by Dr. Keith E. Webb
Are you looking for answers?
We often look for answers in the form of information - books, advice, teaching, etc. However, we make a mistake if we confuse information gathering with learning.
The University of California, San Diego did a study of how much information the average American takes in a day. It's 100,500 words or 34 gigabytes of data - a day! That's like filling your computer's hard drive every two days.
But information does not wisdom make. Just look at the December 2009 attempted airline bombing. The United States' intelligent services had plenty of information on the risk of the bomber, but the information wasn't processed and applied. That's the difference between information and learning.
Learning is not knowledge or information transfer, but about creative adaptation and application. Insightful learning is based on asking questions, rather than offering more information. Questions inherently have potential to produce something new - insights, ideas, strategies, and solutions.
And something practical often results. But don't hold too firm to that bit of learning, satisfied that you've found the answer, everything changes in a blink of an eye.
Like breathing, if you stop learning you die.
In learning, we inhale through questions, and exhale insights, ideas, and new information, which turn toxic if we hang onto them too long.
We breath in oxygen (among other gases) which provides energy to our bodies. We breath out toxic carbon dioxide to cleanse our bodies. If you fail to inhale again carbon dioxide builds up, poisoning your body.
Questions are to learning what oxygen is to our blood. Questions enrich us, stimulate our learning, and dislodge potentially "toxic" ideas and strategies that we've hung onto too long.
In fact, just as soon as we communicate our "bits of brilliance," it's time to inhale with a few more questions if we want to go on living. Like breathing, questions are necessary to continue to learn, adapt, and grow.
The answer, you see, is questions.
Questions
- What's the last "brilliant" question you heard?
- How could you improve your questions when looking for answers?
- When looking at information, ask yourself, What meaning does this have for me?
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Copyright © 2010 Keith E. Webb & CRM
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Dr. Keith E. Webb is a trainer and experienced cross-cultural leadership coach helping organizations, teams, and individuals multiply their cross-cultural impact. Find free articles at http://www.CreativeResultsManagement.com.
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