I teach leadership skills and other “soft skills” like that. Often, they’re not so soft – I teach frameworks, step-by-step guides, and methods like negotiating, building organizational culture, and de-escalating conflicts. And I notice an odd pattern. Often people will go to great personal expense to invest in themselves to learn these skills, only to pretend that they didn’t.
Look, you don’t have to memorize this stuff. When you learn a new skill, you can take notes. You can make little infographics or pictures or mnemonic devices or whatever. And then you can look at them later! You don’t have to pretend like you aren’t using a skill you’ve learned but rather are simply relying on ancient, innate wisdom you’ve inherited from your ancestors and have always possessed.
People sometimes don’t like to admit they’ve learned something recently (especially as they get older or more progressed in their career), because that’s like admitting they didn’t know something not too long ago. Actually, it’s exactly admitting that, but we don’t like to do it. And to keep that charade alive, they’ll bumble their way through the application of a new technique when they could have just pulled out a notebook.
If you’re trying to assist an employee in a task and you say, “Oh! I recently learned a new method to help in exactly this situation. Let me grab my notes so I get it right, because I think this could really help me help you,” you’re not going to lose that employee’s respect, trust me. But doing a half-ass job with some buzzwords because you wanted to pretend you were incredible without trying will.
You don’t have to keep your skills – and where you got them – a secret. Learn out loud, it’s more fun.
The Opportunity Machine 