Unit of One Anniversary Handbook

Things have gotten pretty weird pretty fast. It pays to figure out what's happening.

Mark Maletz
Change Architect, Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems.
North Hampton, New Hampshire
mark.maletz@ps.net

Making change is all about achieving dynamic balance along several dimensions. Most change leaders focus on only one dimension: top-down versus bottom-up, thinking versus doing, multiple efforts versus a single-focused activity. They get caught asking which dimension is better -- but that's the wrong question.

Making change means both leading and empowering others; developing ideas and implementing actions; creating enough activity to achieve a critical mass and staying focused so the program doesn't burn out. A change leader needs to handle both sides of a dynamic tension. It's like breathing in and breathing out. Would you ask which one is better?

Robert H. Buckman
Vice Chairman, Buckman Laboratories International
Memphis, Tennessee
rhbuckman@buckman.com

If you want to change your company, radically increase the span of communication for each individual. Let each person use a computer to communicate with anybody in the company -- or anywhere else in the world -- without any barriers, real or imagined.

When you change a person's span of communication, you also change their span of influence -- you expand their power. The more you allow each person to grow in terms of information and power, the more you grow the entire organization.

Lessons on Learning

Bill Gross
CEO, Idealab
Pasadena, California
http://www.idealab.com

Want to invent more killer ideas? Then read like crazy and write down what you learn.

I read 2,000 pages a week -- every week -- from books and magazines. For too long, though, I'd have an idea, forget to write it down, and -- poof! -- it was gone. So a year ago, I created a spreadsheet file in Lotus 1-2-3. Now as I read my books or magazines, I write down what I've learned. Then, whenever I'm exploring a new product, I scroll through this spreadsheet. It's like rubbing an idea against a magic lamp -- and it has proven unbelievably effective.

Recently I added a new column to my spreadsheet. I grade every magazine I read, and calculate a new GPA once a quarter. It helps me figure out where I should be focusing my time.

Chris Turner
Learning Person, Xerox Business Services
Rochester, New York
cturner@frontiernet.net

For all the talk about learning, what I've noticed is how few organizations really think about how people learn. My advice is, figure out what kinds of learners make up your organization, and immediately begin to modify the training, meetings, and workshops you offer to acknowledge different learning styles. Teach the way people learn; don't make them learn the way you teach.

In our organization, for example, 50% of our people are action Learners -- these are people who learn by doing. Another 33% are "people learners" -- they learn best through conversation and exchanging ideas with others. Only 17% are "information learners" -- people who read texts, listen to lectures, and learn through the traditional school experience.

What's wrong with this picture? The problem is we keep designing learning programs that only work for 17% of the people in most organizations. It may be hard to quantify the benefits of learning --but it's easy to measure the money that's wasted on training programs that work only for a fraction of the organization.

So if you want people to learn, start by learning how they learn.

Richard Saul Wurman
Newport, Rhode Island
wurman@ted.com

America's contribution to the 21st century will be the technotainment industry -- a bifurcated business comprised of the entertainment industry and technology on one side, and the learning business and technology on the other. As they merge, a worldwide learning revolution will occur. While our traditional educational system atrophies, new parallel systems of learning will spring from the emergence of technotainment.

So do what everyone agrees is bad for you: Watch a lot of television. Watch the Discovery Channel and in just one night you'll learn more than you learned in five years of school. Smart television -- that's a cross between television and the Internet, knows what you're watching, can lead you to other related programs, and has thousands of channels -- will be good for you.

Uffe Elbaek
Founder, KaosPilots
Aarhus, Denmark
uffe.elbaek@kaospilot.dk

Learning today goes way beyond the surface of knowledge and understanding. It goes beyond the realm of reason and tangibility. Learning today embraces the adventure of action and reaction.