Is it Really the Truth?

BLURRING OF REALITY

TV and the Internet allow unfounded facts to become reality much quicker and hence a growing problem for educators who try to distinguish myths from reality. In a recent issue of Time magazine, a column referring to 2006 “buzzwords” included a reference to Wikiality. This term refers to “truth based on consensus rather than fact.” Segments of populations have always had the ability to turn opinions and myths into “fact.” It used to be known as Urban Legends.

Today on TV, opinions turn to facts when pundits are given airtime to spew forth streams of opinions in such a rapid and “loud” fashion that viewers believe it to be true. After all, no one can say so much in so little time and it not is the truth, right? And since no one challenged the pundit, it has to be fact. On the Internet, literally millions of “bloggers” are writing stories every day; consequently, if so many people read and repeat them, then it must be true.

The explosion of unfiltered information is blurring the lines of reality. The Daily Show is now the leading source of news for a large segment of today’s youth. The show is about entertainment but the lines between news and comedy are so blurred that many people believe it is honest news reporting that is not part of the conservative establishment. Doesn’t the fact that this show appears on the Comedy Central network give people a clue that it is presented as a fun way to view the news and not a way to learn about the news? Of course it is fun to watch and the people on the show are top shelf, but it is still about news satire.

To make something seem like the truth, the trick is to frame the presentation so it is not possible to refute the content. The skill is in the “wordsmithing” and using the premise that the majority of people listening are under-prepared to deal with the infusion of unfounded facts and opinions in the presentation. If you dictate the rules of the game and change them as you play, you should win.

So-called political or pundit debates are fun to watch because they take on the resemblance of playground arguments. You know how that goes: when the 5-year old runs out of things to say, they resort to “Your dog is ugly.” There’s no way to respond to that because many dogs are ugly in a cute sort of way. Also, keep in mind that most playground arguments are about rules of the game.

So what is a teacher supposed to do to help their students? Create an atmosphere of “healthy skepticism.” Employ the scholarly art of Socratic learning, where questions are asked and asked again until the direction of the dialog is defined. Once there is consensus of what is being said, then the facts can be checked. If you can’t remember anything else, just ask “Why?”

So when someone says that troop “surge” will help gain control over hostile territories, ask “Why?” When the response is to secure American freedom, ask “How?” When an answer is offered, ask “When?” Then ask “Where?” And the final question should always be, “who?” as in “who benefits?”

From birth to age 10 or so, kids are constantly asking questions. They want to learn and they are persistent. As we get older, it seems like there is a notion that asking questions makes us look less intelligent. But the opposite is true: intelligent people ask questions.

People are manipulated not to ask questions because the presenter is concerned about any challenges. How often have you been in room where the person in charge will conclude their comments by asking, “Are there any questions?” and give the audience less than 30 seconds to respond? And the best tactic, the real kiss of death, is, “That’s a good question; let me get back to you on that.”

Teach your students that living in a free society means you have the right to ask questions. And the better prepared you are, the better your questions. The better your questions are, the less chance that you will be duped into accepting opinions for fact.

FINANCIAL FACT

If a person owes $10,000 on a credit card with an 18% interest rate, it will take 40 years to pay it off if only paying the minimum payment of 2% (plus there can be no more additional charges on this card). Is there a better reason to teach students about the perils of credit cards?

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GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

© 2007 3 Minute Learning LLC

MULTI-TASKING? NOT!

Stop Doing More Than One Thing at Once

Where does the myth of multi-tasking start? According to family research reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation, it appears to start as early as age 8. When children tell their parents they are doing homework, researchers found that they were doing several tasks at once including homework, instant messaging (or talking on the phone), watching TV or listening to music. They may also be eating their dinner, gaming, filling in their social calendar or entertaining a friend. When kids are engaged on the computer, they are also doing something else 55% of the time.

According to learning research, people learn by making associations with pre-existing patterns. These patterns help us respond quickly in emergency situations or in the case of athletics, patterns allow for quick responses in game situations. If the brain is attempting to absorb too many inputs at once, old patterns are not enhanced and as a result, no new learning occurs or it is temporary at best.

