Leeway for Learning

Being academically more qualified or skilled does not imply productivity. If knowledge is truly power, then it is wise to hire talent who, like sponges, are ever-willing to absorb and evolve. But can teams really be learners? How can leaders make a leeway for learning in the workplace?  

A common misconception is that the aptitude to gain and maintain a desired job depends on what they already know. While this plays a vital role, what stands out is an employee’s knack for imbibing the new. Promote peer-to-peer learning to develop a culture of learnability.

“For the best return on your money, pour your purse into your head,” Benjamin Franklin. Today, more than ever, we need visionary leaders who realise the value of this and consciously make margins for learning in the workplace. An individual’s employability depends upon how much he or she is willing to know. Most organisations are yet to wake up to this reality.

Ideally, enterprises should invest in talented people who demonstrate a passion for learning and promote leaders who instill a ‘learnability culture’ in their organisations. Training is a part of growth strategy for many; however, it is important for managers to encourage learning from each other through a system of skill swapping, interdepartmental workshops, informal interactions, i.e., peer-to-peer learning. With the dynamics of hierarchies eliminated, this horizontal model encourages imbibing from colleagues. It provides platforms for the experienced ones to share and impart knowledge. At an enterprise level, it is the company’s commitment to your upskilling or learning needs. In addition, consider, the cost savings by intelligent use of talent already present in the ecosystem.

Intelligent people yearn to learn. But the irony is that instant access to information can quench the thirst all too easily, and can dull the appetite for knowledge. People with high learnability delve deeper; the key intellectual differentiator for learnability quotient. In the long term, team members who learn from each other tend to be more involved and engaged; and more importantly, willing to give their best. Because business, like life, in the words of Zig Zaglar, “… is a classroom. Only those willing to be lifelong learners will move to the head of the class.”