An overslept GOOD MORNING!!! to you all! Yup, pressed snooze and slept right through it. I guess that’s the bodies way of saying “I’m tired.”
Free For All Friday Ed-vise today. Cause it’s FRIDAY PIZZA NIGHT! No open mat cause I’m still in quarantine…booo!
I responded to a question yesterday. Amazing, don’t you think?
The question was part of a program about consulting I am doing. The company I work for has invested in a consulting series taught by a professional consultant who is also a university professor.
The question was along the lines of do I agree with the statement that learning is a company’s most sustainable advantage.
This “learning” idea has to do with promoting learning with employees. Allowing employees to learn and advocating the same. Learn new skills, technologies, topics, subjects, etc.
My thing on learning is you can get busy learning or you can get busy dying.
Now, do I agree with the “sustainable advantage?” Yes. I do agree with that learning is a sustainable advantage.
However, I do not believe companies genuinely support learning.
You see, there are two parts to it: Acquiring the knowledge and Testing the knowledge.
Acquiring the knowledge is about attending the trainings. Going to the workshops. Finding the masters of a particular skill and being open enough to allow them to teach you how to do it. It involves listening and reading; finding the information you seek and accepting the ideas that might challenge your own pre-conceived notions. It’s about being curious in a big scary world and realizing you do not need to be afraid.
Once you have the knowledge, you test it. Basically you test the perception. Whatever new nugget you have learned, you hold it up to the light, put it in fire, drop it in water, kick it, chew it, smell it, throw it, whatever you did as a young child you do. At one point you were the BEST scientist!
However, it is in this phase of learning that companies hesitate. Unless you are in the R&D part of a company, they don’t want you to experiment with your new found knowledge. At least not on company time with company equipment. In fact, I would argue that a company that offers to pay for the education of an employee (scholarships to university or tuition reimbursement) are LESS likely to allow experimentation than a small start up that cannot afford such hiring perks.
How do I know? If you work in, say, accounting and you decide to go to engineering school on the company dime, will the company allow you to test your engineering knowledge on the clock? At your accounting workstation? Would they grant you access to the labs? Not with an accounting badge.
See, companies like their employees to become educated. They like hiring educated and experienced people. It is a financial advantage to have such people. But they don’t like experiments because they don’t like being curious anymore.
I’m just saying
That’s it for today. Take care of yourselves. Check in on each other and remember a mind control air freshener…just makes SCENTS! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…get it?
Peace
Ed-vise 