Serendipitous Learning: The Benefit of Unplanned and Unexpected
As leaders, we actively learn all the time. Sometimes we learn intentionally and at other times we learn serendipitously. I recently had an example of both.
A client recommended I read Measure What Matters by John Doerr so I would understand what their company was learning about, OKRs and execution. At the same time, I also had a completely different and surprising type of learning come up. I went to a summit for Gravitas Impact coaches knowing learning was on the agenda, but not being familiar with the speakers. One of them, Alex Goldfayn spoke about his book Selling Boldly, and this provided a tremendous opportunity for serendipitous learning.
I’ll share more about these individually in the future, but to whet your appetite, here are some nuggets from Selling Boldly:
- Our best customers would love to tell us why they are so happy, if we’d only ask them. Hearing their answers changes our mindset, giving us confidence.
- People love to give referrals. What holds us back is not asking for them. “Mary, who do you know that I could help the way I’m helping you?” So simple.
- We have a picture in our heads of our clients and prospects as too busy to take a phone call from us, as if we’d somehow be bothering them by reaching out. In fact, no one calls them. They are happy to hear from us.
What does this mean for you? Maybe reading this blog is an experience of serendipitous learning. Maybe you want to find out more about or read Selling Boldly or Measure What Matters. Whether that’s the case or not, think about your most recent serendipitous learning. Are you putting yourselves in situations where this happens regularly? Are you going to conferences, summits and other learning events? (By the way you can check out Assured Strategy learning events here). Where does your serendipitous learning happen? Let me know. I’ll share what I learn from you in a future post. Respond in the comment below or send me an email at [email protected] and I will be happy to discuss your thoughts on serendipitous learning.
