Continually strive to learn and grow or ‘rot on the vine’.
“You are either green and growing or ripe and rotten. You need to regularly take a check-up from the neck up to get rid of the stinkin’ thinkin’!”
I was recently reminded of these words of wisdom from the late Zig Ziglar that I learned many years ago from watching one of his training videos .
Zig’s words of wisdom came back to me when a CEO that I was consulting to asked me to coach/mentor one of their interstate senior managers. I was given some background on the person and their contact details so that I could arrange the ongoing engagement. I sent the nominee an email of introduction then followed up with a phone call where I left a clear voice message. 24 hours later I had received no response to either the email or the voice message. I then made another call, leaving another voice message. 24 hours later: still no response. Given that I knew that this person was on duty and had been informed that they were being assigned a coach/mentor, I drew the conclusion that they did not want coach/mentor services. I have learned to take a ‘3 strikes and you’re out’ approach to coaching and mentoring. Based on the lack of response, I informed the CEO that whilst I appreciated the opportunity, I would not offer my coaching services to the person because they chose not to engage in the program.
Why take a hard line with a candidate that is apparently reluctant? Let me explain.
Horse to water. Over my career I have found that the maxim ‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink’ accurately describes how people approach learning. No doubt, like me, you have sat in classrooms with fellow students that ignored the teacher/instructor/lecturer, displaying an attitude of ‘I don’t need to know this’ or ‘I already know this’ or worse, ‘I am only here because I have no choice so I won’t listen’. Whilst these people wasted their time, you and the other astute students, some of whom were highly experienced or gifted, paid close attention, took copious notes and intently listened to every word. Like the horse that will not drink, these students that refused to participate were ‘at the river of knowledge’ but chose not to imbibe.
It seems strange that people can be offered training, education and the ability to learn from others with more experience/knowledge but refuse to embrace the opportunity. Their attitude means that even if they spend their time on the charade of participation, they do not gain any benefit from the time spent and hence the people working to impart their knowledge and experience are wasting their time with these reluctant people. As a mentor and coach, I choose to spend my time finding and working with people that have an attitude that makes them keen to learn and grow. I am delighted to see them go on to success based on their positive attitude toward learning and growing.
So why do some people actively seek to learn and others just as actively resist it?
Attitude is the key. To use Zig Ziglar’s terminology, those that have a positive attitude toward actively, continually seeking knowledge and availing themselves of input from those that are more widely experienced are ‘Green and growing’. Those whose attitude is ‘I know more than enough’ or ‘I don’t need to learn any more’ are ‘Ripe and rotten’.
In this information age, if you are not ‘Green and Growing’ by continually learning, you are being left behind by those with a strong learning ethic who will effortlessly surpass you as your knowledge and experience is relegated to irrelevance. Due to inactivity, you will become ‘Ripe and Rotten’
How to stay ‘Green and Growing’
- Take control of your time. Time is a finite resource. Even with the best intentions to continuously stay current, ‘stuff’ expands to fill time that is not specifically managed. To stay Green and Growing, it is essential to dedicate time to applying thought to your plans, define how you are going to execute them, checking your progress, continuous learning and renewing oneself. Whatever method you use for time management, it is essential that you are highly effective with your time and allocate regular time to learning or risk becoming Ripe and Rotten.
- Define your personal purpose: “WHY”? Your personal purpose is why you are doing what you do at a personal level. It is what gives you satisfaction out of the roll over and above remuneration. I have found that people that do not want to continue to learn and grow in a role often do not really want to be in that particular position because it is not aligned with their personal purpose. Yes, they are holding down a job, but their heart is not in it because the role does not satisfy them at a deeper level. As an example, during a recent business meeting a person I stated “I am a lawyer by qualification because it was expected of me by my family. I actually hated it. My real passion is flowers and being artistic as well as dealing with people so I quit my law job and I am now completing a Diploma in Floristry. I am loving every minute of it even though my earnings are nowhere near as much. I will open my own business once I finish my course and get experience.” This person had no motivation as a lawyer and grudgingly fulfilled their job. They now get up at 3am, go to the market and buy their flowers, use their skills to make up the orders and attend the training for the Diploma with energy to spare. The vocation matches their ‘why’ so they are highly motivated to learn their new vocation.
