March 8, 2010

Hello Monday Motivators!

You may be done with high school or college, but you have plenty of opportunities for learning through seminars, workshops, in-house training, and conferences.

I have been in the training and professional speaking business for almost 20 years. Most of my work is conducting on-site workshops and seminars for a specific organization's administrative professionals' staff.

This week was a perfect example of students not being open to what the subject matter expert is trying to teach or communicate. I was with a small group of executive assistants. I knew four of the eight assistants as they had been in my workshops in the past and I coached one of them one-on-one. The other four were fairly new to the company -- somewhere between two weeks to five months. One of the newer executive assistants showed up late for the class. Her seat was right up front at a square table with three other admins. So she was right in front of me. She sat down serious faced and arms crossed. Do people really think speakers up front don't observe body language? She pretty much sat that way from the time she walked in until about 2:00 p.m.

What basically happened the entire morning that I was trying to "teach" seven other executive assistants, is that I was repeatedly interrupted by this one closed-minded student. I do believe and encourage attendees to ask questions and even debate with me sometime. I don't expect people to just be spoon-fed information. This was a different situation. She was challenging things I was saying and teachings that I happen to know based on facts and from being an administrative expert for 39+ years.

So what does this have to do with you and this week of inspiration?

1. Maintain an open-mind to ideas. It's easy (even for me) to shut down an idea or lesson a person is trying to teach.
2. Listen to the expert! There is a reason people have achieved the level or status they have within your company or as outsiders. You are the loser when you shut down this great opportunity to learn.
3. Seek mentors and teachers within your department and in your building. Be a sponge.
4. Accept the fact that we must be life-long students or we will be left in the dust in the long run.
5. Who can you teach? I bet you have an invisible bag of top-notch skills you carry with you. Are you good at sharing what you know? Do you non-assertively offer advice to others?
6. If you attend a workshop, training, or meeting this week, don't cheat others out of learning because you are bored or uninterested. This one executive assistant disrupted the group's flow of learning.

One of the greatest gifts we can hope to receive is the knowledge of others who have learned the hard way, been there, worked around barriers, have been exposed to new ideas, have years of experience, opened their minds to what life offered them, and worked in different environments.

I wish you a week of being a good student so that by the end of the week, you can say, "Wow! I didn't know that and I am so glad I added something new to my bag of tricks this week."

The above message is from Joan Burge's Monday Motivators, a free weekly e-zine distributed by Office Dynamics.