At Work Newswire

By D. Quinn Mills

The world is changing very quickly. For anyone in business there are new products, new services, new technology, new customers, and new competitors. Furthermore, new people are entering the work force with experience and education that is up-to-date—people who understand what is happening now in the world around us.

The result of all this change is that if we are going to be successful in a leadership position, we need to keep up. Just having achieved a leadership position isn’t enough. We have to show that we are worthy of it—we have to be successful in it. So leaders, to keep up, must become learners as well. Perhaps we’ve been focused on our jobs (and we’re good at them), but as fresh developments and new technologies impact our industry and what we do, we have to learn about them.

This is a challenge for some of us. It may have been a while since we went to school, or read much outside of work. We’re used to teaching others, not learning much except in the narrow context of our jobs—what we need to know immediately to do our work. We’re not sure we’re able to learn effectively any more; and the more we hesitate, the more there is that is new that we must master, and so the more reluctant we become. This can become a serious barrier in which we don’t learn what we need to know to be successful in the months and years ahead.

In many businesses learning is not given much respect. We’re too busy to have time for learning, seems to be the attitude. An organization’s culture may not be particularly welcoming to those who want to take the time and make the effort to learn. But if we don’t, then we may become outdated and fail.

Effective learning

There is a lot of talk in business magazines and management circles about life-long learning, and to some degree we all are involved in it. We do learn from out experience, daily. But the sort of ordinary learning that occurs without any effort, just be doing our jobs, isn’t sufficient to keep us up-to-date with major developments.

Each of us should make a commitment to significant learning so that we keep up with what is going to be important to our leadership roles.

How do we learn? It has never been easier. There are courses offered in a variety of subjects for working people now that in the past didn’t exist when colleges and universities focused on young people who weren’t yet working. There are night courses and weekend seminars. There is training offered online. There are articles about new things in business magazines and at websites. We should include some time for learning activities when we set priorities for our time.

What should we learn about? To some degree we can determine that for ourselves by listening carefully to our peers and by watching news shows, magazines, and trade publications. We should take a pro-active role toward what we need to know about—if something keeps coming up and I don’t know what it’s about, it goes on my list of “Get-to-Know’s.”

We might also ask our boss, and our boss’s boss—what is coming up that is important that I should know about? Years ago, companies took the responsibility of keeping their managers up-to-date by sending them to training courses. That’s not as common or reliable today. It’s our responsibility to keep up and remain aware of trends and changes.

Leaders are also role models. If we integrate continuous learning into our responsibilities, we send the message to everyone in the organization about the value of learning. In a constantly changing and competitive world, that is a vital message to send.

D. Quinn Mills, the Alfred J. Weatherhead Jr. Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (emeritus), consults with major corporations in the U.S. and globally. He has written extensively on leadership, strategy, and management issues.

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Copyright © 2007 D. Quinn Mills

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