maintain the same "proven" formula that led to our success.

Remain in Day 1

The rocket-science mindset requires remaining in Day 1. We must keep devising thought experiments, taking moonshots, proving ourselves wrong, dancing with uncertainty, reframing problems, testing as we fly, and return to first principles.

That's the mindset of a rocket scientist!

"Think Like a Rocket Scientst" by Ozan Varol

As understanding deepens, the strategist seeks the crux - the one challenge that both is critical and appears to be solvable.

A diagnosis of the situation. Figure out what's going on here and understand the challenge you face. The challenge can be to deal with change and competition, it can be triggered by a large opportunity or it can be internal like outdated routines, bureaucracy, or lack of collaboration.

A guiding policy, i.e. what will you do and what will you not do with the challenge. It is "guiding" because it channels actions in certain directions without defining exactly what shall be done.

A set of coherent actions that will carry out the guiding policy. This part is so easy to leave out because people like to think of strategy as a high level conceptual thing. Strategy is about action. There must be enough clarity about action to bring concepts down to earth.

When deciding what you will do with the challenge, find your source of advantage. Do you know something that others don't? Do you have a skill that others don't have? Do you have a reputation, brand or existing market system that others cannot replicate? Do you have scale, technology, experience or other resources that others don't have?

A bad strategy is fluff and fails to face the challenge, it lacks the diagnosis. If you don't frame the challenge it is difficult to assess the quality of the strategy.

Another mistake is to treat goals as a strategy. Many bad strategies are just statements of desire rather than plans for overcoming obstacles. Good strategic objectives are the outcome of a strategy, not its input.

Bad strategy is the active avoidance of the hard work of crafting a good strategy. One common reason for choosing avoidance is the pain or difficulty of choice.

Good strategy requires leaders who are willing to and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests.

Strategy is not mysterious. It is about solving the most important problem you are facing. You need to be focused on something doable and be consistent about it.

Consulting is the art of influencing people at their request. People want some sort of change, or fear some sort of change, so they seek consulting.

What are some of the Gerald Weinberg's secrets?

• In spite of what your client may tell you, there is always a problem, and no matter how it looks first, it is always a people problem.
  
  
• Remember that once you eliminate your number one problem, you promote number two. The ability to find the problem in any situation is the consultant's best asset. You must give up the illusion that you will ever finish solving problems.
  
  
• Things are the way they are because they got that way. You never start with a blank slate. There were, at the time, good and sufficient reasons for decisions that seem idiotic today. Study for understanding, not for criticism.
  
  
• When you point your finger at someone, notice where the other three fingers are pointing.
  
  
• The name of a thing is not the thing. We have a tendency to attach a label to every new thing we see, and then treat that thing as if the label were true and a total description. Each person sees a part of the whole and identifies the whole with that part. The true expert can see multiple aspects of a situation but the novice sees only one thing.
  
  
• Deal gently with systems that should be able to cure themselves. Repeatedly curing a system that can cure itself will eventually create a system that can't. And remember that every prescription has two parts: the medicine and the method of ensuring correct use. If the treatment stops too soon, the disease springs back.
  
  
• Nothing new ever works, but there is always hope that this time will be different. Accept that the new will fail. If it can't be perfect, how can you use it so it will be better than the one you have today? Improvement is easier than perfection.
  
  
• You can make buffalo go anywhere, just so long as they want to go there. You don't make people change when you more interested in what you want than in what your clients want.
  
  
• If we want to learn anything, we must not try to learn everything. When you stop learning new things, it's time to move on. You are hired for knowing what others don't know, so a consultant that stops learning soon decays in value.
  
  
• Give away your best ideas. Do everything to encourage your clients to take over your work. This increases the chance they will give you future business, or recommend to you others. If you try to have an answer to every question, you drive your clients away. The best marketing tool is a satisfied client.
  

"Secrets of Consulting" and "More Secrets of Consulting" by Gerald M. Weinberg