« The Wisdom of Crowds | Main | Feeds & Faces »

Jesuits, Calvinists & Continual Learning

1n 1997, Peter Drucker outlined seven personal experiences that had shaped him over the course of this life. One of these was when he was studying early modern history. He learnt that during the 16th and 17th centuries

"two European institutions had become dominant forces in Europe: the Jesuit Order in the Catholic South and the Calvinist Church in the Protestant North. Both were founded independently in 1536. Both adopted the same learning discipline.

Whenever a Jesuit priest or a Calvinist pastor does anything of significance--making a key decision, for instance--he is expected to write down what results he anticipates. Nine months later he traces back from the actual results to those anticipations. That very soon shows him what he did well and what his strengths are. It also shows him what he has to learn and what habits he has to change. Finally, it shows him what he has no gift for and cannot do well ... "

[thanks to David Gurteen's knowledge newsletter for this]

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blog.monkeymagic.net/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/106

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)