What are YOU doing Right?????

In Africa, there's a saying: If you want to go quickly, go alone.
If you want to go far, go with a group.

A group?

Why would you want to go with a group?

Have you ever tried to see a movie with a group?

Everyone wants to go their own way,and you end up
in complete chaos most of the time.

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And you're right
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Groups may not exactly be prime material when going to the movies,
but they sure rock when it comes to learning.

And yet when we train our clients, patients, and customers
we do one-on-one consulting.

We think it's somehow superior.

We think the whole private-sessions are what they NEED.
And yet the one-on-one sessions are nowhere as effective when
compared with group learning.

I'll prove it.

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So why do groups matter when you have to learn?
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There are three core reasons why groups are MORE effective.

Reason A: Don't work in isolation.
Reason B: Your assignments are public.
Reason C: You get to copy.

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Let's start with Reason A: Don't Work in Isolation
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Believe it or not... Learning exhausts the brain.

Try to do something you know and it's
pretty much samba time.

Try to do something new and you're cursing
and ranting, because your brain doesn't know
what the heck it needs to be doing.

So learning becomes a horribly frustrating battle.

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What would make this battle so much easier - would be simple
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motivation. Once a group has a goal, it's almost natural for group
members to motivate each other constantly. And because it's a group
effort, they're also quick to give feedback.

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Working in isolation works less effectively because it takes
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enormous motivation. And to be motivated all the time is
exhausting. But that's not the only problem, of course...

The second problem is that your assignments are private.

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So why do public assignments work better?
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In school your assignments were private. You did the assignment.
And no one got to see how you did. You got marked. And no one but
your mom, dad and your sneaky sibling got to see your marks.

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And this system works less effectively because everyone's
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methodology is now a secret. The entire group attacked the same
problem and you can be sure that almost the entire group approached
the same problem in different ways.

And nope, you didn't get to see the myriad ways in which you could
solve the same problem.

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This means you're stuck doing it YOUR way
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Which of course could be great for one problem, where you're ahead.
But then is terrible for another problem, where you seem as slow as
a three-toed sloth.

Working in public means you can compare methodologies and pick
ideas that speed up your learning considerably.

And best of all, when working in groups, you get to COPY.

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Copying is a mortal sin in school
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If you copy you are banished to the gates of hellfire. And yet,
copying is critical for us as a society. We learn more by copying
than by any other method. When you work on a one-on-one basis with
a PATIENT, there's nothing and no one to copy. But the moment you
work in a group, copying is easily the best way to move rapidly
ahead.

And hey, we're not talking about sharing your OFFICE secrets
here. We're talking about learning. And while you may be coy to
share your patented (or un-patented) secrets, this blog post is about
learning.

When you see someone's else's work and you copy, you don't get
worse. You get better. Much better. And that's because you're
smart. You want to move ahead. So you tend to copy the method
that's smarter and more efficient. I do!!

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But of course the question is: Does this group learning work in
real life?
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Yes it does.

Interesting huh?

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However there's another point where dropout rates increase
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And that's when you don't consider the size of the group. For
effective group learning, you can't have more than 20-30 people in
a group (depending on what you do).

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And even with this group size, the groups must be further
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sub-divided into groups of 4-5 people. If you keep the group size
more than 4-5, the workload gets too crazy and learning takes a
massive beating. Plus there's also the factor of "introverts".
Introverts are happiest in smaller groups--and extroverts don't
really care. They'll hop from group to group happily.

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So groups work. And they really work because they:
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1) Make sure the motivation and feedback stays high.
2) Sharing of methodologies help speed up learning.
3) Blatant copying actually creates an acceleration like never
before.

Think about tinkering. And work instead with group
learning. Once you do, you'll realize that just like the African
saying, you'll indeed go far.

Probably even farther.

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Next Step: About The Family
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"That was the question weighing on my mind
for weeks."

My understanding of how people think
and communicate has forever changed how
I think and communicate; from conversations,
interviews with patients - to solving problems and
writing posts for my blog.

But you can count on this.

You may think...

You are tough and someone has no ability to do anything.
Then you finally find someone that does.

It's 10:57 PM Now

I'm getting tired and this blog post may not even
make any sense, but I'm going to post it anyway.

George Harrison once said, "I wanted to be successful,
not famous." I agree with him.

Life is good and I'm glad you're here... reading this post.

Dr. Carney