Is Time spent at work equals to Experience?

What are your thoughts when someone says I've "X" years of experience playing a role? Everyone is willing to spend time in their career but, does Time at work automatically translate to experience? Maybe not.

These are a few of the profound concepts that Chandramouli Venkatesan discusses in his book "Catalyst". This is part of a series of posts, I share my learnings from the book.

He says most of us have mistaken notions that if we simply put-in time at work it is automatically becoming experience. Time is just an input to experience, and successful people have a higher efficiency to convert Time to experience. And, the difference lies in the 'Learning Model' they adopt.

He introduces the concept of Target, Measure, Review, Reflection as an effective learning model to employ in each activity to catalyze and convert our time to experience.

• Having Target for the activity
• Measuring the actual performance
• Reviewing performance to understand why it was the way it was
• Reflect on what I could have done better? The emphasis is on "I" and "better" to reflect on "What could I have done better?". The reason for reflection is to understand how to add to your experience.

Successful people would have participated in major learning cycles relatively early in their careers and they extract maximum out of the opportunity to participate in major learning cycles.

To be successful, you have to employ your experience algorithm in a highly productive way. Your productivity is how you convert your algorithm into value and result for yourself and your organization.

Your productivity doesn't increase by itself; it has to be catalyzed to grow.

• Relentless focus on the circle of influence and avoiding what is in the circle of concern.
• Have a disciplined 'rocks first' time allocation system to ensure that you provide time/energy for the most important things.

I'd highly recommend reading this book at any phase of your career and referring to it as a handbook for continuous learning and career management.