The Experts’ Guide To Learning At Work

Employee Development is almost a $400 Billion industry globally. Considering all the money that goes into learning, we were curious about the top skills people are learning at work and how they actually learn them. So, we chose this as the focus of our 7- episode podcast series on Learning At Work.

leadership and management, communication, creative problem solving, and design thinking. Keeping this in mind for our podcast series, we wanted to speak one-on-one with industry mavericks to find out what they learned to be a star player on the job.

Here’s what folks had to say:

• Be Adaptable – Be willing to change your approach according to the situation, location, and culture. An example given was about one person’s experience in Finland. They had to adapt to the cultural practice of strictly adhering to a decided duration of meetings. Finish early or at least not stretch it. Our guest gave us insights into how adaptability helped him gain an understanding of different cultures as well as how punctuality and adherence to the agenda were more critical in Finnish meetings.
• Importance of T- shaped knowledge – While it’s very important to have expertise in one particular skill, it is also essential to have broad experience and knowledge across different functions.
• Learn every day by scheduling it in your calendar – Even small opportunities to learn such as reading an article can get forgotten during hectic workdays. Adding learning moments into your schedule gives you a fixed time to focus on learning. Once it’s scheduled into your day, you are more likely to complete it as there will be less competition for your time.
• Get out of your comfort zone – If you stick to what’s comfortable, day-in-and-day-out, you will not make much progress. Take up challenges. That way, even if you initially fail, you will learn and master something new. Always be up for taking risks.
• Always learn from your mistakes – Never be afraid of them. Making mistakes is the first step towards achieving perfection at work.
• Don’t give up – Don’t drop the ball. Keep on pushing despite the difficulty, setbacks, and even push backs.
• Learn the power of the spoken and written words – Try out new styles of communication, understand and master the different norms practiced in different countries and cultures.

Sure, you can learn many skills through formal education. But much of what you need to know to really succeed at work, you will have to learn, on the job. Keep these insights in mind so you can quickly climb the ladders of success.

We would like to thank all of our esteemed guests Sumit Sheth, Conrad Latham, Guru Sundararaman, Monika Myreng, Caroline Loden, Anish Sheth, and Samuel Cho for giving us such inspiring insights about Learning At Work. Stay tuned for our next podcast series Just 2.5.

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