Complex tasks cannot be completed if the person is trying to accomplish more than one task. This is the reason why driving while talking on a cell phone is so dangerous. Driving a car is a complex task. Conversations can easily distract the driver lengthening the response time in case of emergency. The only way a person could be capable in both tasks would be to practice every day responding to emergency situations while talking on the phone.

Some of the reasons for the proliferation of multi-tasking are that people feel self-conscious at work if they don’t appear to be very busy. This notion is even parodied in commercials where the person at work is shown doing several Herculean tasks at once. Another reason is the depiction of TV characters shown doing many things at once and when people see this fantasy, they believe this is normal.

Multi-tasking is counter-productive and a significant time waster. If you want to feel more productive and have more time, focus on one task at a time. When that task hits “a wall”, move on to another task, as long as you can keep your focus on the new objective.

Simple tasks that have been practiced and learned through repetition can be done simultaneously. For example, it is possible to tie your shoes while talking with a friend or cooking a meal while listening to your child’s recap of their day at school (that does not mean you can help them with homework while making rice!).

A final thought: How awful it must be for adults with ADD to be forced to multi-task. Even for those of us not working with this handicap, multi-tasking is futile. For people with ADD, it must be overwhelming.

Two More Thoughts

~~ According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, medical school applications dropped from 46,965 in 1996 to 39,109 in 2006. This is bad news for America as doctors are already in short supply. With physician retirements coupled with the medical needs of older population, over the next 10 years the lack of physicians will rise to critical levels.

This presents an interesting dilemma for medical schools: do they lower standards to allow more American students to attend or admit more qualified foreign students who may not stay in the US to practice medicine? The only employment America is importing belongs to nursing and “stealing” other countries healthcare professionals, mired in short supply, is another image problem for the US.

Another issue with the American medical education system is since schools only take the best of the best, many graduates prefer to continue their education and gain certification in higher paying specialty areas. Communities don’t need as many specialists as they do primary care physicians.

Maybe an answer to America’s medical need is a two-tiered medical education system that allows more students to be admitted. The majority would graduate after 4 years and become primary providers. The top students would move on to specialty training. Already in place is the physician assistant’s program; perhaps that area of education could be broadened to create primary care physicians?

~~ “Expectations based on the past are the tombstones of the future.” – William V. Jones

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GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

© 2007 3 Minute Learning LLC

IT’S TIME TO LAUNCH 2007!

End of Small Businesses?

More than half of respondents (57%) state age as the reason most often given when a small business decides to sell or close. With the ever increasing flow of people retiring over the next 15 years, will the era of small businesses come to a close?

Buying or starting a small business today can be a daunting task. Even though small businesses (defined as 25 persons or less at the job site) still dominate the employment percentage in most states, competition from the Internet and large chains such as department or grocery stores make it difficult for a small business to find its niche. The corner convenience store, once owned by “mom and pop”, is now multi-state conglomerate with franchise fees too large for most newcomers.

Starting a restaurant without the backing of a franchise means finding loans to pay for buildings, equipment and marketing just to name a few things. Is it realistic to find sufficient patrons to meet monthly obligations when there is so much competition?

When you have been in business for the past 20 or 30 years, it’s a lot easier to have down months when you own the building and have most of your debt paid. Unfortunately for the newcomer, such is not the case.

Small businesses will never totally disappear but the era of community store fronts and locally owned eateries may become in short supply. One external event that may turn this around will be an energy crisis where people flock back to cities and small towns instead of pushing for more urban sprawl.

While no one embraces the thought of an energy crisis, it would be comforting to have communities again.

Are We Teaching Investing?

Maybe you have seen these kinds of statistics before: 1% of the population owns 40% of the world’s wealth while 50% of the population owns 1%. Do you really believe that people became wealthy slinging burgers and running up credit card debt? (Winning a lottery would be helpful.)

If there is one mandatory program that all high school students need to attend is investing and saving. Do people really understand how long it takes to pay back $5000 on a credit card when they are only making the minimum payment? Is 19% interest rates really a good deal?

What a great way to teach math: here’s the secret to becoming rich. Invest, save, and invest more while learning to live within your means (also known as pay as you go). Some solid courses in managing debt, understanding mortgages and proper use of leveraging to increase wealth would go a long way to helping the next generation. The very worst outcome would be to have all students capable of reconciling their checkbooks!

