sâmbătă, 9 ianuarie 2016

Seth's Blog : Getting ahead vs. doing well



Getting ahead vs. doing well

Two guys are running away from an angry grizzly when one stops to take off his hiking boots and switches to running shoes. "What are you doing," the other guy yells, "those aren't going to allow you to outrun the bear..." The other guy smiles and points out that he doesn't have to outrun the bear, just his friend.

I was at a fancy event the other day, and it was held in three different rooms. All of these fancy folks were there, in fancy outfits, etc. More than once, I heard people ask, "is this room the best room?" It wasn't enough that the event was fancy. It mattered that the room assigned was the fanciest one.

Class rank. The most expensive car. A 'better' neighborhood. A faster marathon. More online followers. A bigger pool...

One unspoken objection to raising the minimum wage is that people, other people, those people, will get paid a little more. Which might make getting ahead a little harder. When we raise the bottom, this thinking goes, it gets harder to move to the top.

After a company in Seattle famously raised its lowest wage tier to $70,000, two people (who got paid more than most of the other workers) quit, because they felt it wasn't fair that people who weren't as productive as they were were going to get a raise.

They quit a good job, a job they liked, because other people got a raise.

This is our culture of 'getting ahead' talking.

This is the thinking that, "First class isn't better because of the seats, it's better because it's not coach." (Several airlines have tried to launch all-first-class seating, and all of them have stumbled.)

There are two challenges here. The first is that in a connection economy, the idea that others need to be in coach for you to be in first doesn't scale very well. When we share an idea or an experience, we both have it, it doesn't diminish the value, it increases it.

And the second, in the words of moms everywhere: Life is more fun when you don't compare. It's possible to create dignity and be successful at the same time. (In fact, that might be the only way to be truly successful.)

       

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vineri, 8 ianuarie 2016

Seth's Blog : How to teach science



How to teach science

  1. Start with the method. Unlike just about everything else we teach, science is not based on human culture or history. If one wants to study literature or geography or the Kings and Queens of England, it begins with knowing all that came before, the work, the names, the lists, the battles. Science, on the other hand, is above culture. Gravity would have existed even if Isaac Newton hadn't invented it. After two weeks of science class, students should know how to think like a scientist.
  2. Science makes sense, it's not magic. One of the challenges of teaching science in high school is that there seems to be so much to cover, it's tempting to cram all the formulas, names and theories in front of students. Just as there's no room to argue about when they fought the War of 1812, we often present science as a bag of magical facts, not the result of a method, a method students can implement.
  3. Then the vocabulary. Not first, not second, but third. Vocabulary is where science students tune out. When a word doesn't mean anything, when it's a random placeholder, the easiest thing to do is fail to understand it, forever. And then there's no recovery. A strong vocabulary gives students the foundation to move forward, a weak one is the end, forever.
  4. Metaphors are how we understand. Most of science, even physics after a few months, is about the invisible, the tiny, the very large, the things under the skin. The more we give students metaphors to hook these concepts into a world that's understood, the better.

Here are some statements worth avoiding:

Memorize this, it will be on the test.

Don't worry about it, just be able to answer the question.

You understood the concept, but were wrong by a decimal point. Zero credit.

Do the lab, even if it doesn't make sense.

In my (limited) experience, just about everything we do to teach science is diametrically the opposite of the points listed above. 

If it's worth memorizing, it's worth even more to understand it.

PS this works with anything scientific, not just school science.

       

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joi, 7 ianuarie 2016

Seth's Blog : Where does leadership come from?



Where does leadership come from?

Leadership is a choice. This is apparently controversial, but more than any other element I can track, leadership occurs when someone decides it's important that they lead.

The challenge, then, is in making the choice to lead.

I'd like to invite you to a new real-time online workshop on leadership. The goal of this group sprint is to create an interactive, real-time environment where you can safely explore what the leadership choice is capable of accomplishing, what it means, and how to get there.

You can find all the details here.

The workshop takes three hours, and my hope is that with your contribution (of time, content and energy), it will become an important part of the + Acumen series of courses. We're doing this as a fundraiser, hoping it will raise enough to allow Acumen to double the reach of their already essential online workshops and courses. Tickets are limited, and sign ups end next Friday.

I'll be in the Slack room for this launch session, and I hope to see you there.

{PS Sunday is the deadline for altMBA4 early-decision applications. The final deadline is next week.}

       

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