Know Can Do!: Put Your Know-How into Action - Hardcover

Blanchard, Ken; Meyer, Paul J.; Ruhe, Dick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1576754685 ISBN 13: 9781576754689

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2007

Synopsis

Why is it that so many things we try so hard to learn just don’t stick? Because we spend all our energy on learning new skills and better habits, but we lack effective strategies for retaining and applying all the helpful information we take in.
In Know Can Do!, bestselling author Ken Blanchard, Success Motivation Institute founder Paul J. Meyer, and ace motivational speaker and consultant Dick Ruhe use a story about an author with questions and an entrepreneur with answers to offer a simple and systematic approach for learning more efficiently and using that knowledge to make lasting changes.

People who have mastered learning are free to be creative and make big things happen. In fact, John F. Kennedy once remarked that “leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” This powerful book will help people at all levels develop the mind-set and the skill set to achieve extraordinary results.

About this title

About the Author

Ken Blanchard is Chief Spiritual Officer of the Ken Blanchard Companies. He is the author or coauthor of more than forty books, including the classic The One Minute Manager® (with Spencer Johnson), Leading at a Higher Level, Full Steam Ahead! (with Jesse Stoner), and The Secret (with Mark Miller).
Paul J. Meyer is the founder of Success Motivation Institute, Inc. He is the author of numerous books, including The 5 Pillars of Leadership, 24 Keys That Bring Complete Success, and Forgiveness: The Ultimate Miracle, and is coauthor of Chicken Soup for the Golden Soul.
Dick Ruhe is a highly popular motivational speaker, a celebrated consultant, and a gifted trainer. He is a senior consulting partner for the Ken Blanchard Companies and is the author of the Blanchard training program Total Quality Leadership.

From the Back Cover

For years Ken Blanchard has been troubled by the gap between what people know--all the good advice they get from books, seminars, and training courses--and what they actually do with this knowledge. All too often, in spite of their most sincere efforts, what people learn just doesn't stick. It's an endless source of frustration for individuals and for organizations as well.

In this new book Blanchard and his coauthors, Paul J. Meyer and Dick Ruhe, use the fable format Blanchard made famous to lay out a straightforward method for learning more, learning better, and making sure you actually use what you learn. This engaging story identifies three key reasons people don't make the leap from knowing to doing and then moves on to the solution.

Know Can Do will teach you how to avoid information overload by learning "less more, not more less." You'll find out how to adjust your brain's filtering system to learn many, many times more than ever before, ignite your creativity and resourcefulness with Green Light Thinking, master what you've learned using spaced repetition, and more.

At last, an answer to the question, "Why don't I do what I know I should do?" Read this book and you will!

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

When I think about the writing of Know Can Do, it’s been a long time coming and has quite a history. Years ago, a dear friend of mine asked me what my biggest disappointment was with my career. That thoughtful question motivated some real self-reflection.

That’s when I realized that what bothered me the most was that my work did not have universal, lasting impact. While my books were widely read, many people did not follow through on the concepts and use them consistently in their day-to-day work. My concern was that some managers seemed to be content merely to talk about leadership practices, rather than actually implementing them.

My friend said, “Maybe you’re looking in the wrong place. You’re trying to change people’s behavior only from the outside.” He went on to say that he used to do the same until he realized that lasting change in people’s behavior starts on the inside and moves out.

I knew right away he was right, because all I had been focusing on were leadership methods and behavior. I hadn’t focused much on what was in people’s heads or hearts.

Armed with this new insight, I realized that I needed some way to close the knowing-doing gap—a way that focused on the inside as well as the outside.

Enter Paul J. Meyer.

Paul has been a trailblazer in the behavior change business for almost fifty years. His Success Motivation Institute, Inc., founded in 1960, is dedicated to “motivating people to their full potential.” When I explained my dilemma to Paul, he was excited about trying to solve it. Give Paul Meyer a challenge, and you have a focused person beyond your belief.

After thinking about it, Paul prepared a keynote speech for a big international company on whose board he serves. The speech was entitled “The Missing Link”—what is needed to put the know-how you gain from reading books, listening to audios, watching videos, or attending seminars into action. That was the beginning of Know Can Do.

Working with Paul on this project was a real joy. He is an entrepreneur extraordinaire who has founded more than forty companies with worldwide sales that exceed $2 billion. With more than forty books in print, in some circles I am considered an author extraordinaire. What we needed to complete our team was a spokesperson who was willing to travel near and far to spread the word.

The person who came immediately to my mind was Dick Ruhe. He has worked with our company for almost twenty years and has been our number one speaker, carrying our message around the world. Dick had done some writing of his own, but as a speaker extraordinaire, he was the perfect match to work with Paul and me on Know Can Do.

One plus one plus one has turned into far beyond three. We are excited about Know Can Do and hope it gives you and your organization the strategies you need to take the knowledge you are taught and put it into action. We know it only takes one diet to lose weight—the one you focus on. In the same way, we think Know Can Do can make a real difference by giving people simple tools to close the knowing-doing gap and make their knowledge come alive. May our dreams come true and your goals be accomplished.

—Ken Blanchard June 2007

Edition details

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1576754685
• ISBN 13: 9781576754689
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 128