Speaking Franklin

Simple ways to improve your business with self-learning

Admit that your skills and knowledge are becoming obsolete.

Develop a daily habit of reading. Start with something in which you are most interested. Try to move beyond news magazines and sports pages and into richer sources.

Instead of spending the evening watching television alone, consider playing a game or two with your children or friends. Try to choose games in which success depends upon strategic thinking rather than blind luck.

Develop your own discussion group (or, as Ben Franklin calls it, your own Junto) at work. For members, choose people within your own business.

Remove information barriers in your firm, and start a flood of information aimed toward your workers. Closed-book management is less and less successful.

Increase your training budgets and require all workers to seek 40 hours of training per year. Let them choose their own program of education. Don't turn down any reasonable request.

If something is particularly important at your firm, make the message so simple that it can quickly and easily be taught to all newcomers.

Learn More

• The New Bottom Line
• The New Genius
• Golden Rules

This article was originally published in the May 2000 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Speaking Franklin.