Thursday, May 21, 2009

Why seminars, training and workshops fail!

Closing the "Knowing - Doing Gap"

Have you ever tried to learn something new and it just doesn't stick? You send lots of energy on learning new skills and better habits, but you keep falling back into your old way of doing things. Most of us lack effective strategies for retaining and applying all the helpful information we take in (like this blog!).

In his book Know Can Do!, bestselling author Ken Blanchard and Paul J. Meyer, founder of Leadership Management Institute, use the storytelling method to explain why this occurs and how to be a more effective learner.

Know Can Do! chronicles a motivational/leadership author who is frustrated by the "knowing-doing gap" - The chasm between all the great ideas and advice digested from books, seminars and workshops and the actual actions and behaviors we do. All too often, in spite of their most sincere efforts, what people learn just doesn't stick. It's an endless source of frustration for individuals and for organizations as well.

This gap is one of the key reasons the "training budget" gets cut when a business looks to trim expenses.

Seeking a way to close this gap, the author sets out on a journey to find a solution. He soon meets a legendary businessman who teaches him the three reasons people don’t make the leap from knowing to doing:

  1. Too much knowledge—information overload
  2. Too much negativity—an inadequate filtering system
  3. Bad habits—an inadequate learning system

The key to overcoming these roadblocks, the author learns, is spaced repetition. Important information must be repeated over time if it’s going to impact behavior.



People who have mastered learning are free to be creative and make big things happen. In fact, John F. Kennedy once remarked that "leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." This book helps people at all levels develop the mind-set and the skill set to achieve extraordinary results.

Know Can Do will show you how to avoid information overload by learning "less more, not more less." You'll find out how to adjust your brain's filtering system to learn many, many times more than ever before, ignite your creativity and resourcefulness with Green Light Thinking and master what you've learned using spaced repetition.

At last, an answer to the question, "Why don't I do what I know I should do?" Read this book and you will!

PS - Sales pitch - this is what LMI has been doing for 43 years. So you can either try and do it yourself or you can partner with someone who has perfected the process!

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