The Future of Work - How We Learn
PART 3
This blog is one of a triptych on alternatives to traditional ways of working
"What would you do, if you could do what you want?"
This question was how I finished the last blog in this series of 3 about breaking free of job descriptions. It’s taken me more than two years to get to this entry about The future of work - How we Learn, and it’s been a fascinating thing to reflect on what has changed in the world since then.
In particular, can you remember what kind of things peaked our attention in the times BC (Before Covid-19)? You might find yourself surprised about some of the trends that have accelerated through times of constraint.
We’ve had to learn how to interact in a non-physical world. Many workplaces that never worked this way, have come to experience that it is possible, and can even increase productivity and connection in some ways. Despite the anxiety and sadness of a heath emergency, for the world of office workers, this has been a revelation.
CONSTRAINTS AS ENABLERS
How quickly we can learn, when constraints are forced upon us. Up until March 2020, I had thought of myself as someone who knew remote working well, but I was an amateur compared to everything we have learned during the stay-at-home weeks of the pandemic.
Learning new things at work is rarely so dramatic, but can be swift. When I started an after school job as a teen I had to be trained and shown how to do everything. Pre-tech career I worked in a supermarket deli, in a laboratory, behind the bar in a pub, and eventually started my first software development job after Uni. For each the learning curve was steep. When you’re a newbie you have no choice but to shush up and listen, absorb from those around you and apply every bit of gained knowledge. It’s the only path to success. In those moments you’re in your own personal chamber of ignorance, and it’s not only socially acceptable but necessary to reveal your ignorance and embrace new knowledge.
I thought I knew remote working well, but I was being unconsciously incompetent. This is the dilemma of the Dunning–Kruger effect in action - I was ignorant of my own ignorance.
LEARNING PREFERENCES - KNOWING WHAT WORKS FOR YOU
For me to learn as an adult far into my career, I find I have to first wrangle my ego into control. The following steps are useful for me When approaching learning something new:
1. Adopt the Beginners Mindset
I remind myself that I know nothing about this topic, and then I’m in a good headspace to learn. This effectively sets me back to my newbie status of my first days of a new job, and in my chamber of ignorance I can let new information in.
2. Focus on the Effort Not the Outcome
Absorbing myself into doing, even if it is mechanical or repetitive for a while, seems to work for me. The outcomes may not be pleasing at first, repetition and following basic steps will eventually yield results.
3. Choose Purpose Over Passion
Linking everything to the reason why has more longevity then powering myself with a hope that I’m going to achieve awesomeness. If I’m clear on the reasons why I want to learn something I’m more likely to stick at it.
These steps help me as an individual to channel my inner beginner. *
*I found these in an article which has 22 more steps you may also find valuable for busting your ego!
LEARNING AT WORK
How does the workplace and your career, once established, differ from those first big learning curves we face, do we really need to keep learning?
If all predictions are right you and I will need to keep learning and adapting our knowledge as our careers and workplaces evolve in our lifetimes. The rate of knowledge increase suggests it’s more important than ever.
Knowledge is doubling exponentially, yet the useful lifespan of that knowledge is decreasing significantly, the value of the knowledge is negated by new knowledge, stuff goes out of date and is no longer accurate nor useful. It can feel overwhelming just keeping up!
“the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
How can we keep our organisations learning rapidly and continuously in the face of the onslaught of new knowledge? There are important investments that leaders can make that foster a learning culture in the workplace.
IBM suggested that by now knowledge would be doubling every 12 hours. It certainly feels like information travels around the world in under 12 hours pretty seamlessly with the prevalence of social platforms and social media.
LEADERSHIP FACTORS
Slack Time
Companies that cram their delivery roadmaps up to their eyeballs are in danger of never flexing their creative potential. Workers that have time and space to experiment become good at experimenting, more competent at improvising and more resilient to failed ideas. They will move away from bad ideas faster and feel more empowered to do so.
The leaders who can carve out time and permission for their teams to experiment and tinker are naturally resilient to change in the world around them. Treating this time as learning time seems obvious to me but for some organisations it is treated as a luxury or an engagement factor. Learning is engaging but the time to devote to it needs to be protected by Leaders.
A Culture of Continuous Learning
I think it’s a waste when the only people in the company that are close to research and development are the innovation team or the incubator team. Companies that will survive and thrive into the future need to flip their whole workforce into knowledge seeking missiles.
A culture where everyone is encouraged to learn and it’s a decentralised and common practice will be ahead of those that control Learning and Development with seperate centralised budgets that require permission to unlock.
And culture means Leaders praise learning and also role model learning themselves, they signal to their teams that knowledge acquisition adds value.
Grow T-Shaped People
T shaped means that people add to their skills sets, leaders can encourage team members to grow side-ways as well as the traditional climb of a career ladder. With more modern workplaces favoring flatter hierarchies the pointless career climb has lost its relevance, now value is found when people can add additional skills to specialities.
Leaders can ensure these opportunities are built into the schedule and encourage their people to broaden their skills sets.
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Leaders also need to turn their attention to their own mindset, so that work can flow meaningfully and conditions are right for a Learning culture.
LEADERSHIP MINDSETS
Leaner & Meaner Org Structures
If you want faster flow of information and decision making then flatter organisations where networked knowledge exists is better than passing information up and down a chain of command. This should result in less time in internal politicking and competition over initiatives, teams and accountability. Leaders who can put a laser like focus on outcomes rather focussing on their own spans of control will lead more autonomous, engaged and performant teams.
Leaders can examine their own behaviour and decide what things they can dismantle that are based on hierarchy and hero-workshop that prevent team autonomy.
Limiting WIP & Keeping Focus
Attempting to fit any investment of knowledge into the workplace and overloading people with work at the same time is an impossible equation. Limiting Work In Progress is not only a fantastic tool for creating the best flow of value for your organisation, but will ensure that workers can include their own development into their regular work pattern. Pushing too much work towards teams and driving via deadlines continuously will mean that learning is always de-prioritised and skills will deteriorate in your workplace over time.
Customer Centricity
Curiosity and what we can learn about the customer is also a mindset leaders can role-model. Companies that take a customer centric view of their products and services will always be valued by their customer. What can we learn about the problems our customers encounter with our products and services? What else could we solve for them? These should be key curiosities that are valued in every worker.
Transparency & Open Information Flow
An attitude of transparency increases the psychological safety of teams. Leaders can ensure that events like showcases are places where you come to learn rather than use them to interrogate teams or grandstand unnecessarily.
Sharing behaviour can be rewarded - over insights. The person with the best insights is not as valuable as the person who can disseminate insight powers to others.
Disbanding centralised knowledge and authoritarian structures such as architecture boards and Project Management offices are good ways to increase transparent and open information sharing.
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If you think your company needs a Learning tune-up to be ready for the Future of Work It might seem too ambitious to install all of these ideas, but most of these are cheap or even free, and for the potential pay-off it’s a straightforward equation. Companies that cannot invest in Learning won’t evolve rapidly enough to adapt to the future.
As it turns out it wasn’t a massive effort to learn how to work remotely, the constraints made it an imperative. In many cases it didn’t take a lot of extra time or money, it just required a different way of thinking about the problems we face and the work we do. Thinking of knowledge and learning that way for your people will make it free and easy to change your approach and unlock learning potential for little time and capital investment.
Or try a little ego busting yourself and see what you can learn if you channel your inner beginner.
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In case you missed them here’s Part 1 and Part 2 of this series!