Teach and you shall learn

Posted by on May 11, 2011

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It is so very true that if you want to want to learn and gain greater understanding of a topic, teach it.  I have personally applied this advice over and over in my career.

It began with my pursuit of a professional designation in Project Management (PMP Project Management Professional). I created and taught internal organization seminars and after obtaining the designation I instructed at Lethbridge College from time to time.

In the pursuit of a CSP (Canadian Sales Professional) designation I took the same route. Currently in my pursuit of internet mastery I am on that path again.

Ok so how does teaching equal learning?

Every good teacher prepares their lesson, reviews and probes into a topic in order to provide insight to the students.  A great deal of learning is passive, you are lectured to and hopefully you are able to apply the lessons learned immediately. Teaching is active learning, it forces you to organize your thoughts on a topic so you can present in a structured, clear and simple manner which will facilitate the greatest amount of understanding.

To do this is not easy. You have to dig deep to get down to basics or the base of the subject.  From this point you can present so everyone starts at the same level and your job will be to build them up from the base.

  • Digging deep will provide greater understanding of a topic, and the insights you most likely never gained from passive learning
  • Organizing your thoughts so to present, forces memorization of a topic
  • You will be asked questions when you teach.  This exposes the depth  your knowledge.   Knowing this most people will expand their knowledge in anticipation.
  • Lastly, at least for myself I enjoy passing along knowledge, the challenges of teaching force me to stretch.

I enjoy challenges do you? If so teach.

Steve Whittington is President of Roadmap Agency Inc. He has also served for over a decade as a member of the Executive Team of Flaman Group of Companies an award-winning organization and has over 25 years of executive experience. Steve’s current board work includes serving as; President of Glenora Child Care Society; and Co-Chair of the Marketing Program Advisory Committee for NAIT’s JR Shaw School of Business. Previous notable board work included, Chair of the board for Flaman Fitness Canada, a national retailer, a Director for a meal prep internet Startup Mealife and Chair of Lethbridge Housing authority, the third-largest Social housing NGO in Alberta.

Academically, Steve was an instructor of Project Management at Lethbridge College for seven years. Steve holds a Bachelor of Commerce Honours degree; he is a Certified Sales Professional (CSP), Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Marketing Specialist (CMS) and (CCXP) Certified Customer Experience Professional.

Steve’s first book Thriving in the Customer Age – 8 Key Metrics to Transform your Business Results teaches about the customer journey and provides a guiding framework spanning all stages of the customer experience. The book explains how every metric impacts an organization and how leaders can best utilize each metric to provide a stellar customer experience. Everyone knows the customer is the most important part of a business. This book provides the tools to improve an organization’s customer experience and drastically transform business results.

Recently Steve’s Blog has been profiled as one of the Top 75 Customer Experience blogs

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