School is just the place where you learn the rules of the system. Your life is where you get your education.
—TREVOR NOAH1
The greatest challenge for professionals in today’s society is to stay relevant in a world that’s constantly changing. The amount of new information that’s created every day is astounding, and it’s practically impossible to keep up. But what’s even more astonishing is that the “half-life” of skills is now only five years. In other words, the skills you have today—and that your employer values—may be close to worthless by the time you get to your next job.
We should all strive to be shared learners. I’ve taken online courses, but the experiences I’ve had in classrooms have been a much bigger factor in my education. I have participated in study groups and have been mentored, both of which are in-person experiences that have helped me learn much more than simply reading an article or two. If you care about your team’s success, you need to become a shared learner who is open to giving your teammates the knowledge they need when you receive it. At the same time, you need to be just as open to learning from your teammates. This free flow of information is good for everyone—and for business. An organization is slowed down if information isn’t being shared openly, and when an employee leaves, their knowledge goes with them unless it has been already shared.
By collaborating with your team, sharing what you know with them, and learning from them, you’ll all acquire information more quickly, retain it better, and be able to apply it in new ways. In one study, Anuradha A. Gokhale, an associate professor at Western Illinois University, found that students who participated in collaborative learning performed better on critical thinking tests than those who studied in isolation.2 In another study, workers who were in close physical proximity to one another performed about 15 percent better than those who were separated from their colleagues. In fact, the farther apart they were, the more isolated and unhappy they felt.3 The bottom line is that when you’re physically close to other people, you’re better able to learn from one another, and you’ll all be more productive. This is especially true if you sit next to a diverse population of people who have a strong work ethic and subject matter expertise.
An important note: I recognize that in today’s global economy, in which business is operating 24/7, a company’s workforce may be spread out in different buildings on the same campus or in different cities or different countries. And I realize that getting all those people together in the same facility (if that were even possible) would be prohibitively expensive. I’m not suggesting that employees of these large or global companies are doomed to be lonely, unhappy, subpar performers. One way to address their physical separation is to use videoconferencing to keep your teams connected. Being able to see one another—even if you’re thousands of miles apart—makes for much better communication and collaboration than text messages or Facebook groups. (But don’t underestimate the importance of social media. In the course of writing this book I interviewed hundreds of people who were spread around the country and the world. To facilitate the process, I set up a Facebook group. You can’t imagine how thrilled I was when two people in the group—John Mwangi, vice president of information governance, law, and franchise integrity at Mastercard, and Jennifer Lopez, senior director of product management at Capital One—discovered that they work in the same building and decided to meet for lunch sometime. You can’t get more human than that!)
A shared learning culture is driven by an open network in which teammates gain access to the rest of the team’s thoughts, analyses, and resources wherever they are. People learn on their own time, use their preferred devices, and have their own training preferences. Teams need to take advantage of the “always on” team members by providing them with resources they can always tap into. Whether in the form of brainstorming or draft documents, members must make their intellectual capital available for the rest of the team so that everyone is on the same page as often as possible. There are many sources that members can tap into that can help the team foster a strong “knowledge network,” including massive open online courses (MOOCs), outside speakers, company-provided education, magazines, online training courses, and college courses.
Being a shared learner is about identifying opportunities to provide information, resources, and training to team members who need them before they even ask. By paying attention to the skills and information your teammates need (or request) help with, you can deliver the right content at the right time to solve their problems. When you proactively help them develop, they’ll want to return the favor and support your own learning. As you do this more within your team, you naturally create a shared learning culture, in which everyone is constantly learning and sharing. The following chart lists a few examples of how to be a shared learner.
Situation: You know your colleague is interested in trends in the use of data in HR.
What to Share: You spot a new white paper focused on people analytics and share it with your colleague.
Situation: Your colleague expresses frustration about a new database system she has to learn to do her job better.
What to Share: You either train her, if you have experience using the system, or you send her a link to a course or tutorial that can help her learn how to use it.
Situation: Your team doesn’t seem that up-to-date on what’s going on in the industry you’re in.
