I remember in my younger days (I say that trying to NOT sound like my father) one of my work mates sprouting “those who can – do, and those who can’t – teach” or words to that effect. Must have heard that comment a thousand times since. Having been both a teacher and a ‘doer’, I still can’t the sense in it.
Over the years, I have been fortunate enough to work alongside some of the most brilliant and talented teachers, and equally brilliant and talented business people alike. And I have put up with my fair share of useless, arrogant and/or just plain nasty ones in both categories as well; but I have always thought that cross-skilling/cross-educating would be a very useful exercise.
Wouldn’t it be great if some of the best teachers could take their communication skills and teamwork practices into the workplace? And wouldn’t the world be better for it if some our more successful entrepreneurs could share their business failures and successes with our fresh graduates as they enter the workforce? Wouldn’t it be perfect if we didn’t let people retire at all but instead harnessed their collective experiences to benefit our youth? Keep them useful productive with value and purpose. Wow, what a force to reckon with.
No, I won’t go all Star Wars on you, but I can see real strength in believing in and using in the Force. Only the Force I am referring to comes from experience and knowledge and then drawing on the resources around to create real strength.
Okay back to Earth …
It took me about 8 weeks to train Rex, my Siberian husky. He’s a beautiful dog, one grey/blue eye, one brown eye, very smart, not a mean bone in his body, very playful, easily distracted and loves liver snacks. He would spend every minute of the day sitting at my feet if he had the chance. The 8 weeks or so it took to get him ‘trained’ was just the start, he is very intelligent and will continue to learn for as long as I have the time and patience to teach him.
Similarly, I spend quite a lot of time educating very educated and experienced business men and women about setting up, structuring and restructuring their international businesses. A lot of time. Not at a college or university but usually ‘teach’ at a coffee shop, airport lounge or my office. Unlike Rex, my ‘students’ are not fresh young graduates but mostly seasoned business people usually successful in their own country of residence, and extraordinarily intelligent. And what I can’t teach them (I’m really not as clever as they think I am), I refer on to other people who can.
Hmm, not sure that means I am a teacher who can do, or a doer who still teaches …?
In business these ‘old dogs’ are still learning new tricks. Every day. The smart ones don’t lead with their egos, they lead with questions. Lots of questions. Questions that can make a difference to how their resource and build their businesses, and questions to enable them to gather the best of breed to help get to where they are going. It’s a process or maybe a journey, part of The Force … Education in business, just as in life, never stops.
However, where do the old dogs go to learn new tricks? Yes, they really do want to learn and are more than able to do. Well, they can go back to school (learning from “those who can’t” … sorry for the sarcasm). Or they can go into the world and draw from the business network around them – friends, colleagues, business contacts, or join a business or networking group. Not to mention the all-powerful internet which is as we all know the source of all knowledge and wisdom (sorry, more sarcasm …).
Seminars and conferences are great places to learn and to network. But they tend to be either very general or very specific, with little or no preparatory work needed, and no follow up. Most are usually sales pitches in disguise for some business/government body wanting to promote its own services or agenda.
As I said, I spend a lot of my time ‘teaching’ outside the classroom and have spoken at countless conferences. And I keep thinking that there must be a better way to help these old dogs (and not-so-old dogs) particularly when it comes to:
- managing their own finances (no, not just another savings/insurance plan)
- exposing myth from reality (there are way more myths than you realise)
- growing their business internationally (these days it’s tough to make it on home turf only)
- navigating the international tax minefield (or perhaps I should say battlefield?)
- tapping in to a very much larger worldwide network of real teachers/doers and
- getting real advice from real people who take real responsibility for their information and direction.
And I believe that there is – take a look at www.sequencefe.com
Yes, I am affiliated with this group. Yes, I will be presenting at their conferences and contributing to their online knowledge based. Yes, I will be assisting with continuing to educate my clients (and potential clients) each and every day as I currently do. Yes, I will be writing more blogs on this as it comes together.
After calling some of my closest and oldest business contacts, and getting their feedback, I feel confident to say that it’s exciting to see that a group of likeminded smart and very experienced business people have finally come up with a methodology to really help (I want to say turbo charge) the old dogs learn not just some but many new tricks.
There is hope out there after all.