Are You Teaching Ethics?

Over 60% of teenagers in a recent study said they have lied at least once to a teacher. (Survey of 13 to 18 year olds by Deloitte and Touche and Junior Achievement Worldwide) Another 22% say they routinely cheat. Over 80% feel the pressure to succeed justifies their right to lie and cheat. Overall, 42% of high school students think a person has to lie or cheat sometimes to succeed. Fifty percent of males and a third of females agreed with these findings in separate studies.

Cheating is pervasive in American culture thanks to our political system and our fascination with athletes and celebrity. What adds “insult to injury” are the lies that accompany cheating. How many times in 2006 did you read about an athlete caught cheating who claimed that someone else was at fault? Or the celebrity who blamed alcohol for their socially irresponsible behavior?

As long as success is measured by money, cheating will prevail. Did any professors at the University of Auburn lose their jobs when they falsified attendance and grades of key Auburn football players? As long as a bowl game generates over $15 million for an institution it is unlikely that academia will stand against cheating.

Unfortunately, the media has also taken the stance that as long as you can’t prove them wrong, then it must be right. Does the absence of a challenge to a lie make an opinion the truth?

Spending time with students helping them understand that good citizenship starts with honesty and integrity is a classroom necessity. It used to be that “cheaters never prosper.” Somehow schools need to get that saying back in vogue. Not getting caught doesn’t make lying and cheating right.

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GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

© 2007 3 Minute Learning LLC

THE ENTREPRENEURIAL ALTERNATIVE

Part 3: Matching Strengths and Customer Relations

In Part 2, the discussion centered on the need to focus on your talents and strengths. The notion that we should take time to identify our weaknesses and develop strategies to address them via education and training is too slow and cumbersome. Today’s businesses want immediate needs addressed and any thing that you cannot do requires you to find team members who can.
In review, the four “talking points” regarding setting up your consulting business are:
1. Know your strengths (includes your area of expertise);
2. Be prepared to develop and exploit opportunities instead of presenting yourself as a “problem-solver”;
3. Match your strengths to customer needs; and,
4. Manage customer relations with more energy and attention to detail than you think may be reasonable (the customer will tell you when to stop)
This discussion will focus on numbers 3 and 4.
Matching strengths means you need to find out more about your potential customer before you approach them. In other words, do your homework first. You can find out about companies through their website or if they are a publicly–traded company, you can learn more by visiting investing or business sites such as thestreet.com or forbes.com.
Certainly a good place to start is to use your favorite search engine to see what is being said about the company you are investigating and/or the industry they represent. A really good insight would be to explore public discussion areas such as blogs or newsgroups. Another excellent source of information is the local newspapers from the town where the headquarters are located. You can also learn inside information from the local chamber of commerce or the Better Business Bureau.
Remember: business is about the consumer. Your critical step is to learn what the consumer is expecting from the business you want to help. The opportunity is in the future; trying to understand what went wrong in the past is difficult (see comments about problem-solvers versus opportunity exploiters in previous discussions). Use the company’s past mistakes to your future advantage. The best place to learn about mistakes is from the consumer of the product.
Matching your strengths with a business need may take weeks or months to prepare. Don’t fall prey to developing quick fixes, as companies will see through that kind of tactic. Plus, you’ll find that companies will pay more if you are delivering a customer-focused solution.
Finally, number 4 from above. This strategy cannot be said enough times: under-promise and over-deliver. Bring more to the table than your customer expects and respond immediately to their requests. You may not get your answers as fast but never leave open the thought that you are non-responsive. Always leave the customer relationship with the idea that you did everything and establish the perception that you went beyond the 100 percent effort.
In sports the thought is that you can’t always win the game or the match but you should never leave the playing field with the idea that you could have won if you tried harder. As athletes state, “they leave it all on the field.” This is the same approach you need with your customers. You can’t always win but when you are engaged, you never leave without exhausting every piece of energy or thoughts.
Your dedication and energy to the task will not go unnoticed. Plus you’ll get outstanding recommendations for your next project.