What to Share: Have your team members subscribe to industry-specific online news websites; get a membership to an industry association and have them attend regular meetings.
Everyone on the team must commit to sharing articles, courses, and resources. When you’re hiring new teammates, being a shared learner is a skill and habit that you should look for in candidates.
Being a shared learner requires you to be more aware of your learning style and your willingness to share with your team members. Let’s take a look at the obstacles that often get in the way of building stronger relationships and how to address them.
Ego causes us to make poor decisions as leaders. Instead of sharing, we hold onto information, believing that it will allow us to advance beyond our peers. (The truth is that when the team succeeds, so do the individuals who make up that team.) Ego makes us have fewer conversations with others and share our ideas less often because we’re afraid of being wrong, of sounding stupid, of being ridiculed, or of giving away information that someone else might be able to use to advance their own career. You need to get rid of your ego and be more willing to take risks or even fail. Instead of thinking of your own career, think about how you can become the provider of information for your team. Your employees will be more productive, which will help you accomplish more. “Knowledge is not job security, nor is it power,” says Heather Samp, managing director of network and fleet strategy for American Airlines. “Sharing your knowledge allows you to move to other challenges and spread your expertise in different ways.”
We often resist sharing because other leaders and teams aren’t actively doing so. You might have a corporate culture in which people work in silos and each individual is learning on their own. It’s easy to accept the status quo. Even when we want to change, we tend to retreat to our old ways of doing things (like sitting at a computer taking countless online classes and not telling people about what we’re learning).
Everyone has their own learning style and needs. When leaders try to serve everyone in the same way, some people are left out, as not everyone can comprehend or digest the information that way. When you fail to consider the preferences of your teams, you can’t deliver for them. To do a better job recognizing differences, you need to show empathy. Get to know your employees more by asking them about their learning style and needs so you can better serve them. Even if everyone on your team needs to learn the same specific skill, they might do so differently, and things will work out a lot better if you take that into account.
In large companies with distributed workforces, there’s a tendency for silos to develop. As discussed in later chapters, these silos interfere with teamwork, communication, and, as you might imagine, the free flow of information and knowledge. Technology—in the form of videoconferences and other online learning opportunities—can create an environment in which employees around the world can actively contribute to the entire knowledge base of the company.
At the same time, technology can be a barrier to good leadership because it’s easy to think it’s doing our jobs for us and to forget that we’re the ones responsible for making it work. Human connections push people to be more open to collaboration.
By having a phone call or a meeting every week, you can make sure that everyone has access to all the resources and training materials so you can have open discussions about what’s working and what’s not. When we have team meetings, we have a set agenda that includes a list of our priorities, the time allocated to each one, and a series of breaks. This allows us to come prepared for the meeting and focus on the activities that will have the biggest impact on our company. While we use technology to set our calendars and book conference rooms, we (generally) turn off our phones during the meeting so we can be physically present and attentive. Technology can get everyone in sync, but never let it be a barrier to the critical discussions that will most impact your company and career.
As a leader, a big part of your job is to get people to help one another learn and establish a culture in which everyone is accountable for the team’s success. If each team member can actively train the others in new skills, the team will stay relevant together and will be more productive and successful as a result. The most successful leaders of the present and future are those who embrace and actively practice shared learning over self-learning. When you’re actively helping your teammates, you become a role model for how they can better learn and support one another. The following is a list of recommendations for creating a culture of shared learning.
1. Ask for and give feedback. By giving your employees regular feedback and then soliciting theirs, you’ll create an environment in which it’s acceptable to both criticize and compliment, and you’ll facilitate invaluable conversations that will benefit everyone.
2. Track accomplishments. Take a hard look at what you and your team have done over the past several months and examine the actual business results of your activities. Think about the team’s accomplishments and employees’ individual ones. If some team members aren’t contributing as much or lack certain important skills, you need to get them up to speed. By identifying gaps and weak points, you can create a learning ecosystem that will support everyone.
