{"id":64,"date":"2008-05-01T13:46:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-01T18:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/?p=64"},"modified":"2008-05-01T13:46:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-01T18:46:00","slug":"killer-whale-sized-opportunities-to-teach-and-learn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/2008\/05\/killer-whale-sized-opportunities-to-teach-and-learn\/","title":{"rendered":"Killer Whale Sized Opportunities to Teach and Learn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What can you learn from &#8220;the new guy?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been enjoying Andy Jordan&#8217;s blog on the <em>People Side of Project Management<\/em>. In a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gantthead.com\/blog\/blogPostingView.cfm?blogID=48&amp;blogPostingID=839\" target=\"_blank\">recent posting<\/a> he talks about interacting with &#8220;the new guy&#8221; and how we can not only help them as mentors but that we can also learn from them in the process.<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"WIDTH: 120px; HEIGHT: 240px\" align=\"right\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/rcm.amazon.com\/e\/cm?t=instituteforl-20&amp;o=1&amp;p=8&amp;l=as1&amp;asins=1400066581&amp;fc1=000000&amp;IS2=1&amp;lt1=_blank&amp;lc1=0000FF&amp;bc1=000000&amp;bg1=FFFFFF&amp;f=ifr\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>In Amy Sutherland&#8217;s book <strong>What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage<\/strong> she relates that killer whale trainers remember that &#8220;every interaction is training.&#8221; (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.i-leadonline.com\/2008\/04\/what-shamu-can-teach-you-about-your_04.asp\">click here<\/a> for a post I made about this book). Every time trainers interact with <em>Shamu<\/em> they are teaching, whether they realize it or not. Both <em>Shamu<\/em> and the trainers are learning about what is expected, how to treat each other, consequences for actions, etc.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m convinced that I miss killer whale-sized opportunities to learn each day because I&#8217;m not sufficiently paying attention. But when I do, those lessons can be more valuable than an expensive weeklong workshop.<\/p>\n<p>I remember when I finally <em>got<\/em> that the dirty little secret of business is that it&#8217;s all done on relationships. Previously I wanted to believe that <em>the smartest one wins<\/em>. Or that <em>the best argument wins<\/em>. Or that <em>filling out the &#8220;right&#8221; paperwork and following the &#8220;right&#8221; process <\/em>was the secret to successfully delivering projects.<\/p>\n<p>But through the gift of a couple great mentors who modeled the secret of building relationships, I&#8217;ve been able to navigate situations that would have left me as <em>Shamu Chow<\/em> years before!<\/p>\n<p>Our interactions with the new guy (and the old guys!) are modeling how to look at the world of projects and business and people in a potentially different way. May we all be forces for good as we teach (and have our eyes and minds wide open as we observe).<\/p>\n<p>Want to become a more effective leader? Join our <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.i-leadonline.com\/LeadershipFastTrack08.asp\">Leadership Fast Track Program<\/a><\/em> to accelerate your ability to lead with confidence, take focused action, and achieve the results you desire.<br \/><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.i-leadonline.com\/LeadershipFastTrack08.asp\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.i-leadonline.com\/images\/Offers\/FastTrackPromoWClick.gif?w=736\" align=\"center\" border=\"0\"\/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What can you learn from &#8220;the new guy?&#8221; I&#8217;ve been enjoying Andy Jordan&#8217;s blog on the People Side of Project Management. In a recent posting he talks about interacting with &#8220;the new guy&#8221; and how we can not only help them as mentors but that we can also learn from them in the process. In&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/2008\/05\/killer-whale-sized-opportunities-to-teach-and-learn\/#more-64\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,40,41,35,39,23,33,5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p488Wj-12","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}