An important skill for every human being but especially for every developer is being teachable. This is critically important in a fast paced environment where knowledge has to be transported quickly from one developer to another. Techniques like pair programming help aim to help with that and try to avoid the knowledge silos. In this article I want to present five important traits that a teachable person should have and how you can incorporate learning in your daily agenda.
So here are 5 traits that a teachable person should have
1. Attitude
Have a teachable attitude conducive to learning. You need more than a great mind for learning you need a great heart for learning. The attitude we have in life sets the tone for everything we do. So to be teachable you have to proactively decide to be teachable. Approach learning with a positive attitude to set the tone for change.
2. Posess a junior mindset
Every junior developer knows there's much to learn. Many people change that mindset the more they know and think that they don't need to learn anymore because they know so much. To help with that always keep in mind that everyone has something to teach you, everyday you have something to learn and everytime you learn something you will benefit.
Learning is more than the just accumulation of knowledge. No matter how much you already learned, there's always more to learn or a different way of doing something. Sometimes you even have to unlearn parts of your knowledge to be able to learn a better way .
An example for that outside of the tech bubble: If you play guitar you might know that the positioning of the right hand is very important especially when playing fast. If you don't get that positioning right it might work for a long time and you can play much stuff anyway. But to be able to get everything out of your play you have to learn the perfect hand position. To be able to do that though, you first have to unlearn the positioning you're used to. This is the easiest if you stay a junior developer in your mind and know that you don't know everything.
3. Reflect on yourself
Becoming and remaining teachable requires you to evaluate yourself regularly and honestly. Ask yourself constantly if you're the reason for something that happened and how you can be better. Most importantly: Be prepared to make the change. Don't make the same mistake twice.
4. Encourage others to speak into your life
Everybody needs someone to speak the truth into their lives. Ideally that someone is either above you organisationally or ahead of you in experience. Much too often we shut people up when they're trying to speak the truth and surround us with people that say what we want anyway. This becomes a bigger and bigger problem in all of society nowadays. To be teachable we need to listen to the truth. > 'Wisdom is the reward of a lifetime of listening when you would have prefered to speak.'
5. Learn something new everyday
The secret to being successful (and teachable) is to improve each and every day. To include learning in your daily agenda will unavoidably have a huge impact in the journey to become and remain teachable.
Daily learning
To include learning into your daily life you should be planning and journaling your day. In that planning you can easily include learning time. This learning time should be planned with the following things in mind:
- What to learn
- How to learn it
This structures the learning process and avoid loosing track while trying to learn one skill. Going down a rabbit hole can be beneficial if you have enough time but can be a big obstacle if you need to use your time efficient to learn a needed skill. To get the best out of both worlds you can note the questions that arise and plan to learn that on another day.
To keep track of what you learned and how it went and also what mistakes you made during the day you can keep a journal. To be efficient you should keep track of the following things:
- What you learned
- Learning opportunities during the day
- Mistakes you made and how you could avoid those in the future
- Applications of new skills
The goal here is to reflect on your day in terms of learning. Keep in mind you want to learn something new everyday and you don't want to make the same mistake twice.
Conclusion
Teachability is a big skill in life and especially in the tech-world. Keep in mind you have to learn your whole life to be successful. Teachable people possess 5 traits:
- Attitude concise to learning
- Stay in junior mindset
- Self-reflect regularly and honestly
- Encourage others to speak into their lives
- Learn something new everyday
To plan out your day and journal it can help you to become and remain teachable. If you want to learn more about the five traits discussed here and how to incorporate this in your daily agenda, the book 'Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn' by John G. Maxwellis definitely worth a look.