4 Fun Ways to “Shamrock” Your World
When I was eight years old, my best friend stuck out her tongue at me. It was shaped like a shamrock.
Amazed, I watched her intently. Even more amazingly, after just five short minutes of twisting and turning and trying and failing, my tongue could do the same thing. Now, as an adult, the skill is built into my muscle memory in a way few things are.
“Shamrocking“ has become a fun party trick over the years, and recently I taught it to my three-year-old niece. After playing a bit, she was able to do it as well.
Why is it that learning seems to come so easily to a child?
As an adult, I’ve found learning new skills to be more of a challenge. There’s plenty of literature explaining the neurological, sociological, and psychological reasons for this. While I try to approach learning from a place of wonder, I know how I’m limited by my own experience, my ingrained behaviors, my natural abilities . . . and the way my ego is attached to my own potential success or failure.
As a leader, how do you set the tone for learning?
How might you or your colleagues “shamrock” your worlds and build new leadership muscle memory?
Encourage personal and professional development in yourself and others. Bake it into your team calls and meetings. Discuss it, track it, and reward it openly and consistently.
Design and mandate feedback loops, plus time for reflection. This can be as right- brained or as left-brained as you like. What’s a style or technique that works for you, your teammates, and others in your network?
Create opportunities for trying new things. Maybe it’s a half-day job shadowing, enrolling in an online class, trying out an aspect of a new role, or taking on a challenging task. Maybe it’s not related to work at all!
Dilute any fear of failure by making it okay to try and fail. Once you give yourself permission to try and fail, it’s much easier to open yourself up to new things. Plus, in my experience, you’re not going to fail as hard as you fear. At the very least, the act of trying is a measure of your success.