3. Be flexible. As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, change is constant, and as a leader, it’s on you to ensure that your team adapts to that change. As you or your teammates are researching new trends, skills, and potential market opportunities, instead of keeping information to yourselves, share it immediately. But be flexible with how you share new material. Having a proper mix of face-to-face meetings, videoconferencing, email, and social media can support everyone’s needs.
4. Have a positive attitude. Push your ego aside and get excited about improving the lives of those around you. When you’re in shared learning discussions, encourage—and embrace—criticism, because that’s how you’ll get the most honest feedback possible. When you hire for your team, look for those who have a positive attitude about helping others, and be wary of those who seem to be focused on becoming the next CEO.
5. Promote the expertise of others. Everyone has their own unique skills and can be a teacher, not just a learner. Over time the interactions you have with your teammates and the actual work they produce will let you know what their strengths and weaknesses are. Pay special attention to what they’re good at, and when you see an opportunity for them to help, bring them in.
When you and your team are sharing knowledge freely and openly, you are building a sustainable culture that the entire organization can benefit from. When we asked managers and human resources (HR) executives how they preserve and strengthen their workplace culture, over two-thirds said through training and development programs.4 These can help you increase productivity and efficiency because your employees will have the knowledge they need to accomplish your goals and theirs. Sharing information and skills can also help you increase employee satisfaction. We have found several times that when recruiting and retaining employees, pay and health care are only conversation starters; what employees desire more than anything else is training that can help them advance in their jobs and their careers. While some of your employees may have different ambitions than others, they all care about their careers. They know (and hopefully so do you) that if you aren’t becoming better at your craft, you won’t last long.
Ask anyone in HR, and they’ll tell you that it costs a lot of money to replace an employee. A shared learning culture in which employees are always acquiring new skills and honing existing ones increases loyalty and decreases turnover. It also improves morale by developing employees into mutual supporters and champions for one another. It’s important to move them away from a typical “winner-takes-all” or “every-person-for-themself” mentality and toward one that embraces collaboration and helpfulness. Workers who become good at shifting back and forth between teacher and student are humbler and have fewer ego issues.
Part of creating a shared learning culture is understanding how to teach skills. On-the-job training is the best way to learn, and in-person teaching can be incredibly powerful in helping you build a stronger relationship with your colleagues. Here are some ways to teach others a new skill.
1. Empathize with your coworkers. Because you know something that they don’t, you’re the authority figure in the teacher-student relationship. To make them feel more relaxed and comfortable working with you, consider sharing a weakness of your own or a skill that you could improve on.
2. Display your skill. When you’re showcasing your skill, explain the step-by-step process you use so your colleagues can follow along with you. For instance, if you’re showing them how to use a computer program to create a short piece of code, walk them through the process of how you got to the final product so that they can replicate it on their own.
3. Encourage them to practice the skill. This is especially important for hands-on learners who need to perform an action several times to master it. After you walk your teammates through how you apply a skill, let them test it out on their own to see whether they can repeat the process you used and achieve the same or a similar result.
4. Give them feedback. Once your coworkers have attempted to complete a task using the skill you taught them, review it. Explain what they did right and how to improve. If they’re having trouble, go back to step 2 and review your process again. Some people take longer than others to learn and master a new skill, so be patient.
5. Follow up. After a week or two, have another meeting to see whether your teammates have been able to successfully implement the skill you taught and to answer questions or provide additional help. By checking back regularly, you’re ensuring that your teammates will improve, and you’re demonstrating your commitment to them and their development and success.
Another reason to teach others is that, in my experience, it’s the best way for you to learn. Many of the people I interviewed for this book agreed. “Training another employee not only helps them to do their job but often helps the trainer be better at the job,” says Leor Radbil, senior associate in investor relations at Bain Capital. “When you do something all the time, sometimes you gloss over steps or just get used to the routine. When training someone, you go through the process methodically. The trainee may often teach the trainer a thing or too as well. The trainee may ask questions that hadn’t occurred to the trainer, which lead the trainer to learn new things as well. And of course, sitting with someone and allowing them to see the process for the first time with fresh eyes can add a new perspective. A creative trainee won’t just absorb the information and regurgitate it, but will look for ways to improve the process or make it more efficient.”