To stay Green and Growing, it is essential that you define what it is that will provide you satisfaction in line with your personal purpose. To define your purpose, consider such things as:
- What it is that you want to be known for: now, into the future and after you are gone?
- What is the reason underlying everything you do in all aspects of your life?
- Are you looking for an easy life where you wait for things to come to you?
- Are you looking to make a positive difference to as many people as you can whether family, friends, community, work and society in general?
- Perhaps you want to leave a life changing invention or fine art that will add to the culture for generations to come.
- You may want to be the best parent you possibly can, leaving a wonderful legacy to your children and generations to come.
- Etc.
Whatever your purpose is, once you define it you will find it easier to be Green and Growing because you will be channelling your efforts in that direction and be keen to continually improve your knowledge and skills to apply to it.
- Continually educate yourself. With the relentless progress in information technology, information abounds in many formats. Engaging in continuous education has never been easier. Whether it is traditional books, magazines and other print media or electronic forms including Podcasts, YouTube, TED, ‘Free to air’ TV, pay TV, e-magazines, social media etc., information is abundant. Specific subject material is highly accessible as are wider subjects that augment education and knowledge. Staying current through self-education is now simply a matter of allocating the time when it is convenient, wherever you are as opposed to what used to be the major barriers of travelling to formal classes at a set time. Add to this convenience, availability and affordability of on-line information and there is essentially no barrier to continually educating oneself.
- Find mentors and a coach. It is possible to ‘go it alone’ in your mission to stay Green and Growing but having others that offer their experiences to you and ask you the tough questions about what you are doing to continually renew yourself makes it easier and usually more enjoyable. Your mentors and coach(s) may be informal, such as family, friends or work associates or more formal via a paid arrangement. Either way, gaining ‘one on one’ input is invaluable for keeping you on track and energised. A rich source of mentoring is finding your ‘virtual mentors’ by continually reading biographies of people that have achieved outstanding goals. Reading their stories, reflecting on how they overcame their adversities and achieved great results enables you to identify what they did and how you can apply that attitude, energy and thinking to the hurdles you face in achieving your objectives from time to time. As you face situations, you have a group of virtual mentors that you have read about whom you can refer to by asking yourself “What would (insert virtual mentor name) do in this situation?”
- Refresh. A blunt axe takes many times longer to cut a log than one that is used by someone that makes the time to always sharpen their axe. So it is with a person. Literature is full of examples of ‘high achievers’ that burnt themselves out by relentlessly pushing themselves without taking time to refresh their minds and their bodies. Even if they have not succumbed to exhaustion, or worse – ill health, their personal lives are all too often a mess because they never take the time to pay attention to it. Again, time management is essential. We all fall into the trap of believing that we are indispensable and therefore cannot afford to take time off for recreation (which means what it says: re-creation, as in renew). The reality is that if we ensure that we take the time out to refresh ourselves, we put processes in place to underpin our roles. These processes will in turn allow us to expand our influence beyond what we could achieve if we did not have those processes available.
In today’s rapidly evolving society, qualifications are merely a ‘ticket to the game’. It is the people that demonstrate an attitude of eagerness to learn and who accept responsibility to make continual education a key part of their life that will prosper. Those that cease to pursue knowledge will be relegated to the sidelines and struggle.
It is a conscious decision that Zig Ziglar so aptly described: “You are either “Green and Growing or Ripe and Rotten”. The question we must all ask ourselves is: “Which best describes me and what am I doing about it?”
© Philip Belcher
Please contact LSE Consulting to find out how we can assist you to hone your leadership/management skills and grow your business.
LSE Consulting is a specialist management consulting company. The purpose of the company is to assist business leaders to improve their organisation’s results, turn around underperforming businesses/business units and prepare for successful exit. The LSE Consulting method focuses on Leadership, Strategy and Execution, hence ‘LSE’, with a strong emphasis on business strategy aligned marketing and sales. The company was founded by Philip Belcher to assist business leaders through interventions that are based on his 30+ years’ experience in leading, turning around and successfully exiting businesses.
