A few years after graduate school and before I moved into the corporate world, I had the good fortune to teach at a university for a couple of years with remarkable fellow professors. I was recently reflecting just how much I learned from these devoted fa
by Site Staff
March 1, 2006
A few years after graduate school and before I moved into the corporate world, I had the good fortune to teach at a university for a couple of years with remarkable fellow professors. I was recently reflecting just how much I learned from these devoted faculty friends in those early years. Perhaps it will be useful for you, too, to think about how the principles great educators employ can inspire excellence in your learning organizations.
Lawrence Silverman, Ph.D., with whom I co-taught the honors courses in leadership for our senior scholars, was a wise man of staggering proportion. Having grown up in New York, he had a tough exterior, a tender heart and a razor-sharp mind. He taught me that you have to know where information comes from and be convinced of its legitimacy to fully understand its meaning and value. We were early in the semester when Larry challenged a student, “Is that just your opinion, or is there a substantive basis for that statement?” For the rest of the term, our students worked rigorously to check their sources—or even to change positions altogether. Larry showed me that teaching is more than knowledge transfer—it ensures that students ask themselves why they know what they know. In a business setting, it’s weak to merely preach, for example, that certain practices build better teams. It’s essential to encourage participants to ask, “Who says so? How do we know? And how can we use that in a practical way?”
I noticed that the best faculty members had a sense of humor that humanized what we were teaching, made it more fun and thus, more accessible. William Clover, Ph.D., used humor like a surgeon’s scalpel. He had been through tough times as a young man, and he gained a perspective that made him a very fun and often funny man. Bill knew that a scalpel is a two-edged blade, so he punned with appropriateness and poked fun with relevance. He taught me that humor must have integrity, and when it does, it is a powerful teaching tool. In the corporate arena, our training sessions are often much stronger when punctuated with laughter. The world of work, after all, is often wacky—the connections, contradictions and ironies that make us chuckle energize and enrich learning. Appropriate humor creates an environment of receptivity and creative thought. The best is often self-effacing and never at the expense or embarrassment of another.
Although a sense of humor might spark learning, personal credibility is its essential fuel. I watched William Rosenbach, Ph.D., talk to students about life experiences and observations that were both relevant and intelligently conveyed. Rosey had been there. His stories were unmistakably the lessons from his personal successes and failures and his insightful observations of others’. The students listened in rapt attention when he told these tales, and they remembered them long after they forgot theories, concepts and formulas. From him I learned that credibility is distinct from mere expertise. In the business setting, I can’t help but think about how, in a similar manner, Peter Drucker was indefatigable in his willingness to share the lessons of his experience in a completely disarming way: no facade, no cover-up. Even in the 21st century, modern, Western world, humans still love a narrative and still make sense of things through the stories we tell.
Finally, I watched my colleagues encourage students to test their intellectual fascination with implementation. One fall day, I listened to Richard Hughes, Ph.D., tell a group of students, “The classroom is just a launching pad to the most important learning laboratory: the real world.” From Rich, those students learned to try on ideas for real, test their assumptions, observe carefully and learn from the results. In that sense, failure is never final. It is only a lesson for the next stage of success. To paraphrase Aldous Huxley, experience is not what happens to a person. It’s what one does with what happens. In our corporate training rooms, we must emphasize implementation and reward those who do.
So here’s a salute to Larry, Bill, Rosey and Rich—outstanding educators from my humble past. You have probably uncovered your own secrets to exceptional instruction. So really, my salute is to all of you who use these and other subtle elements of great teaching to help us build a better future on campus, in the conference room, at the workplace and in the world beyond.
Fred Harburg is a managing partner at Venture Works and has held numerous international leadership roles at IBM, GM, Disney, AT&T and Motorola. He can be reached at fharburg@clomedia.com.