The Entrepreneur's Journey
Reflections on Malcolm Gladwell and Impactful Learning
Delving into Malcolm Gladwell’s body of work this weekend provided a new lens for reflecting on my own entrepreneurial journey as a fractional chief learning officer and course creator. I often find there is a gap between theory and practice – the ‘aha’ moments linking the two can take time to emerge, both as a participant in programs and as a program reviewer and provider shaping learning experiences. Bridging conceptual knowledge with tangible skills is rarely linear, but rather an iterative process of turning abstract ideas into concrete applications through repeated exposure, scaffolding, and meaningful examples over time.
This weekend, I realized that Gladwell’s sequence of books actually outline the progression many entrepreneurs face. Early on, we decide on an offering, hoping it will reach a “tipping point.” As we grow, balancing intuition and research becomes critical when making judgments. Mastery takes deliberate practice – talent alone does not guarantee success. Interacting with potential clients requires avoiding snap judgments and truly understanding needs.
This mirrors my own career-long focus: learning must enable real-world application, and it must be experiential and hands-on. Yet too often, programs follow a more traditional academic model of knowledge transfer rather than skill building. Program leaders act as sages sharing ideas versus hands-on mentors. It’s important to remember that our role should be guiding entrepreneurs through challenges while scaffolding and modeling to help them achieve meaningful outcomes.
Additionally, leveraging the social media ecosystem presents a great opportunity to test content and see how it resonates with audiences as we prototype and refine our offerings. Getting real-time feedback allows us to make improvements early on.
By blending Gladwell’s principles with experiential and authentic learning models, we can create transformational personalized growth experiences.
This involves:
➡ Demonstrating processes rather than just describing them
➡ Providing strong examples and exemplars
➡ Using scaffolded activities focused on real-world application
➡ Embracing supportive mentorship and coaching
➡ Determining what type of influencers we will be to spread our message
The journey will not be linear, but with grit and resilience, we can innovate through challenges. If we keep learners’ needs and perspectives at the core, we will build offerings that empower real results.
⍰ What are your thoughts?
⍰ How can we continuously improve as learning providers and influencers?
Let’s keep the discussion going.
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