Quotes About Improvement

Varna. He said Joséphine did not have the poise to make such a dramatic entrance. To counter the objection, Varna worked with Joséphine to improve her posture. Balancing first two books, and eventually six, on her head, she descended the stairs time and time again until she could do it with confidence.

motive: being motivated by a desire to improve the relationship • timing: considering the best time to have a conversation • location: choosing surroundings that support communication • attitude: having an attitude conducive to a productive discussion • responsiveness: listening in such a way as to encourage honesty • expectations: openness to whatever results from this effort

There is always someone out there getting better than you by training harder than you.

Everything is practice.

The evidence shows you that two things have been true throughout mankind's history: One, things always get better. Two, people always think they're getting worse.

Practice is everythingThis is often misquoted as Practice makes perfect.

We are really competing against ourselves, we have no control over how other people perform.

My father taught me that the only way you can make good at anything is to practice, and then practice some more.

A lot of the operational improvement that gets implemented is really driven by the front-line workforce — the people in sales, customer service, working in the plant. And so it's a way to have them share in the upside but also to drive much greater engagement at that level in whatever priorities that we're trying to deploy.

The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others, and no one thinks about reforming himself.

In virtually all areas of learning, you build better mastery when you use testing as a tool to identify and bring up your areas of weakness.

Making mistakes and correcting them builds the bridges to advanced learning.

In the school of life experience, setbacks show us where we need to do better. We can steer clear of similar challenges in the future, or we can redouble our efforts to master them, broadening our capacities and expertise.

Dynamic testing has three steps. Step 1: a test of some kind—perhaps an experience or a paper exam—shows me where I come up short in knowledge or a skill. Step 2: I dedicate myself to becoming more competent, using reflection, practice, spacing, and the other techniques of effective learning. Step 3: I test myself again, paying attention to what works better now but also, and especially, to where I still need more work.

retrieval from short-term memory is an ineffective learning strategy and that errors are an integral part of striving to increase one's mastery over new material.

a failure to know the areas where their learning is weak—that is, where they need to do more work to bring up their knowledge—and a preference for study methods that create a false sense of mastery.11

In the school of life experience, setbacks show us where we need to do better.

Simply including one test (retrieval practice) in a class yields a large improvement in final exam scores, and gains continue to increase as the frequency of classroom testing increases. Testing

kind—perhaps an experience or a paper exam—shows me where I come up short in knowledge or a skill. Step 2: I dedicate myself to becoming more competent, using reflection, practice, spacing, and the other techniques of effective learning. Step 3: I test myself again, paying attention to what works better now but also, and especially, to where I still need more work.

Incompetent people lack the skills to improve because they are unable to distinguish between incompetence and competence.

students need to take more control of their own learning by employing strategies like those we have discussed. For example, they need to test themselves, both to attain the direct benefits of increased retention and to determine what they know and don't know to more accurately judge their progress and focus on material that needs more work.

The paradox is that those students who employ the least effective study strategies overestimate their learning the most and, as a consequence of their misplaced confidence, they are not inclined to change their habits.

Trying to come up with an answer rather than having it presented to you, or trying to solve a problem before being shown the solution, leads to better learning and longer retention of the correct answer or solution, even when your attempted response is wrong, so long as corrective feedback is provided.

learning culture places the responsibility for learning with the employees and empowers them to change the system. Problems become information rather than failures. And learning by solving the problems (generation) and by teaching others (elaboration) becomes an engine for continuous improvement of performance by individuals and by the production line that they compose.