Heather Samp of American Airlines told me a story about a young man who had what she considered to be outstanding leadership potential. She thought he’d make a good manager for one of her teams and set about teaching him everything she knew about that area of the business. A few months later she beamed with pride as he answered questions and thoughtfully questioned others in an important meeting. “At that moment, I knew we both had accomplished something. He accomplished the goal of learning the business, and I accomplished my goal of making myself replaceable,” she told me. “This moment was a transition in my career where I have found less satisfaction through my own accomplishments but rather finding it through how I can help others achieve their goals. It is a truly rewarding feeling unlike anything I have felt before.”
A lot of people—especially those in leadership positions—have the idea that asking for help is a sign of weakness. That applies to both education and training. “It’s as if you aren’t capable of succeeding on your own,” says Bill Connolly, director of content at Monotype. “Success isn’t a zero-sum game. When employees are willing to both help others and ask for help from others, everyone can achieve at a much higher rate. I seek out training and personal growth opportunities whenever I can and am never afraid to ask for feedback or support on a project if I believe it can benefit from a different perspective.”
If you’re young and still at an early point in your career, there’s no shame in learning from your teammates. “I work with a lot of older people who have worked at Cisco for 10 to 20 years and are extremely knowledgeable about supply chain,” explains Caroline Guenther, integrated business planning manager at the company. “I learn from them every day, and they are excellent teachers, which is part of what makes Cisco such a great collaborative environment.”
If you’re more established in your career, recognize that you’re surrounded by industry experts, many of whom may be younger and possibly further down the organizational chart than you are. “Your colleagues will teach you far more than any college,” says Kiah Erlich, a senior director at Honeywell. “I am learning from my team how software is coded, how jet engines keep an aircraft in the air, and how satellites bounce waves of Wi-Fi connectivity to keep you productive even while flying. Thanks to the experts I work with, I am getting smarter every day and more capable of making better business decisions.”
As a leader, you need to create the right values, processes, and practices that will encourage people to share information and learn from one another. The goal is to increase everyone’s shared intelligence and skill level, making all employees more productive and satisfied with their jobs. Doing this might pose a challenge, because some of your colleagues will be more inclined to share only when they’re forced to, at least at first. Here are suggestions for creating and sustaining a culture that embraces shared learning.
• Hire collaborative employees. When you evaluate candidates, make sure that you spend part of the interview trying to assess how they feel about the importance of learning. For instance, you might ask something like “How willing are you to teach a new skill to a fellow employee?” or “Tell me about a time when you helped an employee complete a task or project that wasn’t related to your job.” The answers to these questions will give you a better sense of how willing an individual is to share knowledge. You want to hire people who are intellectually driven and have an enthusiasm for the learning process.
• Create a formal training plan. The best way to get all your employees on board is to have a mandatory program that everyone supports. Instead of creating the program by yourself, incorporate everyone’s ideas. This will make them feel more involved and will increase the likelihood that they’ll execute on it. You want your team members to take the program seriously, so explain how it benefits them as individuals, not just the team. I recommend going into detail about how their colleagues’ performance can reflect their own and how people will support them if they help others first.
• Recognize it when you see it. When you see an employee helping another one, say something positive. If one employee is teaching another a new skill and it’s benefiting them both, applaud the effort. In addition, you should reward those who are investing in new skills and abilities outside of office hours; others will copy that behavior.
• Build custom learning paths. Have individual conversations with each of your employees to figure out what skill areas are currently required for their jobs, and talk about what they’ll need to learn to be successful in the future, both near and long-term. Helping your subordinates understand the requirements of different positions within the company is an incredibly important part of being an effective leader. By setting realistic and reasonable expectations and being straightforward about the skills that are needed, you’ll be setting up your employees for success. They, in turn, will be more loyal to your company and more committed, making it better.
