How Powerful can a Two-Letter Word be?

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”  Confucius

Do you remember the first time you learned to ride a bicycle, to drive, or to swim? You were probably in awe of others who were seemingly masters of these arts. More than likely, you were a tad intimidated with the task, before you got started. For me it was a sibling, who got me onto what was a slightly oversized bicycle and showed me the basics. The brakes, the pedal and the importance of balance. A gentle push, running by my side for a few rounds. And soon, I was off on my own – and unstoppable thereafter.

In the technology and operations teams I’ve had the good fortune to be a part of initiatives for continually creating and rolling out new infrastructure, solutions and applications for our user community. The pace at which changes, features and capabilities are rolled out is often hard to keep up with.  For instance, within the CIO Office in IBM, one of our current focus areas is advocating a “New Way to Work” (NWTW) that unleashes the power of social collaboration solutions, such as Verse and Connections Cloud that enables work across multiple client and operating system environments. How does one learn to utilize and realize value from these solutions?

Theoretical learning, lectures, and knowledge sharing has its place in creating a foundational capability.  However, to translate this to impact, one has to practice converting such knowledge to outcomes. This is where ‘do’ comes in. We tend to learn by doing. By observing others do. By personal experience.  By practically teaching each other how to do.   Quite simply, by doing.  The marketing gurus at Nike were really onto something, when they created a simple punch line for their brand. “Just do it.” 

 “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them” Aristotle

 I often get asked by colleagues that I come across -- How do I keep up with change – be it the transformation to a cognitive solutions and cloud platform company, adopting new ways to work, inculcating a culture of feedback or learning next generation skills. My response – just dive in and contribute; start somewhere, and grow from there. Invest in the learning and adopting, and seek experts who can assist if needed. I myself learn and get inspired when I observe or work with professionals around me who proactively and practically work to simplify, reshape, or enhance the way things get done. Doing has a way of not just benefitting yourself, but energizing others and igniting action and purpose in those around us.