“See one, Do one, Teach one”

There's a quote that popped up recently in my social media feed that was attributed to the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh: "I am always doing what I can't do yet in order to learn how to do it."  Apparently there is some fairly concrete evidence that he actually said it, though not exactly how it's often quoted.  I love the quote, because it nicely encapsulates the sentiment that you have to step outside of your comfort zone and be comfortable with failure, if you want to learn and grow.

As I mentioned in my "2024 Leadership Reverie Reading List", one of the books that I read over the winter break this year was the new book by Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things.  Grant makes the point that all of us, not just geniuses and superstars, can achieve great things in life.  What's the secret sauce for maximizing your potential and achieving greatness?  It's being comfortable with discomfort.  As Grant suggests, "The best way to accelerate growth is to embrace, seek, and amplify discomfort."

Grant also suggested that, "People who make major strides are rarely freaks of nature.  They're usually freaks of nurture."  In other words, we all need great teachers, mentors, coaches, and peers to help us grow and reach our fullest potential.  Whenever we try something new, or even after we perform a task that we've done before, we often ask for feedback.  "How did I do?" is a natural response.  Unfortunately, feedback focuses on what we've done in the past.  A study from Harvard Business School (see also the article "Why asking for advice is more effective than asking for feedback" in Harvard Business Review) suggests that it's better to ask for advice, such as "What can I do better next time?"  Most of us also provide fairly vague feedback that is generally positive in nature, while advice is typically more specific and concrete.  What's even more interesting is that we tend to perform better after we give others advice!  Grant calls this the "coach effect" and writes, "Teaching others can build our competence. But it’s coaching others that elevates our confidence."  He cites another study (the senior author was Angela Duckworth, of Grit fame) that found that high school students who were randomly assigned to give motivational advice to their peers went on to earn higher grades themselves.

As it turns out, studies have shown that we learn more from our peers than we do from the so-called experts!  A lot of this probably has to do with something I've posted about before called the curse of expertise.  Experts actually have more difficulty describing and explaining how they do things compared to the non-experts.  For example, college students learn more from their non-tenured professors than they do from the tenured ones.  The best athletes rarely, if ever, make the best coaches.   

I am reminded of the famous "See one, Do one, Teach one" saying that I first learned as a medical student.  The theory is that the best way to learn a new skill is to observe someone else doing it, then actually do it yourself, and then teach it to someone else.  It doesn't actually happen like that, but the concepts are what's important.  Observe.  Do.  Then teach to someone else.  It takes all three, and the peer teaching is possibly the most important!  As Benjamin Franklin reportedly said, "Tell me and I forget.  Teach me and I remember.  Involve me and I learn."