One of the other speakers Gary Rees, (who I’m told is something big in rugby) finished his slot by talking about the Knowing Doing Gap, which is something I’d never head of before. The principle being that we go to seminars, workshops, courses, read books, and listen to speakers, but how often do we ever actually go and DO anything different?
So I’ve done a bit of research into this because I thought it was fascinating, especially as a trainer and apprentice speaker. I want to help people change their lives and businesses, so I really want people to DO!
It seems that we can equate talking about something with actually doing it, and even if a decision is made, we often don’t follow through, it’s like making the decision to change was enough!
And we’re far more likely to implement simple and direct ideas than we are complicated ones. It sounds obvious but how often do you hear a speaker or go to a workshop where although the ideas might be brilliant, there is nothing simple you can go and do as a result.
Another key reason for not doing anything different is the fear of what this might mean, so instead we just do nothing.
And I think a really big barrier is time. We all seem to be busier than ever before so new ideas just get put on a list to do “one day”
I’m writing this blog sitting in my room at Champneys, on my quarterly mastermind retreat. One of the best things about taking 2 and half days out every quarter is that it creates time and space to think, reflect on what’s been achieved in the last 3 months, and plan the next quarter. And it’s where I decide what gets implemented next from the ideas I’ve gathered. I hate the idea of knowledge going to waste.
Although I hadn’t heard of this Knowing Doing Gap idea, I realised it’s why we’ve evolved our training approach to be very practical rather than open workshops. With any training we do for a business there is always a practical element where we actually implement what the business is being trained on, eg new management accounts, KPIs, forecasting, cash control. So we can make sure they have the skills within the company to carry on doing what they’ve learnt. There’s nothing worse than running a training session, say a workshop, knowing the business isn’t going to do anything different, and that’s why we just don’t do that sort of training.