When did continuing education become an act of rebellion?

Sha·dow week

/?SHadō/ /wēk/

noun

a form of continuing education provided to adults after they have entered the workforce consisting of shadowing high-performing professionals, traditionally occurring in the 3rd week of September. 

Shadow week was innovative. It shouldn’t have been. 

I spent last week week virtually and physically shadowing high-performers at their workplace. Insight aside, it brought a critical issue to my attention. 

Elective continuing education is a symptom of a healthy workforce. However, when continuing education becomes a requirement, it’s also treated like one. Has the workplace environment become so stifling, oppressive and restrictive that we don’t want to learn anymore? 

According to Gallup, 18% of employees are “actively disengaged” while 67% are "not engaged" leaving us with a grand total of 85%. If you’re an employer, your ears likely perked up. The fact that my shadow week was seen as innovative in the first place, is a source of genuine concern to me. 

But, before we get into the details of shadow week, let’s take a small detour. I'm intrigued by the phrase “actively disengaged.”

Isn’t "actively disengaged" an oxymoron, like “honest pawn show owner” or “kind Soprano?”

I'm not aware of how Gallup officially defines active disengagement. However, I believe the following activities could potentially fall under active disengagement:

• Creating your own busywork
• Intentionally elongating a task
• Actively laboring to lower expectations in a given role. 

I innovated shadow week because I wanted the opportunity to shadow high-performers. To benefit others, let’s take a quick glance at the thought process behind shadow week (scroll down to skip to the numbers).    

Tomato paste is to shadow week as sauce is to internships. 

Can you learn anything from an internship?

Can you make meatball sauce from tomato paste?

If internships ‘don’t teach you anything,’ why shadow anyone at their place of work?

Ali, why are you doing this?

Ali, what are you expecting to get out of this?

Ali, what are you trying to achieve here?

Ali, why not pick a focus?

I have a question. When did elective continuing education turn into an act of rebellion? 

I shouldn’t be a change agent. I shouldn’t be an innovator. Shadow week should have been run of the mill, but it wasn’t. 

What do these three items have in common?

• Tomato paste
• Bouillon cube
• Tea essence 

If you thought “all condensed, powerful substances,” you’re 100% right. 

I innovated the opportunity to speak with substantial high-performers who are the professional equivalent of tomato paste.

The inaugural shadow week ran from September 16th, 2019 to September 20th, 2019. 

Why didn’t you narrow down an industry, Ali? What could a landing page copywriter possibly learn from a programmer or sales leader?

Answer: A ton.

Industry doesn't matter. It's about condensed insight. Sauce vs. paste. 

High performance is high performance, irrespective of industry or job title. Put another way, paste is paste, whether it's actual tomato paste or a cube of bouillon.

You likely agree asking is scary for most of us. 

For me personally, shadow week took particular courage because I made my ask publicly on LinkedIn. What if no one replied?

Making this ask in a public forum placed an added pressure on my 40-person list. Each individual had to evaluate their comfort level with my brand in order to reply. 

The first hour was nerve wracking. Almost no one replied. I felt stupid. 

During the next 24-48 hours, here's what happened: 

• Over 27% percent of the people on my list replied
• Of the 27% of respondees, over 90% replied publically, while ~10% replied only via private message
• Because I wasn’t fully on the same page with one of the respondees, we parted ways on good terms instead of moving ahead with a shadow
• Out of my 40-person list, I had my eye on six individuals I knew I’d be especially thrilled to hear from. 50% of those six individuals replied! 
• 100% of replies were enthusiastic. 0% of replies were lukewarm or just "okay" with the idea
• My five shadows were distributed evenly across the five days of shadow week
• Three of those shadows were in-person, while two were virtual

Math isn't my strong suit, which made this the most time-intensive part of this article.

There was an overflow of tomato paste. I'm grateful to several individuals who responded but we weren't able to find a good day — yet. I'm excited to participate in a few informal shadows with these high performers during the coming months, because I don't want to wait until next year.

That's what happened. Here’s what didn’t happen:

• No one responded with anger or annoyance upon encountering a sincere desire to learn from their success

In addition, I received quite a few ‘downsells.’ Rather than an in-person visit, several people reached out wanting to video chat or have a call. I also got invited out (event/coffee). 

To me, these ‘downsells’ were extremely valuable. It's easy to mistake them for actual downsells because of their external trappings. Contextually, these were true offers. I went from zero offers to many generous offers of time and focused attention, all within 48 hours. It's like a juice cleanse, but better.  

(Note: I enjoyed the juice cleanse metaphor but have never actually tried one. Please don't call me on this)

Downsells weren’t the only result which was unexpected. I was delighted to receive several enthusiastic, all-in offers from professionals who weren’t on my list but noticed my post. These people aren't based near me in NYC, and while it’ll be some time before I can take them up on it, I’m extremely grateful for their offers. 

I invested ~2 hours into curating my 40-person list. These two hours yielded a list full of tomato paste (and a dose of blurry screen-goggling vision). How often does reading an online article written by a successful CEO truly change you? It’s why I went to the real people. 

Another interesting aspect was the biggest concern of the high-performers who reached out to me. Can you guess what it was? No one asked how much of their time I was requesting, or if they would receive anything in return. Rather, their biggest, most prevalent concern was whether they could provide what I was looking for.

If you take tomato paste and dilute it with too much water, it becomes ineffective. Before I innovated shadow week, I already sensed it was unlikely I'd share specific insights with the world. The reason why is simple but key. Shadow week changed me because I heard the rasp and the smile.

Words are powerful, but they lack the brunt of hearing it directly from the professionals who lived it. 

Fortunately, shadow week is an annual event. Next year's shadow week is scheduled for the 3rd week of September 2020 for professionals inside or poised to enter the workforce. I’ll admit I felt a little sad when my shadow week ended. I could do this every day - but it’s time to get back to the paying clients!

Shadow week is a forum for high-performing professionals to share their insight, safe in the knowledge that they won’t be written about (without consent) or assailed with an unwanted sales pitch.

I feel a deep respect for the trust extended to me by high-performers who generously shared insider knowledge atop of my gratitude for their time and passion. Especially considering we’re discussing individuals who “busy” doesn’t even begin to describe. 

The most challenging aspect of shadow week was schedule coordination. I did a lot of messaging back and forth while negotiating timing. I was grateful to those who were kind, accommodating and flexible, despite their packed schedules.  

Professionals take CEUs (continuing education units) as a job requirement. Students take internships because ‘it’s the only way to get a good job.’ 

I’m not here to preach or to tell anyone what to do. If you imply learning for its own sake is dead or purposeless, I won’t correct you. I won’t even laugh (aloud).

But I’ll still be here, continuing to learn. I owe it to myself. 

So, here’s my question for the professional world. 

When did elective continuing education stop being a ‘thing?’

Shadow week, coming to your city the 3rd week of September in 2020. 

See you then. 

#shadowweek

Here’s a link to the original shadow week post if interested.

If you already know you want to be a part of the 2020 annual shadow week, message me with your email and I’ll get you on the list.

If you enjoyed this article and don't want to miss the next one, scroll down a few inches and click "follow" on the bottom right. I know how to help entrepreneurs who are great at what they do (but not great at writing) express their vision through landing pages. Need landing pages but not sure what they are or how they work? That's okay, because I do. Want to talk about how we can translate your word-of-mouth sales into online sales? Schedule a call: Calendly