How to teach others so you learn too

“The voice is going good from my standpoint. For me, what’s beneficial is teaching others what I learnt from you . . . I actually become more aware (of my own voice) when I’m teaching the technique.”

The above quote was from an email I received from a participant who attended my Delivering Memorable Messages programme. The person was filing a report on how was intentionally applying a behavior he needed to work on.

The telling point for me is the impact of teaching another person a technique to better learn learn the technique for yourself. As renown, leadership author Jim Kouzes says: “You don’t really know something until you can teach it to someone else”.

The ‘how to apply’ for this post: In the next seven days, for a behavior/technique that you are working on in your life, 1. Find a trusted colleague. 2. Explain that you want to teach him/her a technique, as a way to helping you better learn the technique. 3. Teach the technique and reflect on the impact of doing so.