Be the Best at Getting Better

Successful Growth Requires that You "Outlearn" Your Peers

I've spent the last few days catching up on blog posts, my favorite shows on Hulu, and the New York Times, all of which I missed while spending a week in Dubai on vacation.

One blog post really stuck with me as I was working on my goals for next year. In a post called, In 2015, Be the Best at Getting Better, author Dharmesh Shah talked about the simple commitment of being the best at getting better.  He explains:

[C]ommitting to a one-time goal like learning to code or dropping 10 pounds can get lost amid the rush, assigned a lower priority, or just become uninteresting after a time. 

A commitment to becoming the best at getting better requires only a fundamental admission that you’re not perfect and a desire to outlearn your peers on a daily basis.

I love that!  I can handle that sort of personal and organizational commitment for 2015.  I can apply it to all my goals -- whether well-being, manifestation, or love.

Brian Balfour, VP of growth at HubSpot, first talked about the concept in terms of growth in his blog posting here.   He writes:

With any company or product you can set all sorts of goals and dreams. But at the end of the day there are thousands of variables that you can’t control. 

Specifically in growth:

1. Customer acquisition channels are always changing.

2. Competitors are always are always entering the market.

3. The needs and desires of your target audience are always evolving.

What you can control is yourself and your team. You control how effective your team is, how well you know your channels and customer, and the rate at which you are improving. Focus on what you can control, being the best at getting better.

He also has good advice on reflecting back on any effort to grow -- whether successful or not.  The process leads to more learning that you can implement in the next experiment. 

He also lists a number of strategies that help employees at HubSpot grow.  The company clearly invests in its people as a competitive strategy.

My law school can commit to the concept of being the best at getting better.  So, can my faculty colleagues.  And, just as importantly, so can our students. 

How can you be the best at getting better?