• Learn, learn, learn. It’s essential that you and everyone else on your team keep up-to-date on new developments in your industry and, more important, that you share that information. There are many great ways to do this; here are just a few. Rashida Hodge, vice president of Watson embed and strategic partnerships, reads industry journals, magazines, books, and blogs. Paolo Mottola, senior manager of content marketing and co-op managing editor at REI, listens to business and industry podcasts. John Huntsman, associate director of information and data management at Bristol-Myers Squibb, is a big consumer of professional market research (Gartner and Forrester) and industry news digests (Fierce and Pink Sheet). Jennifer Schopfer, vice president and general manager of transport logistics at GE Transportation, brings in external technology and industry experts to educate her team on external trends. Team members also attend conferences and trade shows. Chris Gumiela, vice president of marketing and advertising at MGM National Harbor, does many of these things but ultimately prefers to engage in conversation with likeminded individuals on relevant topics. “This is where perspectives come out and debates can be had in a healthy fashion without any potential for repercussion,” he says. Ilona Jurkiewicz, vice president of talent and development, early careers, at Thomson Reuters, sets aside ten minutes at the end of each day (sometimes at her desk, but sometimes on her commute) to consider what she’s learned that day and whom it could benefit. She then sends articles, quotes, connections, and new ideas to her network. “This not only reinforces my own learning but allows me a systematic way of sharing resources, and it helps me maintain my network.” And finally, Tracy Shepard-Rashkin, sustainable communities brand manager at Unilever, started a quarterly lunch and learn last year in which she takes the coolest case studies she’s learned at conferences, does additional research, and over a meal shares this information with more than one hundred marketers she works with. “This quickly became not only one of my favorite parts of my job, as it allowed me to share things I was very enthusiastic about with a broader group, but it ended up being a great benefit to me personally: My colleagues started thinking of me as the go-to person to share interesting articles or presentations with, in the hopes they might be the focus of the next quarterly lunch and learn!”
There’s a great cultural and technological divide between younger and older workers, but both can benefit from each other’s knowledge and skills in important ways. Whereas older workers have had years of experience, younger ones are more likely to have different perspectives from growing up in a very different time period. Older generations have benefited from in-person education and on-the-job training and know the value of in-person meetings. At the same time, they may not be as technologically adept as younger people. And while those same young people may have collected a lot of trophies and ribbons growing up (admittedly, some of which were just for showing up), they also have learned about the power of social media and how to use it to connect with people of diverse backgrounds all over the world.
What Younger Workers Can Teach Older Workers
• New technologies that will impact internal collaboration and their profession and industry and how to use them.
• The importance of diversity and how it can benefit the team, since younger employees are the most diverse in history.
• How change is inevitable, why the skills of today may not be as valuable in the future, and how to learn new skills.
• Why they shouldn’t give up on their dreams. Research shows that younger workers are more optimistic and can use that to inspire older workers.
• The collaborative mind-set that will help older workers best interact with them, brainstorm, and come up with new ideas.
What Older Workers Can Teach Younger Ones
• The struggles and setbacks of building a career and the importance of having years of experience.
• The soft skills that have helped them build the relationships that have made them successful.
• The loyalty that makes others on your team want to invest in your learning and development.
• The regrets they might have had in their career and how to not make the same mistakes.
• How to manage corporate politics that naturally occur in any corporation, especially larger ones.
• The skill to handle conflicts in the workplace and the wisdom to use those conflicts to actually solve problems and form stronger relationships in the aftermath.
Crossing the generational divide can advance your career and make it easier to manage older teammates. Think of this as a mutually beneficial learning situation that will help bridge those relationships in a positive way. Jessica Latimer, director of social media at Alex and Ani, admits that she has colleagues who still don’t have social media accounts, or if they do, don’t understand how to use them. “I actually get excited by this and choose to see it as an opportunity to educate them and potentially propel them into joining a network,” she said. Thanks to her efforts, her colleagues benefit from staying relevant, while she has more advocates for her program—a win-win situation!
Although there are plenty of generation-related differences, as a team we have the common goal of performing our jobs, generating business results, and hopefully building strong bonds along the way. That’s why workers of all age groups need to come together and focus on the mission: fostering a culture in which everyone can continually learn and improve.