What an Excel Workshop Painfully Taught Me about Just Do It

I was squirming in my seat, bored and restless. I’d signed up for a course on Excel despite my better judgment.

Why was I restless and resorting to kicking myself? 

The course was held in a ballroom.  There must have been at least 200 people present. 

There was one instructor.

And how many computers to practice on, you ask?

Great question.

That was the reason I was kicking myself.

There were nada, none, zilch, zero computers present.

I’d signed up, knowing this, despite my better judgment.  

I was a student and didn’t have a lot of money but I really wanted to learn Excel.

Why was I so surly and grumpy?

Because I’d overridden my intuition. I knew it was going to be hard to learn Excel without a computer to practice on but I signed up anyway.

If you’re trying to learn (and teach) something that requires doing something then the process needs to include practicing doing that actual thing.

Don’t believe me?

Imagine learning how to swim without ever getting in the water.

Or learning how to drive a car without ever getting in the car.

So it was with learning Excel.

The gap between what she was saying and the time I could actually practice, e.g. get to an actual computer, was too large.

While I didn’t walk away with a whole lot of new Excel skills I did learn the following.

• Instead of just noticing what my better judgment was saying, it would have been better if I’d actually listened to it
• Teaching needs to match the output.  If you want your staff to be able to DO something, then the teaching process has to include DOING.

I was inspired to write this post after listening to Terry O’Reilly’s Under the Influence podcast episode called “Seeing is Believing, the power of demonstrations.”

It brought back all of those frustrations from that long, tedious Excel workshop where I learned next to nothing about Excel but did learn to trust my better judgment more and how important just doing it is.

Now go on and learn, laugh, and lead

Learn

• Think about matching up what you’re trying to learn and/or teach with how you need to use that learning. And for the sake of your sanity be sure to include a ‘doing’ component if you have to actually do something with your learning as a result.

Laugh

• Caveat: when you’re setting out to just do it, be sure to surround yourself with a support environment.  Unlike this wildly unsupportive example..

Lead

• Go for it.  Just do it. Literally!

P.S.

• Have you grabbed your spot in this week’s Learning and Development Roundtable on Unlocking Your Voice: Strategies for Powerful Public Speaking?  More info.  RSVP here. And feel free to invite a friend and/or colleague. The more the merrier.