To Teach is to LEARN

Recently had an opportunity to teach at a Management College, thanks to a friend, who called me in for a full course on HR due diligence in M&A. It was quite an experience. I have been in situations where I have had to address client organisations and teach them about various new / old concepts of HR / Business, but teaching a bunch of youngsters in a management college is a very different experience.

The most satisfying thing from my perspective was the fact that I learnt a lot during the experience. Having had to read a lot to prepare the course outline and to combine the experiences from my past work situations by itself helped me in doing like a review of things which were done in those situations and understanding what else could have been done to make those better.

In most of the consulting assignment, we were always short of time, so one worked with available tools, tried methodologies and templates to ensure that the deadlines were met. There was rarely an opportunity where one could sit back and find new ways of doing things. This experience gave me time to look at alternate theories / tools / processes etc which could have been applied in the same situations and how we could have made the deliverables better.

I also learnt that easy availability of information on the net can be a good learning experience as well as a bad learning experience. Good if you took the pain to read through and broaden your perspective. Bad if you just found a quick link and completed your assignment :-) since one did not apply ones mind.

The other learning experience came from the questions that the students asked. Some of the questions can really require you to think very differently and open up a new perspective that you may not have thought of a situation about.

My suggestion to everyone who wants to learn or become better at his / her subject will be to try teaching a course on that subject. Because I believe from my first experience, that to TEACH is to LEARN.

Sanjay