Customer Reviews

Know Can Do!: Put Your Know-How Into Action

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book has nailed it -- not only the problem, but the solution. In the classic Blanchard parable style, it has managed to do quickly what a lot of other books have failed to do, and yet they have taken 100 or 200 more pages than K-C-D. This is a wonderful tight, well-organized and enjoyable read. When I put it down, I realized that it had accomplished what the title suggests: putting me in the position to go out and get it done.

This book was a great surprise, very practical and very applicable to multiple facets of my life. I bought it to enhance my professional life, but found it translated to my personal life as well. The more I read, the more I realized that I can take the lessons learned from "Know Can Do!" and apply it to things in my everyday life, and help people move from 'thought' to 'behavior', whether it is getting more exercise, stopping bad habits or starting to turn negatives into positives. The fact is that most of us are judged by our behavior, not by what we know. This is a good book for people who are "turning over a new leaf" and not just those in the work place looking to do better.

The secret of learning is using the power of repetition. You might have to read this book more than once to get it, but it'll be worth it. The guts of this book come straight from the master of personal development, Paul J. Meyer ... and you can't go wrong there!

This is a great book. The authors offer the link to turning knowledge into action, then they provide the three main reasons why that link is missing: information overload, negative filtering, and a lack of follow-up. After offering each of the three, they offer a practical, doable solution to deal with the problems. Although the book is well-reasoned and linear, it is also a lot of fun. You can put yourself behind the eyeballs of the author-protagonist. After I finished, I was ready to go. It's made a difference for me.

Blanchard, Meyer, and Ruhe did an excellent job of identifying their ideas, and punching them out with a minimum of extra verbiage. I like the parable style, because it makes the message so much more interesting than the more academic approaches.
The authors also were successful in focusing on what I know are the primary obstacles to getting return on investment from learning: information overload, negative biases, and lack of follow-up. Their practical suggestions rang true for me. I think it's going to work.

I'm not in HR, exactly, but I have to think that way a lot. As an operational supervisor, I struggle with the question whether or not our organization gets enough pay-off on sending people off to training, or even just investing the time in virtual seminars. I've been to a lot of seminars myself, and have dealt with my own inability to take action. It's almost embarrassing. This book has helped me better understand the nature of the problem. Unlike other articles and discussions, it also offers very practical things to do to solve it.

I enjoyed reading Ken Blanchard and Paul Meyer's new book Know Can Do!. It provided constructive insights into how adults learn, and why we tend not to put new learning into action. It also provided a simple framework for helping to overcome the obstacles we face in putting new knowledge to work.

On the down side, like Blanchard's other books, Know Can Do! is overly simplistic. It provides a neat, pre-digested set of "do's and don'ts", but fails to capture the subtleties and politics of real business life - or even an approximation of it.

If you have influence over how your company conducts training and education, and/or can institute a solid mentoring program, you'll most likely be in a position to take advantage of Blanchard and Meyer's proposed framework. If not, at least you'll be able to use the information to better integrate new learning into your business and personal life.

The net net: A bit too simplistic, but worth reading.

This is a great uncovering of what Paul J. Meyer (Phil) has been doing with SMI and LMI ([...]) for over 40 years!!!

Everyone in Training and Development should read this - wait, everyone who has attended a seminar, workshop or lecture should read this.

Knowledge ISN'T power - applied knowledge is power!

I love to read and try get through at least 1-2 books each
week . . . by the same token, I love to learn and enjoy attending
both seminars and training programs . . . but that said, I often
don't remember what I have learned--and alas, I rarely put it
into practice.

That is why I found the premise of KNOW CAN DO! by Ken Blanchard, Paul J. Meyer and Dick Ruhe so
fascinating . . . or as the subtitle points out: PUT YOUR KNOW-HOW
INTO ACTION, which is just what I need to do more often.

The authors contend that one of the first things that needs to be
done is to spend some more time on reading . . . as one of the
characters in the book points out:

* "The first time I read a book I decide I want to learn from, I
just read it straight through to get a sense of it. The second
time I read it and underline the key concepts. The third time
I might take notes. The fourth time I could choose to read
it with a learning partner. And it is important to do all this
over a period of time. We all have to develop our own strategy
to keep our interest and zero in on what we want to apply
and use in our lives."

By the same token, people need to spend more time when
considering a new idea--as evidenced by this passage:

* "I've found that when people are first exposed to a new idea,
they reject it, because it conflicts with their preconceived ideas.
The second time they're exposed to a new idea, they resist it,
because they can't accept it. The third time they're exposed to
a new idea they partially accept it but have reservations as to its
use. The fourth time people are exposed to a new idea, they fully
accept it, because they feel it expresses what they've been thinking.
The fifth time they're exposed to a new idea, they partially assimilate
it, by using it themselves. The sixth time they're exposed to a new
idea, they fully assimilate it by owning it and passing it along to others."

I also liked how Blanchard, Meyer and Ruhe summarize well-known
management concepts in other sections of this book, such as when
they present the following from THE ONE MINUTE MANAGER:

* "Of all the things I've ever taught or written about, the most
important to me is the power of catching people doing things
right," said the author. "To me, the key to helping people develop
and creating a great organization is to accentuate the positive.
When it comes to training people and helping them develop, I
always tell managers, 'Don't wait until people do things exactly
right before you praise them.' In the beginning, their performance
may be only approximately right. But that should be praised. Praise
progress, because you're dealing with a moving target. Then you
can correct them or, as I would say, redirect them so they can
continue to improve."

My only disappointment in KNOW CAN DO! was the fable
format that Blanchard made famous in his other books . . . the
story here just didn't have anything that drew me into it, though
I did gain value from many of the principles that were highlighted.

KNOW CAN DO - PUT YOUR KNOW-HOW INTO ACTION provides invaluable information for businesses and libraries catering to business owners, managers and students alike: it tells how to make behavioral changes which lead to better learning abilities, identifying three key reasons people don't use the knowledge and new information they're given in seminars and schools, then showing how to tweak the brain's filtering system to expand knowledge. Any library strong in business and learning strategies needs KNOW CAN DO!

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch