Smart Learning To Improve Performance (part 3 of 4)

As was highlighted in previous articles, learning is vital for your career progression. Therefore, it is crucial to use a robust strategy when acquiring new knowledge to achieve your professional goals.?

When learning, aim to do it strategically so you can reap the greatest benefit from your efforts. Part of learning strategically means ensuring you have the correct ‘mix’ in your learning portfolio.?

Your learning portfolio reflects the span of your knowledge and the application of that knowledge over a period of time.?

If you want to be versatile and successful in your learning journey, it is important to understand:

• The components that make up ‘the mix’.
• The benefits of each component.
• How you can acquire the knowledge for each component.

The Mix of your learning portfolio?

Your learning efforts should enhance your skills across five main components:

• General: skills used in a professional and personal setting e.g. knowing desktop applications like Word. These are skills that are needed by most organisations across various industries within the business world but these skills are also used in your personal life.
• Intra-role: skills specific to the role that you do or are interested in doing e.g. role specific programs such as CRM for sales roles and accounting packages for financial roles.
• Intra-organisation: skills specific to the organisation but not to the industry or role that you perform e.g. proprietary software used by the company.
• Intra-industry: skills specific to the industry, i.e. required by multiple organisations within a particular industry, e.g. a platform shared by the organisations within the same industry.
• Intra-business: skills specific to business in general, regardless of organisation or industry but not usually used in a personal setting, e.g. general business market trend analysis and reports.

In this article, we will cover the third component – Intra-industry skills. ?

The Why and How ?

Intra-industry skills are skills in demand by multiple organisations but these organisations belong to a single industry,?e.g. speciality software or information shared by the organisations within an industry. ?

Top two reasons why you should have Intra-industry skills?

• Increase your transferable skills

You can increase your transferable skills across multiple organisations within your industry. Better transferable skills will increase the contribution you can make to any organisation in your industry, which will make you a more desirable option for employment, e.g. by becoming a ‘superuser’ of a propriety platform used within your industry, you can be perceived as the expert. This will raise your profile in the industry and boost your productivity as you can take advantage of features unknown to others.

• Ignite industry transformation

You can create opportunities for yourself to ignite industry transformation. Beyond the contribution of implementing an improvement in your organization, as with intra-organisational systems, you could be the one to recommend a concept that transforms the way the industry operates, e.g. when the airline industry turned its old price model on its head by making the cost of a plane ticket more expensive, the less time there was between the booking and the travel dates.?

Now that you understand a couple of the benefits of having Intra-industry skills, let's look at how you can identify opportunities for Intra-industry learning to develop those skills…

Three examples of how to acquire Intra-industry skills within your company ?

• Speak with your HR or L&D department

They usually have their pulse on the latest and most demanded skills in your industry. They will be able to advise on which skills are highly relevant and which skills are lacking in the candidate pool for future roles. You can use this information to target your learning choices and gain an advantage when seeking new opportunities.

• Network, network, network… and then network some more

Attend industry events and seminars, be active in online forums or your company’s intranet, etc. These methods provide valuable insight into what is currently happening or of greatest concern within your industry.

• Find a good mentor

A mentor can help you with exploring your career path, establishing goals, developing contacts, and even making out-of-reach resources available. A mentor will have more in-depth experience in your field or profession and can help shorten the learning curve to your success. Their guidance can significantly speed up the rate of your progress… an advantage you will want to pursue.?

Making it happen?

Progression is a natural part of life and learning never ends. ?

You need to create opportunities within your profession to learn as it; increases your capabilities, creates greater job satisfaction and betters your quality of life. ?

Learn strategically to ensure you have a balanced mix in your learning portfolio and keep writing your success story!?

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This article first appeared on The Institute for Achievement and Excellence blog at: https://achievementandexcellence.com/do-this-when-you-need-intra-industry-skills/??????

The Institute for Achievement and Excellence??