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GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE
© 2006 3 Minute Learning LLC

THE ENTREPRENEURIAL ALTERNATIVE

Part 2: Identify Attitudes and Behaviors

In Part 1, the discussion centered on the need to change and be ready to unlearn, learn and re-learn. While formal education is expensive, much of the knowledge and skills that can help you as an entrepreneur are readily available and much less expensive on the Internet and through professional organizations.

Using your expertise and training as a consultant is the least expensive way to get started in your own business. Even though you can run your consulting business inexpensively, that has no relationship on the quality of services you can provide to businesses. In fact, consultants and temporary workers are exactly what businesses are seeking today: expertise without paying for benefits or long-term commitments.

There are four “talking points” regarding starting your consulting business:

1. Know your strengths (includes your area of expertise);

2. Be prepared to develop and exploit opportunities;

3. Match your strengths to customer needs; and,

4. Manage customer relations with more energy and attention to detail than you think may be reasonable

Know Your Strengths

Over the past several years Marcus Buckingham has released books and audio presentations on the subject of “Know Your Strengths.” If you want to be an entrepreneur, take time to read these books. For the purposes of this discussion, the two points you want to start with are (1) identify your talents and (2) don’t waste time trying to improve your weaknesses.

It seems like a simple task: identify your talents. Most people make a list and start selling people on the idea that their talents will help an organization make more money. Unfortunately, while your ideas are excellent, the most talented people don’t always get the job. There are literally thousands of people like you saying the same thing. Add to that people who are ready to undercut your bid making completing the task a loss rather than a profit. Government contracts are notorious for selecting the lowest bid, not the most talented people.

The person who has the best opportunity is not the one espousing to solve past or current problems but the person who has a plan to exploit opportunities. Companies don’t make long-term profits by solving yesterday’s problems. In the short-term, problem-solvers will cost companies money (your contract for example) and time. The return may be break even or a little profit at best. And once you are gone, the problems may re-surface. Hence, companies are skeptical about what you can do for them as a problem-solver. If your strongest talent is problem-solving you need to diversify by adding more complementary thinking to your proposals.

A good example is package design. Designers take an under-performing product and design a new package that gives the item zest and appeal. They didn’t try to solve the problem of the product only its presentation.

Taking this example a step further, marketing now takes this old product in the new package and uses demographics to trend its success. Marketing answers the questions of “who, what, where, why, when and how.” This kind of problem-solving is not looking backwards but instead to the future and the steps necessary for a successful outcome.

If your talent is problem-solving, make yourself different by tying together diverse thinking, even if initially, the thoughts seem unrelated. In the science of discovery, many times the outcome is not the one expected but the new discovery proves to have many uses. Show your prospects how simple and sometimes unrelated ideas can suddenly be very profitable.

At one time, the hot dog was a lonely meat item on a sparse dinner plate. Then someone got an idea to take the meat, wrap it in bread and cover it with condiments. The hot dog industry has been worth billions of dollars ever since. If one of your talents is discovering “hot dogs,” you’ll be worth millions in a few short years.

Ignore Your Weaknesses

With respect to working to overcome your weaknesses, that is a plan to fail. If you don’t know package design, then find someone who does know. If you have the latest and greatest hot dog but you can’t bake bread, hire a baker. Talented people know when to surround themselves with complementary people that can complete the task.

If you are a “big” thinker and don’t do project management all that well, don’t start taking classes and buying software to teach yourself how. Find a partner who has that talent. The time you’ll spend trying to overcome your project management weakness will cost you more than hiring a partner. Plus, you may never learn how to do good project management anyway. As a result you lost a potential contract and wasted your financial resources and time.

If anyone ever asks you to identify your weakness, you say “none.” The reason is that you surround yourself with other talented people who have the expertise to fill the gaps. Be like Mission Impossible and put together teams for the tasks.

The only people interested in you for your weaknesses are those selling educational products, seminars, or the so-called “gurus.” The problem is that our entire educational life was spent being told about our weaknesses and as a result we think we need to keep addressing them. Rounding out your personal life by taking special interest classes is a good thing; taking time out of your work week to “upgrade or complete your professional presentation” is wasteful.

To be continued in Part 3.

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GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

© 2006 3 Minute Learning LLC