Skills That Scale

Unless you live under a rock, you're probably barraged with back-to-school messages right now. Even if you don't have children or it's been a long time since you were in a classroom setting, there's something about back-to-school season that has everyone thinking about new projects or new skills. 

I've been thinking a lot recently about skills that scale. With limited time, money and resources, it's essential for small businesses and non-profits to be as efficient as possible. Sometimes that means learning a skill yourself, and sometimes it means outsourcing a task.

With my team at Camp Tech, we're reevaluating which skills should be learned by staffers so we can bring tasks in-house, and which tasks are best sent outside our small (but mighty!) crew. When making those decisions, I ask myself, "is this a skill that will scale?" If we invest the resources in learning a skill, will we be able to use it again and again? Or is it a one-off for a particular task (and therefore not worth the investment for us to learn it)?

This back-to-school season, I encourage you to think about the skills you need for your career and for your team. What skills will you learn, and will they scale? Comment below.

PS - this piece of writing first appeared in my monthly email newsletter. Sign up to receive directly in your inbox: https://averyswartz.com/newsletter