Today I am a happy man as I completed the course: “Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects”. The course is offered by McMaster University and the University of California San Diego via the online learning platform Coursera. I have uploaded a copy of my certificate (below).  I have also added the certificate to my LinkedIn profile.

As well as completing all lectures I competed all tests and two assignments and earned an honors grade. This course is the first step on my year of learning. If you have been following this blog you will have seen that I set a process goal to spend an hour a day learning in 2019. I took this course as a first step on my learning journey. The idea is to take time to learn how to learn before starting on learning! The course contains a lot of really powerful material and has excellent reviews.  I have also purchased a copy of the book ‘A Mind for Numbers – How to excel at math and science (even if you flunked algebra).  The book is written by Dr. Barbara Oakley who is one of the course lecturers.  I look forward to reading the book which will refresh the course content in my mind.

Why do I want to learn in 2019?

I set a process goal to learn in 2019 because I want to make learning a key habit of mine going forward.  I am doing this because we all live in a fast changing world.  We live in a time which has been termed the beginning of the 4th Industrial Revolution.   This term was coined by Klaus Schwab founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (check out his book on Amazon).  In the 4th Industrial Revolution we cannot afford to stand still.  We have to keep learning and changing or our skills become obsolete.  The concept of a job for life is dying.  We have to keep growing, changing and re-inventing ourselves.  We must become life-long learners.

What to learn next?

Now that I have completed the ‘Learning How to Learn’ course I have to consider what I will take on next.  The process goal remains the same (one hour per day learning).  I now need to decide what skills I want to build.  I will likely take another MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on Coursera or other similar platform.  In the next blog post I will share what I have decided to focus my learning journey on next.

Best wishes,

Tom

The fifth lesson from Good to Great by Jim Collins  is around the intelligent use of technology as an accelerator of business success.   Collins was researching what made good companies become great companies.  We can also learn lessons from the research to apply in our own lives.

Technology as an accelerator

We have seen a lot of technological change in the past.  New technologies impact on our world on an ongoing and more frequent basis.  We have had the industrial revolution, railroads, electricity, radio, television, personal computing and the internet to name a few.  Therefore technology induced change is nothing new and we can expect new predicted and unforeseen technological change in the future.  The main point from the book about technology is that the use of new technology was an accelerator of momentum and not a creator of momentum.  Good to great companies did not use technology for its own sake but linked to the three intersecting circles of their hedgehog concept.

The question is do you know your business and personal hedgehog concept?  And how can you use technology as an accelerator in your business and in your personal life?

Summary

In summary  you must remain true to our hedgehog concept.  Technology is not a magic bullet to achieve success.  First and foremost we must be very clear about who we are and what we are about (our hedgehog) and then work out how to apply selected technologies as an accelerator of momentum and not as a creator of momentum.

Best Wishes,

Tom

PS More lessons from the book next week.  In the meantime have a look at Jim Collins’s website for further information and resources.

Grab your copy of ‘Good to Great’ from Amazon: