The Learning/Performance Cycle

I would like to thank Eduardo for a great TED talk! After watching his talk, I got inspired to put into perspective how strongly I feel about this topic.

For many of us throughout our careers we have struggled to try to balance being a performer but yet wanting to learn more.  The desire to learn new things and apply them is just part of who we are as humans.  If you have taken the Strengths Finder assessment and Learner is one of your top strengths, you know what I am talking about.

So how do you approach this cycle?  Is it more important to focus on being a performer and try to work in the learning when you can?  I believe the answer is a little different for each of us but I will share my thoughts.  Early in my career as a programmer, my initial focus was to learn just enough in order to produce good quality code.  I was very focused on making sure I could prove that I indeed was a good hire and deserved the job.  It didn't take long though for the learner in me to kick in.  I found myself at times coming into work an hour early just to try to find something that I could research and apply to the application code. For me learning stimulated creativity. Within a short time, I was able to bring new ideas to fruition and life was good.  

As with any job, there will be times with tight timelines and your focus tends to live in the performance zone.  The danger of this is if you stay in this zone for too long without any learning is that you will continue to do things the same way.  If it is worked in the past it will work again - Right? With no new ideas, the mentality becomes to just work harder or more hours to meet a project deadline.  It is easy to fall into this trap because projects are getting completed.  But at a certain point in time this will all come to an abrupt end where change is inevitable or that thing you have poured so many hours into ceases to be. For me personally, there have been points in my career where I have lived for too long in the performance zone and it became a factor when deciding to move on.

From a career standpoint, without learning I know I would have never made in the IT field for over 30 years.  Trying new things and learning from failure was just as important as all of the successes I have enjoyed over the years.  The culture you work in must allow you the ability to fail as part of the learning process.   I remember struggling on a project at my first job. My manager sat down with me, listened, smiled, and coached me on the fact that I wasn't failing... I was learning. I will never forget that because I was very stressed and worried about succeeding.  That few minutes has made a lifetime of difference for me. Growth and performance will come from failed experiences. Past experiences are just an extension of the learning process. When you step into a new project, you feel confident that can steer away from certain obstacles because you experienced them before.  Avoiding pitfalls increases your performance. So it is so important to remember "learning drives performance".

For my career, I knew it was my responsibility to keep learning. At different stages in our lives this can be difficult to find the time needed to do this. I set a goal of at least spending 5 to 10 minutes a day to try to read something that I thought could help me personally or professionally.  For the companies I have worked at, I have never turned down training.   I think having the formal training opportunity to learn is important but just as important is having a few minutes here and there to learn on your own.  Also another great venue for learning is to find a mentor. I was a good 15 years into my career before ever doing this and what a difference it made.   

So my bottom line is that I am a Learner who likes to Perform. The cycle can be different for each of us but keep this in mind when seeing where your career will take you.

 The views expressed are mine alone and do not reflect the views of Farm Credit Services of America or Frontier Farm Credit.